Beauty. Art. Expression. All are meant to reflect the goodness and the design of the Creator. And when approached with a heart desiring to reflect this goodness, we learn more about ourselves as creation.

This is what Olivia Kruse has learned through her experience as a professional ballet dancer with a Christian ballet company in Chicago. In this interview with Radiant, Kruse shares not only how she has learned to glorify God and relate to God through dance, but what dance — and specifically ballet — reveals about the design of the human person. In essence, she shares her understanding of the theology of the body of ballet.

Christians are more in the news today than ever before. Faith is a more present factor in our national and global life than ever before. But Christians, and people of faith in general, are often portrayed in one-dimensional, reductionist terms. The rich ways that Christians take part in our shared life, contribute to the public good, and keep alive the best values and traditions of our country are often obscured today.

Julianna Rubio Slager is co-founder and artistic director of professional dance company, Ballet 5:8 based out of Chicago. Her vision in establishing the company was to bring more dialogue of hope to the Chicago art scene. She serves as resident choreographer with a mission bring something significant to the audience that would otherwise remain veiled through thought provoking and breath taking dance. With their spring tours getting canceled, Ballet 5:8 is hosting online performances of their work. Click here to RSVP to their critically acclaimed performance of "Butterfly" about the Jewish artists who were held in the same concentration camp during WW2. It's available April 19-21st for viewing w/ tickets being on a pay what you can basis to help cover the wages of the dancers for their canceled season due to COVID-19. https://www.ballet58.org/butterfly

Ballet 5:8 returns to the Hoyt Sherman in Des Moines with a program of one-act works featuring Butterfly. Artistic Director Julianna Rubio Slager’s newest work recreates the gripping scenes of the WWII Terezin ghetto, where residents created masterful works of art in defiance of their oppressors. The performance will also feature work inspired by C.S. Lewis, and the world premiere of a work choreographed by Kevin Jenkins, winner of Editors Choice awards from Pointe Magazine and Dance Magazine.

March 31, ORLAND PARK - “Shelter-in-place” has turned life upside down across the South Suburbs, but Ballet 5:8 is providing an incredible online program that gives students a bit of normal in the midst of the chaos. Nonprofit Ballet 5:8 School of the Arts provides dance education for over 400 students in the Chicago south suburbs and northwest Indiana, and the studio has become a second home to many of them. So when in-person classes were postponed due to COVID-19, the staff at Ballet 5:8 made an ambitious change -- they would transform their organization to meet the changing needs of their students.

Chicago’s Ballet 5:8 visits Kalamazoo for the first time with a program of one-act works featuring Butterfly. Artistic Director Julianna Rubio Slager’s newest work recreates the gripping scenes of the WWII Terezin ghetto, where residents created masterful works of art in defiance of their oppressors. The performance will also feature work inspired by C.S. Lewis, and the world premiere of a work choreographed by Kevin Jenkins, winner of Editors Choice awards from Pointe Magazine and Dance Magazine.

Ballet 5:8, a professional performance company based out of Chicago, will grace the stage of Kennesaw State University’s Dance Theater with its renowned Christian storytelling on Saturday, March 14. In their second time ever touring to Atlanta, they will present The Space in Between, a dynamic one-act ballet choreographed by Artistic Director Julianna Rubio Slager. The ballet, inspired by C.S. Lewis’ novel The Great Divorce, deals with real-life, weighty questions of eternity and encourages viewers to look ahead into what will happen after this life. The program will also feature two other works: Of Splendors and Horrors and Meditations.

On the surface, Ballet 5:8 looks like just another dance company. But the creative impulse of artistic director and chief choreographer Julianna Rubio Slager is driven by her Christian faith and a desire to share the gospel through ballet.

For many of us, history was an integral part of our academic experience. As children, we read our history books and learned of the formative years of our nation, of wars that forever changed the socio-political climate worldwide, and of the trials of the oppressed as they fought for freedom. But the past is doomed to repeat itself unless we take that knowledge, combine it with deep reflection and introspection, and turn that potent mixture into action. While that action can take place in courtrooms and protests, it can also find its home on a proscenium stage. Art, and more specifically, the art of dance, has at its heart the the power to keep the past alive and give voice to its stories. Through thorough research, reflection and creative development, choreographers can shed new light on some of history’s darkest days. But that ability is an art in and of itself, and few are as well equipped to shine that light as Ballet 5:8 Artistic Director, Julianna Slager.

This week Ballet 5:8 embarks on a tour of Butterfly, its evening of one-act ballets.

Ballet 5:8 returns to Dayton with a program of one-act works featuring Butterfly. Artistic Director Julianna Rubio Slager’s newest work recreates the gripping scenes of the WWII Terezin ghetto, where residents created masterful works of art in defiance of their oppressors. The performance will also feature Slager’s Meditations, inspired by C.S. Lewis’ essay Meditations in a Toolshed, and Slager’s playful Brothers & Sisters exploring the beauty and contrast of men and women.