On May 1-3, the dance classes will perform their interpretation of the classic Tarzan for their Spring Dance Concert.
Throughout the year, the dance classes perform three shows, including the Fall Showcase and Spring Showcase, in which the students choreograph their own parts and express themselves. For the Fall and Spring showcases, dance teacher and director Amy Moorhead choreographs and instructs the student performers in the dance.
Moorhead, who has always been intrigued by Tarzan, will direct the story in her own original adaption and select the music, dance, props, and costumes.
“I consider what the audience may ‘expect’ when they come, often it’s Disney,” Moorhead said. “I balance that against what would be most interesting for the dancers and me to work on, what we’d enjoy creating.”
Seniors Robert Yu and Alex Stuteville will play the lead roles of Tarzan and Jane. For Stuteville, this is her first major role and biggest production in her four years of high school dance class.
“I did a little bit of dance before that when I was younger,” Stuteville said, “but doing it at school really got me into it, and convinced me to join a competitive Latin ballroom dance team, and to do dance outside at other dance studios.”
This is also Yu’s fourth year of high school dance. Outside of the dance class, Yu dances in a program at UC Berkeley, and is president of the Breakerz club. The dance class gives him an opportunity to practice his expression of art.
“I appreciate the time and space I get to use [in the studio]” Yu said.
The class prepares for the Spring Showcase months in advance, including tech week with five hour rehearsals the week before the performance. In the couple of months leading up to the showcase, Moorhead teaches students the dance, puts it to music, and perfects the students’ dance to make it a uniform performance. During tech week, the dancers practice with costumes and makeup, building up towards the final production.
“I’m still working out whether I see this production as more “realistic” in terms of costumes, sets, or whether it’s more “cartoony,” Moorhead said.
Although she designs the production, she creates it for the students.
“Everything I choreograph is very personal to the dancers I’m working with, meaning that I don’t come in with fixed ideas that they to adhere to,” Moorhead said. “I always want to create something that utilizes their strengths and challenges them to go outside their comfort zone.”
Eager to perform, the dancers show their talent during the showcases.
“This year, it might be stressful and exciting because I’m playing Jane,” Stuteville said. “There’s a possibility that we might have aerial silks to work as vines, because it’s going to be a really jungly, natury dance performance. There’s a bunch of apes and birds, and rainforest animals.”
