Meadows dancers perform in a number from the annual Sharp Show titled “Vignette.” The show opened with a modern piece choreographed against Vivaldi’s classical tones and progressed with student choreographed works. (Spencer J Eggers/The Daily Campus)

Dancers crawled, leapt and flew through the air at “Vignette,” the 2012 Sharp Show at the Meadows School of the Arts. The annual Sharp Show features works created by seniors in SMU’s dance department. Six seniors had two months to prepare diverse choreography that ranged from modern to classical ballet to jazz. They had only one week to set the lighting and come up with costumes.

“[The seniors] all work together amazingly,” freshman Monica Hernandez said. “They split up tasks like organizing rehearsals, contacting lighting designers and crew members, and creating the programs and posters evenly among themselves so nobody had too much on their hands.”

Many would see this small time frame as an obstacle, but this year’s seniors and graduating juniors rose to the challenge and put on a fabulous show.

In the first piece, “L’Estro Armonico,” the audience was transported to the era of Bournonville. The dancers flung into the future with a modern spin to Vivaldi’s music, and then jolted back into the past as the piece progressed.

Not only did John Mingle choreograph the piece, but he also shined in it with his brilliant technique. His double attitude turn into a sustained arabesque was mesmerizing. The dancers’ taxed breaths were audible by the end of the piece, a sure sign that making a dance look effortless and having a dance be effortless are two very different things.

Audibly adorned with fainted “beeps” the show’s next piece. “I See You,” was much different. Albert Drake choreographed this solo for Emily Perry who was dressed in white lace that covered every part of her body, excluding her legs.

The audience, first perplexed by a single dancer flitting about the stage and coming to rest in a red chair in the corner, soon realized that the pulsing lights and the simplicity of the piece made it that much more powerful.

Senior Chelsea Handley said, “It was one of the more moving pieces.”

“Is That All That There Is?” by Claire Cuny began not with dance but with a short monologue by a mysterious actor in a black top hat. He added a bit of humor to an otherwise serious mood by popping onto the stage to tell the audience not to clap between the individual movements of the piece.

The first movement, complete with a live performance from cellist Michael Van Der Sloot, showed a relationship between two dancers that was sensual but too sterile to be sexy.

“I feel like the relationship between the dancers and the music is intensified when the music is being created right alongside the dancers,” Hernandez said.

The next piece, a sort of modern pas de deux between Ariel Monticure and Dexter Green, had moments of intense quiet and slow movement that was deeply contrasted by periods of intense chaos and fast footwork.

For the third act, choreographer Cuny restaged a dance earlier seen in this fall’s Brown Bag show, “A Love for Three Oranges.”

The piece’s best movement was a comedic game of hide and seek with Constance Dolph, Audrey High and Claire Cuny all fighting for possession of three plastic oranges.

The following movement, “Exile,” was far more somber. Junior dancer Brianna O’Connor moved each inch of her body slowly and deliberately and may have executed the world’s slowest chaturanga, a yoga-style push up.

After O’Connor’s poignant solo, the rest of the dancers came back on stage for the culmination of the piece that synthesized all of the earlier movements into one jazzy interpretation.

Each of the signature moves of the earlier four movements were artfully knitted together to form a finale that gave the audience a different perspective on the previous sections in a way that freshman Taylor Logan said “combined the modern aspects with a jazzy, fun side.”

The next piece entitled, “Over the Years,” choreographed by Megan Southcott, contained many freshmen, allowing the Division of Dance to show off the abundant amount of upcoming talent.

Freshman Megan Cotton’s leg was centimeters away from her face in her sautés and the dancers double piqué turns were executed flawlessly.

The following piece was graduating junior Marika Wynne’s “Corpus Callosum.” “[The show] came at such a convenient time to utilize skills that I acquired over the summer as a participant in the Pilobolus Technique Intensive, a weeklong workshop held by my dream modern company,” Wynne stated. “I was able to put together a duet with my good friend Amanda Owen about my current relationship with myself as a child.”

A block of dry ice backstage dusted the floor in a veil of white smoke as Wynne and Owen orbited across the stage by using each other’s bodies to propel their movement.

From holding one another’s throats to hanging by each other’s elbows, they performed some dangerous balances.

The choreographer of “Essence,” Katrina Kutsch, began the piece by dancing to an arrangement of “Imagination Unrestricted by Reality,” performed live by Katrina Leshan.

Each of the movements had a sort of “Alice in Wonderland” feel, as the following movement had Kutsch and freshmen Megan Cotton and Monica Hernandez frolicking in white feathers that the two underclassmen sporadically released from white boxes during the piece.

The feathers were mopped up by “janitors,” performed by dancers Southcott and Lindsay Abigail Sockwell who were dressed in overalls and fake mustaches, in the next movement entitled “Nine to 5.”

The finale of the piece was playful and the dancers were completely in sync with the music.

“It’s been great working with Katrina because she, like all the other choreographers, put a lot of thought into the piece,” Hernandez said.

For the seniors and graduating juniors, this show was incredibly special.

Not only did the seniors get to flaunt their talent at dancing and at choreographing, they also had the opportunity to see a glimpse of the future of SMU’s dance division.

“It’s really awesome to see all the underclassmen participate as well, either in a dancing role or behind the scenes as a member of the crew,” Wynne said. “It gives me a peace of mind that the dance division will be left in good hands.”

Freshman dancer Spencer Davis said, “I think the seniors have really set the bar for choreography. It kind of inspired me because I want our class to be like that in four years.”