Northwood Dancers Bloom

BY MANDI MAIORI

The creative process for this trimester’s dance elective, The Choreographic Mind, began with questions: What are you passionate about? What have you discovered about yourself while here at Northwood? If you could do any dance piece, what would it look like? These questions evoked a beautiful response from three students doing a group choreography project.

In answering these questions, junior Jillian Clark ’23 and seniors Ruby Maiore ’22 and Rubin Lewin ’22 saw correlations amongst elements of their learning experience since arriving at Northwood as part of a new dance program. These local students had chosen Northwood to develop their passion for dance. Developing this project, they realized that they had all struggled with confidence during their high school years. Their proposal stated, “We are passionate about each of our personal journeys to confidence and finding ourselves as individuals, standing on our own, and embracing the confidence it takes to be independent, strong young women. We feel this journey is one of the most important things we are doing at Northwood."

Being where we all are in life, female high school students in a new arts program at a predominantly athletic and male school, every girl is trying to figure out who she is and where she stands. We would like to create a dance trio that showcases how each dancer has journeyed towards confidence, how we have struggled and been supported along the way and how we each have taken different pathways to move toward independence. We will start out dancing together, relying on one another, just as we did especially over that first year, but then we will break out into different solo movements showcasing different dance genres and steps that match our unique personalities and pathways toward growth, showing us standing on our own and being truly comfortable in our own skin. Just as flowers can stand tall together supporting one another in the wind, we need to grow deep roots of strength. Even the leaves and petals of the same species can have different rates of growth or different shades of color; however, the blossom is always beautiful and unique. We will title this work Bloom. As three young women, we are proud to dedicate this piece to the Northwood celebration of 50 years of women. We aspire to have the confidence and perseverance that our predecessors had and to continue the legacy of strong and brave women at Northwood.”

As a dance teacher, I am always encouraging students to think about the movement. Dance is about finding something to say and connecting with others. Dance can express feelings and emotions in a way that words often cannot. These three amazing women are doing just that.

Note: The piece was performed on April 27 during Northwood’s Spring Arts Showcase (a collaboration of our music, dance, and arts departments) at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts.