Macleans College Showquest entry wins Best Choreography award
Posted on July 19, 2021
During Term One preparation began for the live dance competition known as Showquest.
This dance competition was to be held at the ASB Aotea Theatre on 1 July in front of thousands of spectators and four dance industry experts as the prestigious judges. After auditions, the selected crew of dancers from Macleans College took two terms to perfect their seven-minute performance, which was a challenging task.
The strong team of 33 dancers had a few hiccups along the way when a lockdown was announced earlier in the year. This disruption gave the team an opportunity to choose a very relevant theme for their dance - the ramifications of COVID-19. The choreographers, Jasmine Jones (Rutherford House), Hannah Giles (Snell), Tamika Te Young (Batten) and Diya Matta (Snell), took on the challenge of incorporating aspects of dance and drama in their performance to captivate the audience on issues specific to the global pandemic.
Splitting up their group into different styles of dance, they were able to show the various impacts of COVID-19. Tamika Te Young choreographed the contemporary section which showcased the vocal talent of Lexie Buchanan (Upham). The contemporary dancers highlighted the effects of mental health during the pandemic. Diya Matta and Hannah Giles choreographed the Hip-Hop section which demonstrated the economic impact of unemployment due to the global health crisis. Jasmine Jones’s Jazz section displayed the detrimental effects of COVID-19 on global death tolls. Combining their groups at the end of the dance, the full cast of dancers were able to reveal the climax of the dance performance through presenting a united front, showing how society was able to come together in hard times to overcome extreme obstacles.
This performance took a great commitment by all the cast members. After a great amount of hard work and choreographic refinement, the cast managed to secure first place in the ‘Best Choreography’ category. The cast also won ‘Most Effective Use of Live Music’ for Lexie Buchanan’s live singing.
The choreographers are extremely proud of everyone who put 100% of their time and energy into the training, which gained them first place in their region. This was a great achievement for the school as they had not gained first in this competition for many years, and especially since the group consisted mainly of junior dancers.
This result qualified the students to perform in the Showquest Nationals, which was unfortunately cancelled due to COVID-19. For the choreographers this achievement was especially memorable as for most of them this is their final year at Macleans College.
The cast of Showquest extends their thanks to the boys that came along to help with lifts on stage, the technical crew members who assisted with lighting, the hair and make-up team who assisted with costumes, and Mr Davidson and Miss Price who chaperoned on the day of the performance.
To the managers of the team Mrs Jackson and Ms Harrison - the group is truly appreciative of their constant support and encouragement. The cast also thanks Dr Miles as Head of Faculty for Performing Arts for his support of the extra-curricular dancing programme at Macleans College.
