Watch More Than 100 Juilliard Students and Alums Perform at Home Together

April 30, 2020

The phrase “social distancing” implies isolation—and yet, during this period of social distancing, the dance community has created so many beautiful displays of togetherness. Here’s one of our new favorites: Bolero Juilliard, a 10-minute video featuring 100+ Juilliard students and alumni dancing and making music at home, alone but also not alone.

The montage features direction and choreography by Larry Keigwin (the choreo is an adaptation of his ever-evolving Bolero project) and associate Nicole Wolcott, and is set to a reimagining of Ravel’s famous score conducted by David Robinson. And the performers? They’re dozens upon dozens of current and former Juilliard dance, music, and theater students. You’ll see some familiar dance faces in the crowd of Zoom squares, including Andrea Miller, Bobbi Jene Smith, and Bebe Neuwirth.

The logistically complex project was a labor of love. “The creation of Bolero Juilliard involved each musician, dancer and actor rehearsing live on Zoom and then recording their own individual part,” Juilliard president (and dance icon in his own right) Damian Woetzel said in a statement. “In the end, more than 500 video clips and over 150 audio tracks were edited and synchronized. Through collaboration on a group project we connected as a community, with more than 100 students and alumni participating, all creating together, even though we are all apart. We thought about what the students are missing—their day to day cross-pollination and the camaraderie of our New York City campus life—and we wanted to create a space for that sense of belonging to exist in today’s online world.”