Middle School Dance Informance

Photo courtesy of Kelly McCain

Jin Huang

Greenhill Middle School dancers will be presenting group dance pieces and student-choreographed works in the MPAC Dance Choral Hall on Thursday, Apr. 27.

Middle and Upper School dance teacher Kelly McCain has been preparing the middle school dancers for the informance since Feb. 14.

“I think we are pretty ready; we have everything planned out. We have a dress rehearsal before the actual informance, so I think we are going to be ready in time,” said middle school dance student Lydia Kerridge.

The informance on Apr. 27 is specifically an “informance” instead of a “performance” because it will be held in the dance studio.

“The show is not informal in the sense of the intention behind performance because all these pieces have been well rehearsed. However, we don’t do lighting design and that’s the informal sense about the show because is not fully produced,” said McCain.

This informance focuses more on showing the audience the progress and results from the trimester.

“It’s very much about the performance level that we are at, and we are trying to train these dancers how to handle themselves in front of an audience and how to handle themselves, not only in front of the audience but behind the scenes,” said McCain.

The middle school dancers are going to perform two group dance pieces: “Grand Piano” by Nicki Minaj and “Falling for Ya” from Teen Beach 2.

“These two songs are based on Upper School choir. I saw the list of songs and thought we can collaborate. Grand Piano and Falling for Ya are the two we chose,” said McCain.

Other than the two group dance pieces, the dancers prepared self-choreographed dances for the upcoming informance on Thursday.

“Dancers have to be involved in student choreography projects. They can choose their groups, style, and music,” said McCain.

McCain guided the middle school dancers throughout the process of choreographing by teaching different techniques and strengthening the dancers in specific areas.

“Every other week, [McCain] has us present what we have of our student choreography to everyone else in the class so that we can get feedback from our classmates. She also offers feedback and helps steer our groups in the right direction,” said middle school dance student Elise Nelson.

The middle school dance class has around fifteen students this trimester, and they are divided into four groups for the student choreography project.

The four dance pieces are:” Waving Through a Window” from Dear Evan Hansen, “Maybe This Time” from Cabaret, “Heather” by Conan Gray and “Ilomilo” by Billie Eilish.