Dance Showcase
Ms F. Smith, Subject Leader: Dance, writes:
Congratulations to all the dancers who took part in this year’s Dance Showcase. The event celebrated the talents of a wide variety of Stanborough students including dance club students and BTEC classes. The performances included different genres of dance, including Jazz numbers, Contemporary and Urban styles.
Many students also took advantage of our audition process and the competition was tough as there were a number of excellent pieces. Some of the successful auditioned dances included a confident solo debut by Lauren Sanders, an excellent tap duet by Amelie Warner and Louise Grenfell and a fun musical group dance ‘Welcome to the 60s’ choreographed and performed by Year 8 and 9 students; Millie Battersby, Teya Kindred, Belle Awad, Tilly North, Kaitlyn Batchelor and Amy Sharp. Other highlights throughout the show consisted of a comedic group piece choreographed by Steph Conder and performed by the Year 10 dance clu, based on Wii Sports, this certainly added some humour to the show! Harriet Hawkins and Hollie Lamb also created a well thought out dance club piece for the Year 9s ‘Say you won’t let go’; there was a real sense of theme and story and the students performed this number brilliantly.
There were a number of expertly performed solos this year, including ‘Friends’ by Fran Hall in 11O accompanied by Hayden Cable on guitar. Ellie Dulieu and Steph Conder performed their last solos in a Stanborough Dance show and Abbey Turner 10K, choreographed her solo ‘Let Her Go’ which incorporated tricks and use of a prop.
Year 10 dancers performed as separate classes with our additional BTEC group opening the show. Both groups performed in the style of Wayne McGregor who experiments with ballet technique by distorting it in a contemporary way. Year 10 have been studying his work ‘Infra’ and have developed an original repertoire in their own style. All Year 10 dancers approached this work maturely and performed with a high level of skill in the final performance. They were memorable pieces which were well received by the audience. Well done.
The Year 13 dancers closed the show with their performance of ‘Finesse’, which included material from a Street Jazz workshop earlier in the year as well as their own choreography. It was the perfect way to say goodbye to this group in their last show, as it combined all of their ideas and had a real sense of fun and energy which will certainly be missed once they have left. Well done for all your hard work Year 13.
All dance students took full advantage of this opportunity to perform their work on stage with our lighting and sound facilities. The Sound and Light Team did a fantastic job throughout the day and during the evening performance. They created some well thought out lighting which certainly enhanced the work.
All students worked extremely hard in preparation for this show and should be very proud of all they have achieved. I am so pleased with the commitment they have shown and their professional performances. Well done to all who took part.