Dancers get ready together in the dressing room before the show.
Every year, student dancers showcase the results of their hard work in the Spring Dance Concert. On stage is a graceful and polished performance; backstage, however, is bursting at the seams with controlled chaos.
With over 50 performers in this year’s concert, the dressing rooms were packed. “The energy in the dressing rooms this year was probably the best that it has [ever] been,” said Sydney Alleyne ’23, one of the three Dance Company presidents. Before each show, dancers played music over the speakers while they donned their costumes, helped one another with makeup, and took pictures and videos commemorating their time together.
In addition to looking the part, dancers also have to prepare their bodies to perform their challenging pieces on stage. Before the performances started, all the dancers in the show came together for a warm-up guided by one of the dance faculty members.
Athena Robinson ’24, a member of the Step Squad and Hip Hop cabinets, enjoyed the daily “shakedown” — a warm-up in which students shook their hands and feet, counting down out loud from one to eight, one to seven, one to six, and so on, until no numbers remained. “It ended with us all shaking and screaming on stage,” said Alleyne.
Though the dancers prepared for months prior to the performance, they still feel a wide range of emotions before stepping on stage. Vicky Grechukhina ’23, a choreographer and one of the Dance Company co-presidents, does not experience stage fright because she has “performed frequently before and at Choate,” she said. Robinson felt similarly, saying that she doesn’t get nervous performing. Instead, she asks herself, “Is the audience going to like it?” Once she hears the audience’s cheers and applause, being on stage becomes “second nature.”
On the other hand, Alleyne said that she “probably has some of the worst performance anxiety in the world.” Even though she is a veteran dancer, she said, “I am still freaked out about every step I might mess up or count I might get wrong.” To calm her nerves, she “would run through the dances in her head,” listening to and becoming one with the music. Zooey Schamis ’26, who was initially nervous for her first performance on the PMAC stage as a freshman, said, “I thought the concert went great, and I loved dancing with all my friends.”
During the concert, some dancers had to quickly change costumes between performances. With less than two minutes to put on an entirely new outfit, dancers had to get creative to make it back on stage in time.
To ensure transitions go vas smoothly as possible, dancers pre-set their costumes in the wings of the stage and occasionally change with the help of other dancers. Kay Lee ’25, who had four quick changes in the show, chose to organize information about switching shoes, hair, and clothes on a spreadsheet to ease anxieties about the process.
In order to make these “quick changes” less stressful, Dance Program Director Ms. Pamela Newell introduced the idea of projecting quick one to two minute interviews with the choreographers before each piece.
Throughout the commotion of tech week and the three performances, students relied on one another’s support. “If someone needed hair gel, someone’s going to find hair gel,” said Robinson. Alleyne agreed, adding that she always carries a tube of Aquaphor, an ointment for dry skin because “someone always needs some.”
Dancers made unforgettable memories backstage at the Spring Dance Concert, strengthening the bonds that allowed them to shine as they put on a memorable show for the Choate community.
