In the weeks leading up to their annual show, the dancers of Cal Poly’s dance company, Orchesis, spent 16 to 18 hours a week in Alex and Faye Spanos Theatre polishing their choreography. Orchesis dancer and biological sciences senior Misty Moyle spent these weeks watching her fellow dancers from the wings of the stage in a wheelchair.
Moyle joined Orchesis last year, after a two-year hiatus from dance.
“I was burnt out on dance when I came to college — after 15 years of dancing, I needed a break,” Moyle said. “I was holding back from dance because I was afraid the time commitment would hinder my studies.”
However, by her junior year, Moyle came to find dance was just what her studies needed.
“I was taking 12 units and studying all the time, and that wasn’t going well — I just wasn’t very happy,” she said. “I figured if I was already getting C’s, I might as well do something I might enjoy. As soon as I started dancing again, my grades went up. I was taking 22 units and rehearsing all week, and I made the Dean’s List.”
Moyle even took on the task of choreographing a piece for her first show — a dance performed to live spoken word poetry telling the story of a sexual assault.
Coming into her second year of Orchesis, Moyle was chosen to be an intern for the dance company, adding the responsibilities of assisting the directors with the show production to her 22-unit class and rehearsal schedule. Moyle said she wanted to use her role as an intern to make a difference in the company.
“We had 27 new dancers this year, and only five returners,” she said. “We had a lot of freedom to shape the company, and we really tried to get more diversity into our dance styles.”
Orchesis director Diana Stanton said Moyle played an important leadership role in the dance company.
“(Moyle) sets an incredible example of maturity and responsibility,” Stanton said.
In addition to interning for the dance company, not to mention studying for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) — Moyle plans on attending medical school after she graduates — Moyle decided to choreograph another dance for this year’s show, entitled “Immersion.”
“Choreographing is therapeutic for me,” Moyle said. “It’s a good outlet for me. Some people like journaling or running, but I choreograph.”
And keeping with the theme of her previous choreography for the company, Moyle utilized her opportunity to choreograph this year as a channel for addressing social issues she was passionate about, with a dance entitled “1 Corinthians 13:3.”
“I combined my passion for activism and choreography,” she said. “This piece was about equality, the LGBT community and the relationship between society and religion.”
Moyle said her inspiration for this dance came from her own experiences at Cal Poly, specifically an instance her sophomore year when a resident of the Cerro Vista apartment complex for which she was a community adviser defaced a bulletin board she made about the Pride Center with a sign that said, “You all need to repent for your sins.”
“I was livid,” she said. “That’s not the appropriate way to express an opinion. I think there’s closed-mindedness and a lack of tolerance that’s more accepted at Cal Poly because more people are doing it. I thought it was important to choreograph a dance about it because of the climate I’ve experienced at Cal Poly.”
Moyle said her goal was to convey interactions between the church and society throughout the dance, as well as an intimate relationship between two females being ostracized from the church. Wanting to precisely execute her message, Moyle even had students from the Pride Center come to a rehearsal to give their input on the performance and its meaning.
With a clear vision for her choreography in mind, and rehearsal for her other dances underway, Moyle was feeling positive about this year’s show.
“I felt awesome,” she said. “I was in the best shape I’ve ever been in my life, I was super motivated and really engaged in the work we were doing.”
Then came the unexpected.
Two days before the start of winter quarter, just four weeks before the opening of Immersion, Moyle stepped on broken glass barefoot while inspecting her broken car window — someone had thrown a champagne bottle at it on New Year’s Day — and was taken to the emergency room.
“I felt panic,” she said. “I told the (ER) doctor, ‘I need you to do a good job because I have to dance in a month.’”
This feeling was all too familiar for the dancer, who sprained her back during dress rehearsal for the previous year’s show.
Six stitches later, Moyle was crutching around her house, hoping the cut would heal quickly.
But Moyle’s bad luck didn’t end there.
Two days later, she fell while going down the stairs at her house, and sprained her ankle on the opposite foot, leaving her wheelchair-bound for the next two and a half weeks.
“I was having major panic attacks,” Moyle said. “I was really concerned, both as a dancer because I had worked so hard and as an intern because I didn’t want my attempting to continue to detract from the quality of the show.”
Moyle said she asked the directors of the company if she could start teaching an understudy to take her place in the show. But Stanton had more faith in her.
“There was no plan, just hope,” Stanton said. “I knew she’d pull through. She wanted to have a plan B, but I wanted to wait it out.”
Fellow company intern and business administration junior Danielle Dahlerbruch said she also remained optimistic about Moyle’s recovery.
“It’s a horrible situation to be in, especially right near the show,” Dahlerbruch said. “But I knew she’d pull through because of her personality, and no matter what it took she’d be on the stage dancing.”
So Moyle continued to stay positive and did whatever she could to get better.
“I did everything I could do, even acupuncture,” she said. “I still went to dance every night and would crawl out of my chair and do the arms, and just try to mentally rehearse.”
And by opening night, Moyle was out of her wheelchair and on her feet — one in an ankle brace, and one wrapped in medical tape.
“It went awesome,” Moyle said. “I had lost muscle mass and I wasn’t as strong, but dance is about quality of movement, it’s not always about being the strongest.”
Dahlerbruch said Moyle performed just as everyone had expected she would.
“Everything came together beautifully as if she was never gone,” Dahlerbruch said. “She stepped into the role and knew exactly what to do. Everyone knew she would get the job done.”
Stanton said she was pleased that her hoping worked out, and there wasn’t a need for a plan B in the end.
“She did great,” Stanton said. “She danced beautifully. If you didn’t know she was injured, you wouldn’t have noticed.”
Looking back on the whirlwind month before the show that turned her dance world upside down, Moyle said she views the experience as positive.
“It was holistically wonderful,” she said. “Dancing, being in a leadership position, being personally triumphant — it was all so rewarding.”
But Moyle doesn’t plan on taking a break from dance for too long, nor does she plan on returning to her wheelchair anytime soon. She will be co-directing Cal Poly’s annual spring dance show this year, scheduled to take place in May.
“Dance will always be in my life,” she said. “Dance will be in my life for a long time.”