Sophomore Isa Felch takes the stage at the dance team’s end-of-year showcase as the audience’s attention is immediately grabbed. With a shift of music, lights flash, illuminating half her body in dark blue and the other half in fluorescent pink. As the tempo changes, the lights switch colors again, making Felch’s performance come alive as the audience is mesmerized by the technical elements of the performance such as sound, light and staging.
This showcase encompasses all of the dance team’s halftime shows throughout the year, with additional artistic elements unavailable at sporting events. It also includes original pieces from their competition season.
Felch said she thinks students should attend because the showcase is very different from the halftime performances they are used to seeing from the dance team.
“We get to do lighting cues and a bunch of different stuff,” Felch said. “We do a bunch more like turns and stuff that we don’t really do on the football field. It makes for a much more interesting show.”
Arts events typically do not receive as much recognition from the student body as they deserve. Student attendance at various arts events such as the dance showcase, theater, and choir concerts is lacking.
Additionally, choir and theater student Jonathan Mazor-Hoofien said choir concerts feature diverse performances.
“Usually there’s a theme for each one, and it’s pretty loose because it’s hard to do theming with choral music,” Mazor-Hoofien said. “A lot of it originates from big artists from the church, who then pass on their music and their style to the next generation of composers. That’s usually when we just do like hardcore European style, like Italian and English, but we also mix in other international songs, like an African song every year or something of that nature. (We also add) a song in a completely different language that isn’t our usual repertoire.”
Dance coach Alanna Williamson said the showcase also struggles to draw in a student audience.
“People definitely come to the Friday (football) games,” Williamson said. “We typically have packed stands. For the showcase, it feels like we’re pulling fingers to get people to come. I think that’s for a number of factors. It’s hard to do stuff at the end of the year. People are tired from AP testing. They want to be done with school. But I also think that our student body is so academically focused that it becomes tunnel vision, and I don’t see a lot of student-to-student support for their activities.”
Mazor-Hoofien said his extracurricular activities also receive less attendance than sporting events, but many people still have appreciation for choir.
“If you look at something like football games, of course you’re going to see less turnout to a show than our homecoming night,” Mazor-Hoofien said. “It’s important to mention that there is a good amount of the student body who come to shows, even just to see their friends or just because they want to see the show. And I think it’s very commendable.”
Felch said most people who attend her showcase come specifically to support the dancers.
“Obviously, when you’re there at a basketball or football game, you’re there to watch the football game, for the football game vibes and not necessarily to see us dance at halftime,” Felch said. “When you go to the end-of-year showcase, you’re showing interest in the dance team and not just the sports.”
Mazor-Hoofien also said choir concerts tend to attract a specific audience that appreciates the less mainstream aspects of choir, such as classical music and vocal techniques.
“It’s something that’s very antiquated that takes so much time and care and love to get good at and is just not really mainstream media.” Mazor-Hofien said. “That’s the struggle with loving something so antiquated, is that you have to accept that you will never, no matter how good you are, compete with ‘Family Guy’ or YouTube Shorts. I’m never gonna be like TikTok when it comes to audience retention because the art form I choose demands as much from the audience as it does from the singers or actors.”
Williamson also said she doesn’t think many students attend the showcase unless they have a friend performing.
“I would say zero students are coming just because,” Williamson said. “I think it’s mostly family. I would say it’s probably about 75% family of the dancers, extended family of the dancers and 25% student body. It’s less kids than it is family members, typically.”
Ultimately, Williamson said she hopes more students will attend the showcase in the future.
“We want people to just come and enjoy it, and for us to get to show we’ve worked all year, especially because we’re award-winning,” Williamson said. “We’ve won nationals three years in a row. So we want people to come and see that, and to show off all of our hard work. Dance thrives off of audience energy. We like people to cheer and hype us up. That makes us know we’re doing good and want to perform. And so when the audience is quiet, or when there just isn’t an audience, it’s hard to perform.”
