Shaun Ho / The Collegian

Student choreographers Kensington Stettler and Anthony De La Paz tested lighting cues and directed dancers with the ease of professionals as they rehearsed their respective pieces for the theatre arts department’s show, “Emerging Choreographers 2007.”

But Stettler and De La Paz are not professionals, or even theatre arts majors. In fact, the two are both nursing students.

Fresno State’s University Dance Theatre (UDT) class gives students of all interests and majors a chance to pursue their passion for dance. In the fall semester, students created and perfected their own dances, some of which are being performed in “Emerging Choreographers 2007.”

The show opened Thursday night and runs through tomorrow evening.

Some students, like Stettler, 21, and De La Paz, 30, chose to choreograph pieces for their peers, which included everything from teaching the dance to, in Stettler’s case, making her own costumes.

Shaun Ho / The Collegian

“I just wanted [my dance] to be kind of fun and funky and different,” said Stettler, who has been in the class four semesters. “A lot of moves in the piece were just kind of random acts of silliness that I just threw in there.”

The 18 dances being performed in the show represent a variety of different dance styles, from ballet to hip hop and everything in between. Stettler’s carefree creation, “Toejam Football,” is contrasted by De La Paz’s traditional Polynesian hula dance.

De La Paz, who is part Hawaiian, thinks that “Emerging Choreographers” is a unique opportunity for the community to experience different types of dance.

“People that come from different places to Fresno State have different dance backgrounds,” he said. “It’s not just ballet, it’s not just modern. I’m including some cultural background to it.”

In his last of four semesters with UDT, De La Paz said that he kept coming back because he needed a release from everyday life.

“I’m doing UDT just for fun,” he said “It’s a stress reliever, cause when you’re in nursing school, you’re just stressed all the time.”

However, UDT is not just about fun. The students commit a lot of time outside of class to rehearsals and show preparations.

“The students really end up doing a lot of work,” professor and UDT artistic director Kenneth Balint said. “It’s a lot of fun, but it’s amazing the amount of time and effort, blood, sweat and tears that goes into a production.”

In addition to dancing in the show, UDT students are responsible for setting up the stage and running lights and sound.

“It’s not just a class where they dance, but they also get a lot of experience in the technical areas that usually they don’t have a lot of experience in,” Balint said. “The beauty of that is they get a better understanding of what it takes to put on a dance concert.”