2023 Spring Dance Recital & NHSDA Induction

Spring Recital Order 2023 & Talking Points

Welcome - Rebecca McGregor

Senior Recognition - Booster Club

NHSDA Induction - Brian Bloomfield, Jazmine Bogie, Rebecca McGregor, Josie Rowell

Chwinywa

Before Grace - The first piece you saw was a choreography entitled Chwinywa.  Chwinywa is inspired from African American social dances and community dances that focus on dancing about religion, celebration of life’s events, prayer to the earth and gods for crops and food and water, and release/freedom from oppression in society/civilization.  Chwinwya refers to having blessings of peace and hope.

Next you will see 2 more culturally inspired dances - Grace and Celebration.  Grace is a collaborative quartet created from the study of Chinese fan dancing. Chinese fan dancing symbolizes beauty, grace and delicacy.  You will notice a variety of long lines of the limbs and body, multiple formation changes, and ease of moving the fan through space.  In Celebration, 4 dancers will bring forth the foundational elements of Middle Eastern belly dance.  It represents feminine empowerment, creative energy, and female pride.

Our 4th culturally inspired dance is entitled Huapaje which means Joy.  It will be performed by the Jazz class that embarked on learning polyrhythms in the body, personal expression, and unifying people through movement by creating an emotional connection to the music.

Celebration

Huapaje

Before We Run This - Hip Hop dance is much like cultural dance in the sense it is designed for the preservation of ideas, the times, and bringing people together for a common good.  Cultural dances often were to celebrate an aspect of life - marriage, birth, death, the harvest, war, etc.  In Hip hop we dance to express social, economic, political differences.  Delaney Raymond and Emma Montgomery created this next piece called We Run This to showcase the power of women in society to stand up for self, be confident in the female being, and equal to that of male power.

Before A Modern Fairytale - We get influenced by lots of things and people throughout life, especially with technology today we are bombarded with information all day long.  But ultimately, we need to know and trust in ourselves and believe/act on what is right for ourselves.  Know thyself…A Modern Fairytale is a mix of 2 Taylor Swift songs that the Jazz class is working on for their first choreography…this piece is about not letting the haters get to you, not letting people and their opinions get you down…believe in you, do what you need, enjoy and grow in your life and that is all that matters.

After A Modern Fairytale, Company will perform another hip hop dance created by Delaney Raymond as a senior project.  Her dance is called Ultimo and showcases the motivation, drive, and strength women have to hold their own, celebrate themselves through the years, and stand firm in society for what is right for womankind.

Ultimo

Before Push-n-Pull - One of my favorite things to do as an educator is provide opportunities for my current students to learn from others - whether it is from one another (peer to peer) or from a professional dancer/choreographer in the field or a former student who is continuing dance in their life.  To be in the arts today, one needs to know how to work from a variety of people, sources, and inspirations.  Having the chance to work with different people in dance broadens one abilities (skills and knowledge), challenges perspective on style and genre, opens new doors for the creative and reflective process, and builds problem solving skills by paying attention to detail, interpretation, and analysis as well as a different style of communicating the art of dance.  Dance education is designed to provide this type of opportunity for young aspiring dancers/artists.  Former dance student and graduate of ‘22, Lexa Ball, came back for a week in February to work with Dance Company on a modern piece.  Push - n - Pull shows two sides of the spectrum; push and pull, black and white, morality and immortality- which will prevail? Neither- one cannot exist without the other, together they form a balance, which constitutes all life. 

Before Running - The Oxford Dictionary defines to run as to move at a speed faster than a walk, never having both or all the feet on the ground at the same time.  Hmmm…how many times a day do you feel you just run from one thing to another, one place to another, one person to another, one demand to another.  It feels like all too often.  Our world moves at a fast pace and sometimes we just have to run to keep up, let alone get ahead.  In that journey of running, we need to pause.  We need to reflect.  We need to decompress.  We seek connection.  We seek opportunity.  We desire community, sameness, oneness.  We realize we are not alone.  We see one another running too.  We support one another.  We carve out space for one another, for ourselves.  We come together to share the load.  We breathe.  Our next dance Running exemplifies that struggle of keeping up, of seeking out unity and community, of the ability to find calm in the busyness of life.

After Running, Mayla Paquette will perform a pointe solo, Dream.  Dream is a lyrical pointe dance about never giving up on your dreams no matter what challenges are presented.  It represents loving yourself and working hard because nothing great ever comes from the comfort zone.

After Dream you will see 2 dances that again signify the strength, pride, and power of womanhood and the journey of growing into a woman.

Now for Running.

Dream

Stand Tall

Big Girls Don’t Cry

RunAway Baby - RunAway Baby is choreographed by junior Jazmine Bogie and senior Natalie Chapman.  It is a tap dance that expresses letting go of stress and problems.  Dancers show a sense of freedom through upbeat, cheerful and constant changes of movements and formations.  We hope this piece gets you toe tapping in your seats and gives you a few moments of freedom from stressors in your life.

Raise You Up - This next choreography, Raise You Up is a musical theater jazz dance performed by Dance Company.  It is heavily influenced in the genre of expressive jazz dance from the mid - late 1900’s but the gestures and interactions and pathways used pull the piece in the musical theater realm through telling the story of the song. The music for this dance comes from the musical Kinky Boots where an unlikely relationship forges to keep open a shoe shop.  Our dance to this song, Raise You Up Just Be, is about pulling together to get good things done.  

The End of Our Era - Each year, I open up the doorway to senior dancers who desire to collaborate to put together a final dance.  It is an opportunity for them to share their learning and love of dance with one another in the creative process one last time but also share their joy of dancing with you the audience before heading off into the big wide world of life and learning.  While their dance is called The End of Our Era, it is only a beginning for each of them as they prepare to move beyond the LI walls and our Lyndon community.  As one door closes, another opens.  It might be The End of this Era together but the memories and moments live on and it is another era’s beginning.

The View Between - The artist, Noah Kahan, who sings this next song is from Vermont.  His music details the struggles of growing up in a small town and saying goodbye to it.  As this is our seniors' last dance performance, we found it fitting  to dance to his  music. The View Between is about the excitement and the struggle of leaving home for the first time. The seniors have moments of bravery stepping out on their own in this piece while junior dancers are supportive and complimentary in their movement choices and patterns.  The relationship between the dancers is one of intrigue, wonderment, and courage.

Ink - Our last piece this evening is called Ink.  Ink is an interpretive modern dance about seeking out your own identity.  We all make our own mark on the world and how we do that and what we leave as our impression often is influenced by others. The students choreographed this dance from studying multiple modern choreographers then choosing 1 or 2 dance artists to focus on.  Through studying the dance artists the students worked to enhance their own style of movement, preferred movement sequencing and patterning, and building diverse energy qualities in their approach to movements and initiation of movement phrases.  Throughout Ink you will see the dancers performing solos, imitating one another and recalling each other's movements as a way to learn from one another and see what feels right to challenge them and add to their character and repertoire.  After all, in life, we give and take in everything we do, everywhere we go.  Life is about constant growth, positive action, and leaving the world a better place than when you found it.  As you watch this dance what will your mark, your legacy, your ink say about you in this world?

After Ink, the dancers will come out to bow and thank you for attending their Spring Recital and honoring the NHSDA members and inductees, senior dancers, and seniors graduating with dance honors.  

We sincerely hope you enjoyed our performance this evening.  

If you wish to receive information about summer dance camp the last week of July, please take a look at the table in the lobby for a QR code to get you to the registration information and dance camp page.  

And as always, please never hesitate to contact me, Rebecca McGregor with any questions about the LI dance program or dance related events in the kingdom.

Happy spring, our best to each of you, have a lovely evening!