When Rowan Casillas, 17, was casting about for ideas for the dance piece she would create for the San Antonio Metropolitan Ballet, she settled on a topic that affects many families in San Antonio and across the nation — including her own.

Since she was a child, Casillas had watched an aunt struggle with schizophrenia, a severe disease marked by hallucinations, delusions and often bizarre behavior.

“I didn’t understand why she acted that way,” said Casillas, one of several members of SAMB to choreograph pieces for the company’s spring show. “I’d ask my mother, and she’d say, ‘She has mental illness.’ I’d be, like, ‘What is that?’”

Now that she’s older, Casillas wants to “bring light” and dispel stigmas about mental illness with her five-minute dance titled “Split-Minded,” part of the company’s 30th Annual Dance Kaleidoscope on Saturday and Sunday at the Palo Alto College Performing Arts Center.

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Casillas, who has been dancing ballet since she was a toddler and creating ballet choreography since age 15, saw her piece performed in March at the Regional Dance America/SW Festival in Richardson, outside Dallas.

The day after the festival, as members were packing to return to San Antonio, the head of the ballet company was watching TV in her hotel room. A segment on Bring Change to Mind (BR2M), www.bringchange2mind.org, the nonprofit formed in 2010 by actress Glenn Close to reduce stigma around mental illness, came on.

“It was like the stars were aligning,” recalled Karin Connally Heiden, executive director of SAMB, which is open to dancers ages 11 to 17. “Rowan had just had her dance performed on this very subject.”

Back home, Heiden reached out to BC2M, explaining what Casillas’ dance was about and what it aimed to do. (Close has two family members with mental illness.) The nonprofit jumped at the chance to collaborate, posting a blog Casillas wrote about her dance piece on the BC2M website and allowing the use of its public-service announcements at this weekend’s performances.

Fittingly, May is national Mental Health Awareness month.

Back to Gallery Expressing the turmoil of schizophrenia through ballet 10 1 of 10 Photo: Kin Man Hui /San Antonio Express-News 2 of 10 Photo: Kin Man Hui /San Antonio Express-News 3 of 10 Photo: Kin Man Hui /San Antonio Express-News 4 of 10 Photo: Kin Man Hui /San Antonio Express-News 5 of 10 Photo: Kin Man Hui /San Antonio Express-News 6 of 10 Photo: Kin Man Hui /San Antonio Express-News 7 of 10 Photo: Kin Man Hui /San Antonio Express-News 8 of 10 Photo: Kin Man Hui /San Antonio Express-News 9 of 10 Photo: Kin Man Hui /San Antonio Express-News 10 of 10 Photo: Serkan Zanagar /Photo courtesy of Serkan Zanagar



















Keeping a journal

On a recent evening, 22 members of SABM gathered in a studio on the North Side to rehearse for the upcoming show. Casillas’ piece proved a haunting portrayal of the emotional and psychic toll taken by schizophrenia.

Performed to the song “So Far,” by Olafur Arnalds, the nine dancers’ movements are both flowing and jarring, their hands fluttering at one point to communicate frenzy or despair.

More Information Performances The San Antonio Metropolitan Ballet’s 30th Annual Dance Kaleidoscope is at 7 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for children and $15 for seniors, students over 18 and military. Palo Alto College Performing Arts Center, at South Loop 410 and Texas 16. For more information, call (210) 650-8810

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“I kept a journal (while creating the piece), writing down words that described my aunt’s behavior,” said Casillas, who joined the company when she was 9. “I wanted to portray the emotions by connecting each emotion or action to a movement.”

Casillas doesn’t dance in her piece. The lead role belongs to Belleza Mitchell, who happens to be a close friend and classmate of hers in the dance program at the North East School of the Arts at Lee High School, where both are juniors. In another case of the stars aligning, Mitchell, too, has a family member who suffered from schizophrenia, giving her a deep understanding of her role.

Mitchell portrays Casillas’ aunt in the piece, a figure buffeted this way and that by her roiling thoughts and feelings, embodied by the eight other dancers who chase after and torment her.

“I wanted the dance to portray ambivalence,” said Casillas, who has watched her aunt continue to struggle with the reality of her disease. Jacquelin Casillas, Rowan’s mother, said her husband’s sister gets caught in a cycle not uncommon to those who struggle with mental illness.

“She starts treatment and as soon as she’s feeling better, she doesn’t want treatment anymore,” she said. “And then she hits rock bottom. She’ll do something very manic or out of the norm and then get into trouble.”

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Jacquelin said her sister-in-law, now in her 40s, was “completely normal” until her mid-20s, when she began to isolate herself, plagued with auditory hallucinations and suspicions that the government was trying to control her. Her three children, now grown, struggled as well.

Casillas said she has talked to her father about whether the aunt, who lives in San Antonio, should be invited to see the performance, which is sponsored in part by the city of San Antonio’s Department of Arts and Culture.

“He’s close to her and I’m going to leave it up to him,” she said.

It took Casillas about six weeks to create the dance, which is the second piece she’s done for the company. The young artist, who wants to “stay in dance forever,” is eyeing either the Boston Conservatory or the University of Missouri conservatory in Kansas City after she graduates from high school.

Heiden describes Casillas as “passionate and talented.”

“She really thought about this piece, and did research into (mental illness),” she said. “She’s being responsible in how she portrays this, which I think, for her age, is amazing. She’s doing the work of a seasoned choreographer.”

Casillas said she simply wanted to help those with loved ones who’ve suffered with this disease, to enable them to not feel so alone.

“Above all, I wanted to portray (mental illness) respectfully,” she said.

Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje is a San Antonio Express-News staff writer. Read more of her stories here. | mstoeltje@express-news.net | @mstoeltje