Students Compete at Young Choreography Competition

A group of Northwest Academy students entered the Young Choreography Competition (YCC) at the Multnomah Athletic Club (MAC) Club. Unfortunately, none of them won anything. But that does not take away from the unique experience that they had by being a part of the YCC.

Aspiring choreographers from 6th through 12th grade showcased their work at the YCC. For the past couple years, Northwest Academy, one of about 20 dance groups in the Portland metro area, has been attending this dance competition.

Erin Shannon, the dance teacher at Northwest Academy for middle school and high school, tries to make the performances about the students as much as possible. Shannon solicits ideas from the students before choreographing the performance. Then she picks students that she feels are ready to take on the responsibility to compose their own dances.

“My role in this is to more be a supporter and also a reference for the choreographers,” Shannon said. “They can come to me if they are stuck on something and I talk to them about different techniques to use, different ways to get past their choreographer’s block, different ideas on how to tie things together. But the choreography is all the students.”

After a month and a half to prepare their dances, the students went to the MAC club. There the dancers went into a green room and wait until someone would come in and tell them which group was on deck. When it was finally time to perform, they would go out onto the stage in front of the audience and the judges and perform their dance. Then after they were done dancing they could either go back into the green room or watch other dancers perform.

“It wasn’t that stressful, in the green room you could hang out, talk to other groups or practice your dance,” Chelsea Batchelor, a freshman, said. “Also the atmosphere was very supportive.”

Even though none of the students won anything, they still felt like it was worth their while.

“It was a really good experience and people who want to dance in the future should do it because it is really fun,” Dani Kardon, a freshman, said.