Connor Lewis/The Omniscient
Northwood put on its annual Winter Dance Concert Dec. 9 -10, 2016. Each year, dance teachers Leah Wilhelm and Kristen Oakes put on two dance concerts for the fall and spring semester. Hundreds of dancers who enroll in the class participate. Students get the opportunity to choreograph their own pieces to perform in the Winter Dance Concert. However,
this year Oakes and Wilhelm worked together to orchestrate the Student Choreography Showcase, a separate concert for student choreography, which took place Jan. 5.
“We had 21 pieces, audition which is the largest we have ever had for student choreography,” Wilhelm said. “We usually have about 6 or 7, and whittling that down to three or four pieces is a lot easier than whittling down 21 pieces. We just figured that since the evolution of the dance program keeps growing, it was a logical next step to make a totally separate concert.”
With the continuous growth of the dance department, Wilhelm and Oakes decided it was best to create a new concert so that more people could participate and fewer dances would be cut from the final round of auditions.
Senior Ashley Harris choreographed her own piece for the Student Choreography Showcase.
“I liked it, and it was a lot shorter, so it didn’t drag on,” Harris said. “It made the dances more personal. I was doing a solo, which I had never done, before so it was nerve wracking. The students choreographed it all so you got to see what the students could do, and you saw how they took the class and applied it to themselves on a personal level.”
Creating a new concert gave the dancers the opportunity to perform with the result of less pieces being cut.
“I think it turned out really well,” Harris said. “Our lights were done last minute because of the Christmas break, but I felt that everything was put together really well and it turned out to be a pretty good show.”
The Student Choreography Showcase turned out to be successful with around 300 people attending.
– By Julia Wieland
