Dance department shines throughout the winter concert
The Newbury Park High School dance team, intermediate dance, beginning dance, and other local dance studios came together to put on a series of original performances starting Thursday, Dec. 6, and continued through Saturday, Dec. 7. The dance concert included many student-choreographed dances and performances from Thrive Dance Studio, Aspire Dance Studio and Bobbie’s School of Performing Arts.
This year’s theme was “Hey Siri, shuffle liked songs,” allowing space for the wide variety of music featured in the dances. Emilie Murry, junior and co-producer, helped Cameo Carolan, dance teacher at NPHS, come up with dance theme ideas. She also made the tech-themed slide show that played during the dance performance, announcing which groups and songs were about to be on stage. The large variety of songs influenced this year’s theme, ranging from fast-paced hip-hop to 2000s pop, and even some more recent favorites. “Cameo was the one who came up with the idea, and me and [Breena Zavala Filippo, sophomore, and a fellow co-producer] just kind of took the idea, ran with it, and came up with a lot of extra [components],” Murry said.
Sophomore choreographer Claudia Frankfort’s dance to The Lumineers’ song “Salt And The Sea” used fog effects and dramatic lighting to convey emotion within the performance. To achieve this effect, she collaborated with Ava Smith, a senior lighting designer, to create the final piece. “I think it incorporated perfectly into my dance and really added a sense of urgency and heightened the emotion of the piece,” Frankfort said.
Prior to choreographing, Frankfort considered many different musical pieces. “After listening to [the song] over and over again, I started to memorize different pieces in the music,” Frankfort said. “Then, what I wanted to choreograph was coming to my head.” This is Frankfort’s second year choreographing, last year she served as a student choreographer, and this year she is the TA for intermediate dance.
Mika Lopez, dance team senior, had a unique choreography experience this year while preparing for the competition season. Usually, solos are choreographed by a dance teacher or professional choreographer, but Lopez decided to do something different. She dedicated her self-choreographed solo to her father, dancing to “Daughters” by John Mayer, their special song. “Typically I would have an outside choreographer do it, but since it’s my senior year, I wanted the choreography to be really special and personal,” Lopez said.
This winter dance concert was the first time the dance team members performed the solos they would use to compete this year. The freshmen danced on Thursday, the sophomores and juniors on Friday, and the seniors on Saturday. “I love being able to see everybody on our team shine [in] the spotlight,” Lopez said. “This is the first year that the entire team has had their own solo.”
With lighting, music and a variety of costumes, the dancers put on a show that made them very proud. “There was lots of hard work performed…It [was] a great show,” Murry said.
