Artists and dancers work together as one

Shaw leads her students into their wonderful dance routine as the art students look on to look for the right pose to sketch. (Daniel Vega-Warholy/Courier)

Dancers crossed the floor as artists rapidly sketched their fluid movements in Claudia Carballada’s Foundation Drawing class

Carballada got the lesson idea from her own experience attending a friend’s ballet class to practice figure sketching. After meeting dance instructor Roberta Shaw at the staff copy machine on the first day of the semester, Carballada had the perfect opportunity to pass her experience to the students in her Foundation Drawing class.

“A lot of art schools and universities have different art departments collaborating so I wanted to bring that to PCC,” Carballada said.

The class challenged the students to capture the lines and shapes created in the dancers’ movements rather than a static model in the classroom.

“It’s more difficult drawing the figures in motion but its great practice,” student Adilene Hernandez said. “You’re not just looking at a motionless figure, you really have to capture the shape of the dancers movements.”

Carballada not only used the lesson to teach figure and gesture drawing but also as a way for the students to define their own unique style. Shaw also wanted her dancers to express their individual styles.

“With this being a Foundation Drawing class I want to help students find and develop their own unique energy,” Carballada said. “I wanted them to listen to what the body is saying and express how it made them feel. Sometimes what you feel shows more than what you see.”

Following the two dance routines the artists presented their sketches to the dancers.

“It was awesome getting to collaborate with another artist and see how others interpreted the choreography,” dancer Leah Joanino said.

The dancers and their instructor were impressed with the multiple sketches produced in the short amount of class time.

“Overall I was impressed by the artistry and how the artists saw the shapes and lines in our choreography,” Shaw said. “Some of the figure sketches looked as if they were pictures, I could really see exactly what movement the dancers were doing at that moment in the routine.”