This week justArts spoke with Abby Skolnik ’18, a co-president of the Ballet Club, which is starting a new, more selective performance group within the club. 

justArts: Can you give a background of the Ballet Club?  

Abby Skolnik: I don’t really know the timeline of it, but ten years ago, maybe, there was more performance stuff that went on with the Ballet Club and recently it’s been more that there’s open classes. Basically, the main thing that the Ballet Club does is hold open classes, so anyone in the Brandeis community can come and take a class. There’s an instructor who comes in and she does the Russian style. 


JA: So what is different about the Ballet Club this year?


AS: I’m one of the co-presidents, Hannah Schuster ’18 is the other co-president, and we, together, were talking about the idea of starting a performance group ... and we knew that we wanted it to be selective, something that was audition—based. So, we were looking for serious dancers who had had somewhat extensive ballet training, and because both of us came from backgrounds where we’d both done a lot of ballet in the past … Ballet is kind of like the foundation of all other dance, so with ballet you can go in so many directions. ... With this performance group that we’re starting, we actually held an audition ... so the group is now ten people, so it’s just an exciting time because it’s a new thing at Brandeis. 


JA: Are you affiliated with Adagio Dance Company? Will you share the same performances?

AS: Right now, we are planning to perform in the Adagio show. Last semester for the Culture X show, the Ballet Club did a dance. ... One of the girls who was in that group has a high position in Adagio, so she reached out to me at the beginning of the semester asking if we wanted to perform in the Adagio show. So our plan is to perform in the Adagio show. I don’t know down the line how it will all work out because it’s such a new group. But right now we’re not really affiliated with Adagio…but all the girls that I’ve kind of put this group together with all do Adagio. There’s crossover, but at the same time it’s separate.