Simone Gingerich-Boberg ’26 did not think of themselves as a dancer. When they first began attending dance classes as a child, they only went because their mother — who was a high school kickline dancer — felt that they should give it a try. “There’s a picture of me somewhere with little ballet shoes and knobbly knees on this concrete pavilion outside from when I was four, though I would really consider the start of my dancing when I was eight.” The arts have always been a part of Simone’s life — they took dance and violin lessons throughout the rest of their childhood — but have become central in their studies and experiences over the past four years at Swarthmore. Their interdisciplinary work embodies Swarthmore’s liberal arts education, but more importantly, highlights who Simone is as an artist: driven, creative, and multifaceted.
JWS: What moment inspired you to be a dancer?
SGB: [When] I performed in [my studio’s] “The Nutcracker” — which I think is similar to a lot of people’s stories of how they get hooked. After getting to be a part of that and to see my progression in the roles each year, I thought, “Well, if I quit dancing, then I don’t get to keep doing this.” That was a source of motivation — I wanted to learn the next role so that I could perform it in the future and see my growth as a dancer. My first year, I was a mouse in a gray unitard with a pillow stuffed over my belly, wearing ancient masks where you can’t really see out of them … It felt like a rite of passage.
JWS: What has it been like to continue dancing at Swarthmore? How does dancing here differ from your dancing before Swat?
SGB: Coming from an environment where everyone had been dancing since they were little to an environment where people were in very different stages of their dance — it was definitely a bit of a shift. At first, it felt kind of hard to [balance] the lifting of pressure while also feeling a desire to still challenge myself. The founder of the theater where I trained, Loyce Houlton, would always say, “I expect so much from you.” And her daughter, Lisa Houlton, would repeat that to us. Growing up, there was always this feeling of trust and expectation. Being with a whole new set of teachers and peers, finding that [expectation] for myself was a new experience.
My first ballet class at Swarthmore was Ballet II with Chandra [Moss-Thorne, senior lecturer], and it was so cool to see all the perspectives of people who were far earlier in their ballet journeys. I also liked how Chandra uses “Barre Buddies,” a collaborative approach to teaching [ballet].
Also during my first-year spring, I got to be part of the Cooper Series event with Collage Dance Collective, where Amy Hall Garner came and created a piece with a bunch of Swarthmore dancers and four company members. Though the experience was intensive, we got to perform with this professional company and collaborate with both professional dancers and people very new to ballet. [I realized that] I can be pushed, even as someone who already has a lot of that experience. As my college time went on, I’ve finally — especially now in my senior year — done more styles, like African, taiko, and yoga, which has been so much fun. I am able to appreciate the embodied knowledge and the capacity of learning movement, even when it’s unfamiliar styles. Though I have spent the majority of my dancing life in a ballet studio and doing contemporary and modern [dance], I am seeing how movements in dance transfer across styles, even in areas where I’m not as confident.
JWS: Your degree is expansive, combining French and dance as a special major, as well as a major in environmental studies. In what ways do you bring your majors together in the spaces in which you work?
SGB: [In] my senior project, “OuDaPo,” I used a French literary framework of using a system or limitation for creating [something]: a set of rules through which you have to create. Having this set of rules that I could create for myself and for the dancers gave me enough direction to both realize a spatial vision and flow of the piece, while also uniting the vignettes of my piece. My thesis looks at the history of Louis XIV, specifically at the use of court dance and ballet under his absolutist regime. It explores the ways he used dance to uplift himself, using his body as a representation of the state. Dance was really a factor in creating his absolutist monarchy, where he was the Sun King — literally on stage, as Apollo often radiating power. [With that context,] I am analyzing a ballet by Alexei Ratmansky that recently premiered at the New York City Ballet called “The Naked King” that draws on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” to criticize [President] Trump.
JWS: Your senior project was performed last semester. What was the process like for creating that piece? In what ways was it a culmination both of your training as a dancer and your studies here at Swarthmore?
SGB: One thing that I knew I wanted was live music and original composition. I grew up playing violin, so I knew I wanted to combine music [with dance]. I wrote in my proposal something along the lines of wanting the musicians to be “musician-dancers” and the dancers to be “dancer-musicians”: a melding of the two roles. Part of how I accomplished this was performing in Troy [Studio], where the floor makes noise, and encouraging the dancers to embrace that in some of the facilitated movements. I also placed my cellist on a moving platform, because I didn’t want the musicians to be static or just the “supporting” people — I wanted them to be a part of the whole. [Additionally,] the dancers got to mess around inside the piano and contribute to the sound score. I ended up having cello, violin, and piano, and Spencer [Kennedy ’27] is a genius composer, so I felt super lucky to have this collaboration with all the students.
The part that I am proudest of was the collaboration between the dancers and musicians, doing my best to embrace the challenges that came with that. [For example,] during this section, whenever the violinist would start playing, someone had to be off the ground. Or, I would go crazy with video editing software and take videos of each dancer, working with a five-movement phrase, then clipping each of those videos into individual movements. Then I did all this splicing of the order of the movements I created, like an algorithm, and then I gave my dancers the video, and I was like, “You guys have to figure out the transitions.”
JWS: That’s amazing! I was very interested personally as well. So, the final question: what do you love most about dancing at Swarthmore?
SGB: I love the basement of [the Lang Performing Arts Center]. It’s like a home space for my community. The people that I spend the most time dancing with — who are perhaps other majors or just involved in the department through a class — are part of the community. I also love looking out the windows as the seasons go by and seeing the leaves. I had a moment in the studio the other day when we were in Ballet Repertory working on something, and I was on the side, and I was like, “Wow, I only have a month left doing this.” I thought about how I’ve grown as a person and a dancer over my four years, and yet the physical space of the studios has remained largely the same. I can see that growth within the same place. Even when I’m looking at the archives for my Underhill [Library] job, when Troy was brand new, it looks the same. I believe that place holds a lot of meaning, and that the people who are associated with that place [help make meaning of it]. It may not be the heartbeat of the general campus, but it feels like the heartbeat of the campus that I experience.
