After so much time spent choreographing, rehearshing, and perfecting, it was finally show time for RHS’s dance one students. This last week, the girls and boys in the dance one program, along with their nine student directors, showcased many wonderful dances in shows on Thursday, Friday, and two on Saturday.

Featuring three periods of dance one, the dances ranged from slow and graceful with songs like “Nirvana” by Sam Smith, to fast paced hip hop with songs like “Drip too Hard” by Lil Baby & Gunna.

Ellara Pineda is one of the student directors that choreographed and taught the dances. She says “Student directing for dance one was honestly probably the best opportunity I’ve ever taken in my life. Seeing everyone progress from day one to their last show, they progressed so much that it’s not even funny. It’s crazy and surreal.”

“All of the girls are so nice, and it was just so much fun. At first, choreographing the dances was pretty stressful just because it was my first time ever choreographing a dance and teaching it to a lump of students and then having them preform it on stage. So at first it was stressful, at least for my personal dance. For the group hip hop it wasn’t as stressful because I had Caitlyn and Stephanie with me and it was really fun being able to work with them and seeing all our ideas coming to life and putting it on stage.”

Especially in high stress situations like this one, teams can often crack under the pressure. But for these nine student directors, Ellara says,“We totally work together. Every time we choreographed we’d all meet at one spot. We’d mess around a little but then we’d get to work and actually do it. Then we’d mess around again. But I’d say we really bonded over that. It wasn’t really one person working on one section and another person working on another section, we all worked together and we were all throwing random ideas out there.”

When it came down to the final event, these girls and boys lived up to the occasion. “The dance show went really well, even better than I expected actually. In class, we were doing really well but I think once they got an audience in front of them and makeup on and costumes on, they blew me out of the water. I was so impressed by everyone and how they danced.

With another year of dance, these talented students have produced another great dance one show.