by Savannah Floyd, for Ballet San Angelo.
October 23, 2026 | 7pm
The Brooks & Bates Theatre
82 Gillis St
This October, Ballet San Angelo’s annual Sharing Dance celebration returns with a fresh, educational twist.
Since 2017, the non-profit organization has brought this public health initiative to the city, aiming to get residents moving in fun and engaging ways. Past editions have featured massive dance gatherings in front of City Hall, a projection show mapped onto the building’s facade, and an inventive toy-making project.
For several years now, the program has also worked directly with fourth-grade students across SAISD, most recently through Batteries Not Included, which partnered with the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts to bring a kinetic toy creation project into classrooms.
This year, Sharing Dance takes a mathematical approach with the new production Math in
Motion. The company is fortunate to have its own in-house mathematician in Dr. Simon Pfeil, its
resident Boys Club instructor. Together, Dr. Pfeil and Artistic Director Erin Lane, were able to
craft a ballet entirely inspired by mathematics.
The performance guides audiences through the history of math — from the basic counting of
prehistoric times, to the geometry and trigonometry used in ancient Greece and Egypt, all the
way to seventeenth-century calculus.
Beyond paying homage to that history, the choreography itself is shaped by mathematical principles, so each dance embodies the concept it celebrates. To deepen the connection for young learners, Lane will visit every SAISD elementary school this fall for a personalized lesson with each fourth-grade class.
There she teaches the fundamentals of choreography and guides students as they create their own original dances. But there’s a catch: each dance must be mathematical!
To help these students link math and art in such an unconventional way, Ballet San Angelo has produced a companion series of educational videos called “Simon Says.” The series follows Dr. Simon and his robotic protégé, Newton, as they explore the same math concepts woven throughout Math in Motion.
At its heart, the goal of Math in Motion is to inspire positive feelings about mathematics. By
demonstrating math concepts through live dance, the show helps develop mathematical intuition,
since art allows expression that goes beyond words and numbers.
Rather than keeping these disciplines separate, the production uses their similarities to reinforce both: students apply artistic skills to find mathematical solutions, and mathematical ideas to create art.
In blending the two, Ballet San Angelo hopes to leave young viewers seeing math not as an abstract subject, but as something alive, expressive, and full of movement. Even if you’re not lucky enough to be in the fourth grade this year, you can still experience the mathe-magic at the free public performance!
October 23, 2026 | 7pm
The Brooks & Bates Theatre
82 Gillis St
