Watching the Remembrance Through Dance performance in honor of shooting victim Reema J. Samaha on the one-year anniversary of April 16 brought tears to senior finance major Corrina Matlock's eyes.
Matlock said Samaha was a beloved friend of hers and described the performance as helpful and therapeutic. Matlock danced with Samaha when were both members of the Contemporary Dance Ensemble at Virginia Tech.
"We think about her every time we're dancing," Matlock said, who is the Reema J. Samaha Memorial director for the ensemble. "She was just so passionate."
To continue Samaha's legacy, the Contemporary Dance Ensemble has put together a Remembrance Through Dance Workshop, which will be held on Dec. 6. All proceeds raised from the event benefit the Reema J. Samaha Memorial Fund, which supports events such as the workshop and the future performance dances on the annual anniversary 4-16.
This is the first workshop in what Matlock said she hopes will be an annual event.
"Ten years from now, I'd still like to come back and see the different effects of Reema through dance," Matlock said.
The workshop features classes in contemporary ballet, contemporary jazz, hip hop and belly dance.
"This shows all the variety there is in dance and show all the forms she (Samaha) excelled at and loved," Matlock said. Samaha was in five different dance companies her freshman year at Tech.
Professional dancer Dylan G-Bowley will be teaching a beginner and an intermediate/advanced contemporary ballet class.
G-Bowley graduated from The Julliard School of performing arts in March and currently performs contemporary ballet with the Trey McIntyre Project dance company.
G-Bowley will teach McIntyre's chorography on Saturday.
"Trey gives you a lot of liberty with dance, but he's very specific about what he wants," G-Bowley said, who gives his dancers more creative freedom when he's teaching his own choreographed work. "I'm sharing (McIntyre's) vision."
G-Bowley said his upper-level class will be less straightforward and will be more musical than his beginner class.
He teaches dancers of various ages and levels at a local dance studio in his hometown of Marion, N.Y.
The contemporary dance ensemble asked the Trey McIntyre Project whether it could provide a dance instructor, and G-Bowley was available this weekend. He initially wasn't aware of the purpose of the workshop, but after he found out he said he was happy to be a part of it.
"I'm really honored to help out," G-Bowley said. "It helps share the vision of dance."
Adjunct professor of Radford University's dance department, Kyle Shukis, will teach an all-levels contemporary jazz class.
Shukis teaches a contemporary jazz class at Radford, choreographs and dances for the Dance Company at Virginia Tech and is an instructor at Dance Tech Performing Arts Studio. He travels to teach master dance classes throughout the country and has taught 10 different classes this semester.
Shukis said he loves teaching new people and that they provide him with a different energy than the students he regularly teaches.
"I love expression and emotion through dance," Shukis said, who prefers jazz because dancers have more freedom to express their own personal style through it.
Shukis' class is all levels, and he will provide three different "options" for each contemporary jazz technique to accommodate the various levels of dancers.
Shukis also choreographed last year's Remembrance Through Dance performance on the one-year anniversary of 4/16 and said it was "The best event I've ever attended. There was an amazing sense of community."
Shukis said he hoped the workshop would inspire a similar feeling within the Tech community.