Senior dance students present their choreography Saturday

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

By Richard Anderson

Each year, a handful of young girls sign up for dance classes with Dancers’ Workshop. Also each year, a select group of young women – who have essentially grown up in DW’s dance studios over the previous 15 years – graduates from high school.
Before those teenagers move on, however, they prepare and present “New Dances New Choreographers,” an end-of-the-year performance showcasing the work of DW’s Junior Repertory Company.

This year’s show, titled “Transitions,” takes place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Jackson Hole High School Auditorium. Tickets cost $10 for adults, $5 for students.

Babs Case, DW’s artistic director, said this year’s crop of graduating dance students numbers six: Lauren Sanford, Charlotte Smail, Melissa Kerr, Megan Stewart, Amanda MacLeod and Erica Wilson. Five of them, Case recalled, had been dancing with DW since they were 3 or 4 years old.

The seniors spent the first half of the past school year learning the history and theory of choreography, and the second half applying what they learned on 15 dances that will be performed by 25 members of the junior company.

“They give up a lot of time,” Case said, including three hours after school each Friday and all day every Saturday through the second half of the school year.

“As the high school members of Dancers’ Workshop’s Junior Repertory Company progress and mature in their art,” MacLeod wrote in the official press release for the event, “they are given a unique opportunity – the chance to not only choreograph and perform their own works, but to cover every aspect of the production including lighting, marketing, and design … [New Dances New Choreographers] is a chance for these dedicated young women to deeply express themselves through the creation of movement and to develop as artists.

Case said this year’s program will offer an interesting range of work. Kerr, for example, will present a “wild, stream-of-consciousness Broadway musical” in which the dancers also will sing. She also will perform a tap solo, while Wilson will perform a pointe piece she choreographed. Most of the rest of the program consists of modern dance.

All six seniors, as well as other members of the junior company and other student dancers, also will present a student performance at 6:30 p.m. on May 24 on the Center for the Arts’ new stage, presenting pieces choreographed by their DW teachers, which means some of Saturday’s dancers are working to prepare for two dance recitals. On top of that, Case said, Kerr will have to take off early Saturday to make a performance by the JHHS band.

“They are all highly sought-after in the performing arts world of Jackson Hole,” Case said, laughing. Contact DW at 733-6398 for more information or tickets.

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Senior dance students present their choreography Saturday | Planet JH News Article: Jackson Hole High School

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