The Hockaday Upper School gathered in the Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Family Theater to watch the “Fall for Dance” 2024 performance. The event showcased months of hard work from each of the four HockaDance classes: Hockaday Dance Theater, Dance Lab, Workshop I and Workshop II. It featured a variety of dance styles, including contemporary, modern, lyrical and classical ballet, choreographed by dance instructor Alex Farrior ’03 and various others.
To begin the event, the Hockaday Dance Theater showcased their opener “Vortex,” choreographed by Amy Marshall and Farrior.
“My favorite piece from the show is Vortex because I love the modern choreography and unique movements,” sophomore Betty Liu said. “This year was the first time I did modern dance, and I enjoyed having this experience with the rest of HockaDance.”
Junior Anna Claughton, who has danced for Hockaday since arriving her freshman year, also participated in “Vortex” as one of her four dances last Thursday.
“HockaDance is very different from my dance studio outside of school because of the type of styles we work with; in this show we danced excerpts from a professional modern company,” Claughton said.
For many of the performers, the highlight was to witness their hard work pay off and come together as a full show. The various costumes were handled by Liz Helfrich and Farrior, who put together elaborately planned costumes for each individual dance. The lighting operator, Dakota Meredith worked with lighting designer Landry Strickland to strengthen the mood of each performance. With the help of Christie Sullivan (’95), Robert Kallos and Jason Wagner, the crew behind the show worked tirelessly to pull the event together.
“The highlight of the performance for me was getting onstage with my team and getting to show everyone what we’ve been working so hard on,” Claughton said.
Abby Snyder, a junior in the Workshop I class, performed a modern dance to “This is an Apple,” choreographed by Farrior. The majority of their class was new to modern dance and had to practice new skills over the past couple of months.
“We were able to pull a dance together and learn how to use techniques to perfect our newly learned type of dance,” Snyder said. “It was super fun once we got the new style of dance down and solidified it.”
Snyder also enjoyed the transition from practicing moves in class to trying on costumes and rehearsing on stage with the lighting and music.
“A month before the show we got costumes and about two weeks before we started practicing on stage,” Snyder said. “Playing with the lighting is a very fun part of the dance because once you have the costumes and the lighting down you can see the whole vision of the dance come to life.”
The event also served as a great opportunity for Upper School students and faculty to support the girls and celebrate their art.
“I thought it was cool how they were able to take so many different levels of dancers and create such a pretty performance,” freshman dancer Mia Frary said.
Hockaday students experienced pride and admiration for their friends’ hard work while watching the dances.
“I am so proud of my classmate Ellie Nerenberg for the dance she choreographed to “Haunted” by Beyonce; it was spectacular, and I really loved it,” senior Abby Woodberry said. “I also really enjoyed the costumes for these dances, it was very unique and so much fun to watch.”
The “Haunted” dance was one of the four dances choreographed by a leading student for the Hockaday Dance Theater. Along with Nerenberg, fellow seniors Emily Yu (“Pull up the Ladder” for Dance Lab), Jane Taten (“One Love” for Hockaday Dance Theater) and Samantha Wu (“Love in the Dark” for Hockaday Dance Theater) contributed to choreographing the dances for their respective classes.
“We are very student-driven, as the year goes on more students are confidently able to step up and choreograph their own pieces,” Claughton said.
“I was so impressed, I really think it was one of the best dance performances I’ve seen; all of the girls were phenomenal,” Sarah Blanton ‘14, Upper School English teacher, said. “I was especially impressed by dance lab, because I think they really showed how strong the dance program has gotten.”
As a teacher, Blanton really enjoyed watching her students outside of the classroom in their own chosen environments.
“It is so special getting to see my students shine in different ways with their different strengths,” Blanton said. “It is especially fun to see girls whose personalities I have not gotten the chance to know, then watching them really blossom in a performance setting.”
More photos of the performance can be found on the FOURCAST website (hockadayfourcast.org) and Instagram (@hockadayfourcast). Stay tuned for their annual Spring performance!
