Dance Showcase Illuminates
The Senior Jazz Academy gave nobody time to settle. Opening this year’s Dance Showcase, Illuminate, “Where is my Husband?”, choreographed by alumna Amelie Carter, hooked a packed Elliot Hall immediately with sharp mirrored unison and a running gag about a diamond ring.
Over thirty items followed. As Head of Dance Hana Tipa noted, the evening was the culmination of months of work across a wide range of styles. Much of that work was student-led. Kents Mega Crew, who bring the high energy year after year, was built by four of its own dancers. Senior students assembled the Jazz Troupe's “Smooth Criminal”, helped by a soundtrack nobody in the audience needed introducing. Switch Up” and “Starstruck” were choreographed for the junior academies by Senior students as well.
Alumna Erin Meek returned to choreograph “Somebody to Love” for the Senior Contemporary Academy, technically exacting work with inventive shapes. Eleven boys took the stage for “Drop”, with the crowd cheering right through the performance rather than waiting for the end.
Following intermission, the evening changed register. The nine Year 13 NCEA works sat in the second half, and together, circled the same territory. The pieces explored pressure, control, and what the mind does under both. Tamsin Low used fabric as the weight of daily pressure in “Steady Under Strain”. Ashton Campbell staged sleep paralysis in “Until I Wake”, with one dancer and four shadows. Ava Hadley and Loretta Reid drew a white square on the floor for “Inside the Box”, one as the mind, the other trying to escape from under it. Courtney Martin, Sophie McIndoe, Elise Wall and Mae Lonergan turned outward for “Everybody Supports Women”, on the expectations women meet from peers, from strangers and from themselves.
The Year 13s closed with a piece they choreographed themselves, swinging the night back to where it started. Dance teacher Ichiro Harada reflected that the evening’s success owed much to supportive families and to the maturity of the dancers. It was a celebration for dancers who have given five to seven years to this stage.
