Sophomore Jennifer Jakubowski last month squeezed her organic chemistry
final in between company dance classes with the Miami City Ballet, “amazing”
parties and meetings with personnel from the dance company.
Winner of the Edward Villella Fellowship, Jakubowski spent two weeks
studying with the highly-acclaimed Miami City Ballet under the leadership of Villella, who
received an honorary degree in 1991. The internship is made possible with support from
Charles Lothridge, Union Class of 1944.
Jakubowski says that she was thrilled with the prospect of working with
Edward Villella, a recent recipient of the National Medal of the Arts and Kennedy Center
Honors. “I feel it is every dancer's dream to work with someone as accomplished
as Edward Villella,” she says.
During her time in Miami, Jakubowski had the chance to attend
Villella's company class with all of the dancers for the Miami City Ballet. “At
first I was really intimidated because these were professional dancers I was dancing with,
but eventually I got into the groove of the class and it was fun,” she says. She
enjoyed Villella's teaching style, she says, but found the classes to be challenging.
“At first it was hard to get used to the very intricate steps and rhythms, but once I
got the hang of it, it was fun,” she says.
Jakubowski says that perhaps the most important thing she learned during
her internship was how a ballet company operates. “I know about being on stage, about
performing, rehearsals, and lighting, but I really didn't know much about running a
ballet company. There are all kinds of people behind a ballet company that you never see
when you go to a ballet,” she says.
Now that she is back in Schenectady, Jakubowski, a participant in
Union's Scholars program, is working on an independent research project. “Having
to do the independent study for the Scholars program gave me an excuse to try something
different,” says Jakubowski, who is working with Professor Miryam Moutillet and a
fellow student to choreograph a dance piece that combines the performing arts with the
visual arts. In May she will perform her new piece at the Steinmetz Symposium,
Union's exposition of student creative, scholarly, and research achievements.