Dance Concert Recap
May 20, 2014
With strong choreography and bright expressions, the annual spring dance concert held last Friday ended this year’s highly successful Diamond Bar High School dance season. The concert showcased a wide variety of student choreographed pieces from Advanced and Intermediate Performance Ensemble, All-Male Dance Crew, and Taurian Co. Dance Team.
“I am definitely very proud of the dance concert and the kids worked really hard this year,” Dance Director Janna Lindenberg said. “We had a lot of seniors in this concert, and I could definitely tell that they wanted to leave a last impression on the show. I’m very pleased with the product.”
The show began with Dance Team’s performance of “Mama Knows Best” by Jessie, which was choreographed by seniors Alex Dasilva and Tiffany Wood. The first act of the concert included dances such as “Broken Radio,” in which a group of friends discover a broken radio and dance to the changing songs, and “OMG! You Guys”,a fun musical piece from “Legally Blonde the Musical.”
Soloists of the concert were seniors Taylor Raymundo, Tiffany Wood, Hayley Doon, Alex Dasilva, and Jeremy Chan, dancing to “Youth” by Daughter, “Mother Mary” by Rihanna, “Kissing You” by Beyoncé, “Rock Your Soul” by Elisa and “This is my Home” by Cinematic Orchestra. In addition to the senior solos, sophomore Jason Lin performed his own solo to Ed Sheeran’s “Give Me Love.”
Notable performances included “Click!” which was a dance that revolved around a murder mystery. When the murdered individual disappears off-stage, the detective and the cameraman try to solve the mystery by going through every witness on stage. As they dance through the Sherlock Holmes-inspired mystery of “Click!” the dancers showcased lovers’ quarrels and fight scenes. Then the moment they became suspected, the dancers escaped the stage when their picture was taken and the lights faded to black. The audience was especially delighted with this dance at its end, when there was one left on the stage but the cameraman, who pointed his camera at the audience and took a picture.
The second half of the dance concert included dances to popular songs such as “Happy” by Pharrell William, performed by intermediate dance class, and “Partition” by Beyoncé, which also showcased some of the singer’s other famous songs. As a picture frame was lowered onstage for the performance of “Remember Me” by Downhere, the song’s lyrical aspects highlighted the fact that the seniors were going to leave. Underclassman Julia Chen, Sofia Minassian, and Jessica Danner put graduation caps on seniors Alex DaSilva, Hayley Doon, and Taylor Ramundo.
Also included in the dance concert were the award-winning, first place performances from Taurian Co. Dance Team, Co-Ed Hip Hop and All-Male Dance Crew. The Dance Team performance of “Dark Parts” by Perfume Genius became even more heightened as the red and blue stage lighting gave the dance a 3D-effect. Starting off from the intermission, Co-Ed Hip Hop showcased “Bloom” by Ellie Ingram and other various artists, while All-Male’s “Newsies” finished off the memorable dance concert.
Another aspect that made this year’s dance concert special was the fact that dance concert had a total of 42 seniors performing, including a few that have been in the dance program for all four years.
“I would say that the past four years in the dance program have been an amazing experience and I’m so blessed to have had the opportunity to dance with such amazing people,” said senior Alex Dasilva, who had been a part of dance since she was a freshman. Dasilva was in many of the concert pieces, choreographing several.
