Princeton University Ballet’s (PUB) Fall 2025 show, “Sombra,” puts light in shadow, tradition in dialogue with innovation, and storytelling in movement.
The show, which was open to visitors from Thursday to Saturday in Frist Theatre, played with light and shadow, both in a metaphorical and physical sense: “shadows on a surface” and “shadows of ourselves,” according to member Emma Coulter ’29. To accomplish this goal, the choreography mixed ballet’s rigorous precision with the natural flow of contemporary dance. This cross of tradition and innovation created a space for dancers to feel a release and sense of relief while demonstrating control and artistic prowess.
The show was dedicated to Sophia Jones ’27, who passed away in November of 2023. In an interview with The Daily Princetonian, artistic director Makenzie Hymes ’26 said she wanted to honor Jones’s memory as a beautiful dancer with extensive training in classical ballet and a valued member of the PUB community.
The show opened with “Shades,” a dance in the style of ballet blanc, which was described in the program as a “selection of 19th-century classical ballets often exploring themes of feminine heartbreak and afterlife through ethereal light and ghostly shadow.” On stage, dancers fully dressed in white entered one after another, traveling across the stage with piqué arabesques. Later in the piece, different dancers would enter the stage, some completing beautiful turns and others executing gravity-defying leaps, each movement unbelievably graceful. During this piece, each dancer received their own time for a mini solo.
“Unlike traditional ballet companies, here we don’t have principal dancers or soloists. It’s really about the entire company dancing together on an equal plane. Everyone is equally beautiful in their own dancing,” said Lucy Park ’28, who choreographed the final piece titled “Equilibrium.”
Following the group’s ballet blanc piece came “Sombra Prologue,” in which members, dressed in black, danced to a faster tempo, at times in unison, at other times partnering or conversing through movement. Towards the end of the piece, Seiya Saneyoshi ’27 completed five pirouettes in a row to considerable applause.
In “we go again,” dancers dressed in baggy clothing combined ballet with contemporary dance, at times straight-backed with their feet pointed outward — as is customary in ballet — only to fall into more natural positions, expressing a sense of release in doing so. The lighting, which transitioned from blue to purple to yellow during this piece, highlighted this transition, as though externalizing the inner emotions the dancers might be feeling.
“I think rigidity is sometimes a necessary juxtaposition to make the feelings of and the images of flow read, because if everything is just loosey-goosey, it looks kind of [crazy],” Hymes said.
Coulter added, “I think other types of dance sometimes feel more accessible to people, so it feels more worthwhile for them to go. But I think PUB does a really good job of making ballet accessible to people through the contemporary lens.”
Six ballerinas pose on stage.
Alexis Choi / The Daily Princetonian
Throughout the show, dancers created ripple effects — like shadows trailing behind them — with several groups dancing the same choreography at different moments in time. At certain times, it was difficult to know where to look or if dancers had fallen off tempo. In one piece, however, three rows of three dancers created intricate images and patterns with the observer unable to tell from where new choreography originated, as though the dancers were a body of water sloshing back and forth.
While all the dancers shined, Cici Yu ’28 brought especial energy to the stage. She showed both incredible precision and facility of ballet technique — with high, controlled arabesques and extensions — as well as her own artistry and emotion.
The PUB program.
Alexis Choi / The Daily Princetonian
PUB both paid respect to classical ballet while stretching the genre to bring an originality to the choreography. The switch between ballet and contemporary styles felt like the shift between a curated version of oneself and a release into one’s true nature.
“We are taking shadow to be less literally how light creates shadows on a surface and more like the shadows of ourselves. [The show asks] what’s behind us as people,” Coulter said.
Zane Mills VanWicklen is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2029. He can be reached at zm6261[at]princeton.edu.
Please send any corrections to corrections@dailyprincetonian.com.
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