What If?
A dark auditorium lit by a colorful stage, various songs bringing the room to life, and dancers showing their choreography to over 100 captivated audience members, what if this was the dance concert?
The “What If…?” concert was at Apache Junction Performing Arts Center on Nov. 17, it was two hours of Combs dance students using their performance skills to tell stories.
“We want to make every dance have a story, even if it was sad, happy, or there was an actual life story behind it,” president of RUSH dance company, Cheyanne Collier said.
Each dance performed was a different “what if” scenario, ranging from “What if we have swag?” to “What if we lost the ones we love?”.
“We were looking for something that was a little bit different than we’ve done [in the past] and we wanted to try to answer some of the ‘what if’ questions that are out there,” dance adviser Andrea Downing said. “Or at least try to bring a little bit of wonder into what we’re doing.”
The concert featured with a few solo performances, dancers chose their music and choreographed to try and answer their own “what if” questions about life.
“We were able to choose for ourselves what ‘what if’ meant to us,” senior Austin Pena said.
Creating a rountine is a key part of the growth process for the dancers of all abilities.
“My favorite part is the process, seeing the kids go through the choreography,” Downing said. “Then learn something about themselves, it’s always fun to see dancers grow through the experience.”
Though two dancers were unable to perform due to injury a few days before the dance, the dance was still widely considered a success and all the performers have high hopes for future performances.
“They’ve come a long way in the last couple of days, reorganizing dancers and dances,” Downing said. “They are extremely hard workers and I know the next show is going to bigger and better as always.”
