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In a softly lit studio, ambient sounds wash over the room like a gentle tide. Eyes closed, minds open, students begin moving their pencils across paper, becoming dancers of their own, sketching not faces, but feelings. A self-portrait filled with abstract shapes, lines, and symbols that represent their essence.
In professor Diana Stanton’s contemporary repertory class, identity becomes movement as each student hands their drawing to a partner, who must now interpret it through dance. What began as personal reflections evolves into shared expression, culminating in collaborative eight-count phrases that eventually take the stage for the annual Soundings show, which will be held at the Pavilion in the Performing Arts Center on Thursday and Friday, May 29 and 30, at 7:30 p.m.
For the students behind Soundings, creating a performance means letting go of control. With music that’s constantly evolving and choreography built from fragments and intuition, they step into the show without knowing exactly what they’re walking into — and that, the dancers and student composers say, is what makes it thrilling.
“Don’t get married to the music,” said child development senior Emily Olster, who has been part of Soundings since her freshman year. “It might change. We literally might get into the stage space, and it may be different.”
For Olster and her classmates, that unpredictability isn’t a setback — it’s part of what makes Soundings unlike anything else they’ve done.
Soundings isn’t your typical stage production. It’s a collaborative experience between music technology and composition students and dancers from the contemporary repertory class, where student composers craft original scores for a visiting ensemble — and student dancers build choreography to evolving drafts they won’t hear live until tech rehearsal.
Olster and others say Soundings defies traditional production timelines and embraces uncertainty as part of the creative process. The result: a raw, live performance where the only way to see the final product is to show up and experience it.
Student dancers and composers perform during the 2024 Soundings performance with the Boston-based contemporary duo Transient Canvas. Brittney App | Courtesy. Credit: Brittany Ap | Courtesy
Previously directed and founded by Antonio G. Barata, the show was originally called RSVP. After Barata’s retirement, it was renamed Soundings by Julie Herndon, director of the music technology program and show since Fall 2022.
“When [Barata] was doing it, there was a script kind of like a play that had different musical interludes that [students] would compose,” Herndon said. “The way I do it is, they have a theme and students make work that fits that theme. So it’s just a little bit of a different concept, which is why I gave it a different name.”
This year’s Soundings theme is “Music In Color,” exploring the ways color and music can be combined. Herndon and Stanton direct the show and feature work from 30 student composers and 19 student choreographers. These students will also share the Pavilion stage with visiting ensemble Longleash, a Brooklyn-based trio featuring violin, cello and piano.
Students creating original music for the show can choose to compose fixed electronic music or write live scores for the visiting trio to perform. Some musicians request that their work be interpreted through dance, while others present their music alongside fixed artwork.
Flyer for the Soundings show on May 29-30 at the PAC.
Electrical engineering senior JP Haranti has explored the art of dance while serving as the stage manager in 2023 and sound manager in 2025 for the Orchesis Dance Company Show.
His behind-the-scenes experience has given him valuable insights into the diverse styles and rhythmic nuances that the student dancers use in their performances, noting their ability to convey emotionally compelling stories through dance. Keeping the dancers at the forefront of his creative vision, he created his piece “Fade to Red.”
“I was like, ‘I really hope that they like this because I’m like, lowkey writing the music according to a story that I came up with in my head,’” Haranti said.
Before composing the music, Haranti first created a story. The story he envisions for “Fade to Red” follows a dancer in search of their purpose. The dancer becomes captivated by a certain color and embarks on a journey to find it, only to realize that chasing it might lead to harm.
As they search, the color appears everywhere, eventually leading them to return to their original hue. Over time, this decision transforms them into something uniquely their own.
“The message is that you’re not given a unique purpose,” Haranti said. “You make your own purpose unique.”
Audio draft of Haranti’s piece for the Soundings show. This is not the final version; Haranti will perform the completed work live alongside Longleash at the Pavilion.
Psychology junior and music minor Zoe Dovydaitis also wrote an original song for the show, titled “Want/Need.” Initially hesitant to incorporate dance, her perspective shifted after meeting with dancers during the first week of spring quarter as they talked about how they could embody color for the show.
She reflected on how color can symbolize emotional impact and explored the blurred lines between desire and necessity.
“One of the lyrics that I think encapsulates what the song is about is, ‘Did I need to hold you or did I need to be held?’” Dovydaitis said. “It’s like, ‘am I in this relationship for the hell of it? Do I want the relationship or do I need it?’”
Dovydaitis requested to have a duet dance piece for her song, similar to Haranti’s collaboration. However, fulfilling these requests can be challenging. Dancers follow a different process, often filled with uncertainty as they often say, “I don’t know if we’ll keep that.”
Audio draft of Dovydaitis’ piece for the Soundings show. This is not the final version; Dovydaitis will perform the finalized piece live with Longleash at the Pavilion.
Students in the contemporary repertory class create portraits and drawings as a starter exercise to generate choreography for the Soundings show. Emily Olster | Courtesy.
In the first few weeks of the contemporary repertory class, Stanton guided students through exercises to generate original choreography. One task — the “portrait exercise”— used self-drawn images to spark movement. Another task asked dancers to craft a phrase inspired by the associations, emotions, or appearance of a specific color. From there, the choreography became a shared effort, with everyone contributing phrases, transitions or staging ideas.
While leadership emerges organically — those who contribute specific phrases often take the lead in developing them — the process remains collaborative at its core. Professor Stanton’s role is less of a choreographer and more of a guide. She provides prompts and encouragement, trusting students to take creative ownership.
“This is more than satisfying to me because then I get to watch what they do,” Stanton said. “We’ve done something together, I’ve been included as a person who is like almost 60 years old, and they’ve taken ideas that I’ve prompted them with, they’ve created the material and now they’re going with the idea. This is what we’re doing this for.”
These movement phrases were all intended to find a place in the Soundings show. In week three of spring quarter, dancers were introduced to early drafts of the composers’ music and selected songs that felt like a natural fit with their developing choreography. But those decisions aren’t set in stone.
With only 19 students involved, class time is especially valuable — it’s the only weekly opportunity for all dancers to collaborate in person and seek direct guidance from Stanton.
In contrast, the annual spring dance concert produced by dance student directors, involves about 135 students and demands rigorous organization, strict deadlines, and limited rehearsal flexibility, making Soundings an experimental production.
For Soundings, final choreography can’t be locked in until the dancers hear the music performed live, as even a shift in key, chord or tempo can significantly impact the movement and meaning of a piece.
“It’s such a counterpoint to the stuff we do with the spring concert, because a lot of the stuff can get very cut and paste,” Olster said. “But on the other side, we get this super creative, something you’ve never done before, very modern post-modern weird explorative thing where you kinda have to go on stage and maybe not know what’s going to happen next.”
This year, Olster is co-leading a piece for Soundings with child development senior Sarah Soblojm, who is taking the class for the first time. The purple piece they co-created emerged as an unexpected triumph, showcasing their creative synergy.
Both dancers were assigned the same color but were instructed by Stanton not to communicate during the early stages. As a result, they each independently arrived at similar styles — groovy and jazzy. Their contrasting yet complementary phrases merged naturally when they were paired together later in rehearsal.
“I love the element of surprise, I think it is so fun when dance has a little bit of an edge to it and you’re just like, ‘I just don’t know what’s going to happen,’” Soblojm said. “I think collectively as a class we’re ready to do anything, we’re ready for things to change. I’m excited to see what’s going to stay and what it’s going to look like in a few weeks.”
That spirit of adaptability is essential, especially during tech rehearsal, which takes place three days before the show, when musicians and dancers finally come together on stage. It’s the first time they experience the live music and movement as a unified piece, transforming months of abstract sketches, audio drafts, and fragmented choreography into a full-bodied performance.
“There are always moments of chaos,” Olster said. “But then it all clicks. You see how it connects, even if it’s not the way you expected.”
In a production where nothing is finalized until the last possible moment, one thing is certain: you have to be there to see how it ends. Soundings will take place for two nights at the Pavilion in the Performing Arts Center on May 29 and 30. Tickets can be purchased at the PAC SLO website.
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