By EMILY CHEN and BECKY SHANE
Staff Writers
Thursday May 22, 2015, the UHS Dance Company hosted the opening night of its spring dance showcase, titled “Mo(ve)ments.” The show featured performances centered on specific and significant moments in our lives, from the phenomenon of falling in love for the first time to the exuberance and adrenaline rush of rebellious youth. Director Mr. Edward Johnson (Visual and Performing Arts Dept.) elaborated on the theme of this showcase, and said, “The concert is about life changing moments as inspiration for each one of the dances and our transitions, so we have a number of different ones where the choreographer has explained their motivation, or what the spark was that inspired the dance. It’s particularly interesting to me to watch the concert and hear how a choreographer takes their process—how they take their initial spark and turn that moment into movement, turn that into a story.”
A unique experience for all, the dances started with a voiceover of the choreographers, describing the moment they wanted to capture and the experience they wanted to portray through their dances. Standouts included Anabella Rangel-Sanchez’s (Sr.) collaboration with guest artist Jestoni Dagdag, titled “What if… (I Shant)” choreographed by Johnson, which portrayed both the possibilities and missed chances when meeting someone new, and “The Door” featuring Momoko Ishizuka (Jr.) and Christine Ho (Jr.), which showed the process of acceptance after a fall out.
The show also included a collection of short pieces alluding to Disney fairy tales, aptly titled, “The Waking of a Princess,” which was split into three parts and placed throughout the program. Princesses from different Disney stories chase after a solitary prince, played by Ben Dun (Sr.).
On creating her piece, Kelly Ye (Sr.) said, “Choreographing has never come easy to me. However when I found out that our theme for this year is life changing movements, my piece came to me as if it choreographer itself. I loved choreographing and dancing in these pieces that take such familiar moments and add such importance and interpretation to them.”
While Dance Company has no more scheduled performances for the rest of the school year, auditions for the 2015-16 school year will be held in the Dance Studio on June 8, 9, and 10, with call backs on June 11 as needed.
