Dance ProgramJillian Suprenant
B.S. Neuroscience; Dance minor; Innovation & Entrepreneurship Certificate
Hometown: West Chester, PA
Dance productions:
- November Dances (2017 and 2018)
- ChoreoLab (2018 and 2019)
- Courtney Liu’s MFA Thesis Presentation (2021)
Student groups and awards:
- Performance Coordinator (2018-2019), Co-President (2019-2020), and Artistic Director (2020-2021) of Devils en Pointe
- Member of Momentum Dance Company (2018-2021)
- Event Coordinator (2018-2020) and Publicity Chair (2020-2021) of Dance Council
Career aspirations: While I am still unsure where my career path will take me next, I hope to one day work for the managerial team of a major performing arts center so that excellence in, and exposure to, the arts continue to thrive. Of course, I also hope to keep dancing and choreographing in my free time.
Favorite memories: My involvement with the Duke Dance Department allowed me to create and present an original work entitled Silhouettes with my two best friends, Noelle Li and Gabby Cooper, during ChoreoLab 2019. The choreographic process was so rewarding, and the reception was better than I ever could have imagined. I also loved assisting Nina Wheeler with her November Dances piece, Effective Immediately, in 2018. Seeing a concept come to life from scratch and watching the dancers improve from rehearsal to rehearsal made the recovery from my knee surgery bearable and worthwhile.
Finally, I will never forget Devils en Pointe’s first rendition of Excerpts from The Nutcracker which we performed in 2018 in the Cube. It had such a large turnout of Duke students and community members that we had to beg the Rubenstein staff to allow us to perform two back-to-back shows. I remember my pointe shoes were brand new before the first show, but after two rounds of dancing the Snow Scene and Sugar Plum Pas, they had been reduced to mush. It was one of the most surprising and exciting moments of my Duke dance career.
I’d like to thank all the faculty and emeritus members I have been lucky enough to learn from during these four years: Julie and Tyler Walters, Purnima Shah, Barbara Dickinson, Michael Klien, Jun Shepard, and Courtney Liu. I would like to especially thank Nina Wheeler for being my support system, mentor, and honorary family member at Duke. The wisdom and opportunities you offered both challenged and shaped me into a better dancer and person. Thank you for always believing in me and for helping me recognize my own unique excellence. For that, I will be forever grateful.
I also must give a special shoutout to my incredible parents and older brother who will drop anything and everything to answer my 11 PM FaceTime calls. They never once missed a Duke dance performance despite living an eight-hour drive away, and their attendance always made the shows that much more special. Love you all x infinity.
“Dancing has always been such an integral part of my identity, and I worried that when I went to college, I would lose that part of myself. Thankfully, Duke’s Dance Program made that impossible. My time in the dance program allowed me to healthily balance the stress of my other academic pursuits. Through it, I also met an incredible assortment of amazing people, and I now have many meaningful friendships that I know will last a lifetime. In short, my time in the dance program has meant the absolute world to me.”
