Breaking Free from the Shadows: Creating The Cave

A Reflection by Julianna Rubio Slager

When I first set out to choreograph The Cave, I knew it was going to be one of the most challenging pieces I had ever created. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is one of the most profound and enduring philosophical metaphors in history, but translating its depth into movement—into something visceral, something that an audience could not just understand but feel—was an immense creative undertaking.

At its core, The Cave is about awakening. It’s about what happens when someone encounters truth for the first time and how difficult, even painful, that revelation can be. The dancers embody that struggle, showing the tension between those who remain in the shadows and those who step into something greater—often at great personal cost.

The Challenge of Movement and Meaning

One of the hardest parts of choreographing The Cave was making the abstract concepts physical. How do you show a person who has lived their entire life in darkness encountering light for the first time? How do you capture the disorientation, the fear, and ultimately, the transformation?

I spent hours in the studio experimenting with movement vocabulary that felt instinctual yet foreign, like the body resisting the very thing that could set it free. The dancers start with low, weighted movements—contracted, inward, and almost caged in their own bodies. As the piece progresses, those who break free begin to explore expansion, elevation, and more fluidity, while those who stay behind remain rigid, locked into the world they have always known.

I also had to consider the group dynamic. In Plato’s allegory, the freed prisoner returns to the cave to share the truth, only to be rejected and ridiculed. This concept plays out in the ensemble work. The ensemble resists, recoils, and even physically pulls the enlightened dancer back into the shadows. It’s a raw, physical representation of how difficult it is to challenge long-held beliefs.

Faith and the Cave

Although The Cave is rooted in Plato’s philosophy, I couldn’t help but see its parallels to faith. Christ himself spoke about those who have eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear. How often do we cling to the reality we’ve always known, unwilling to acknowledge that there might be something more?

The fear of stepping into the unknown is real, but so is the freedom that follows. The moment in The Cave when the freed dancer steps fully into the light is one of my favorite moments in the entire ballet. It’s a moment of hesitation, of awe, of sheer terror—and then, of breakthrough.

That moment is what I hope stays with audiences. Whether they see this ballet as an exploration of philosophy, faith, or personal transformation, my deepest hope is that The Cave sparks something within them—a question, a longing, a challenge.

A Story for Our Time

We live in a world full of curated realities, social media echo chambers, and competing narratives. It’s easy to surround ourselves with the people and ideas that reinforce what we already believe. But real growth, real truth, requires us to be willing to step beyond what we’ve always known.

That is the journey of The Cave. It is unsettling, but it is also full of hope. And for those willing to leave the shadows, the light is worth it.

— Julianna Rubio Slager