For the first time since covid hit, advanced dancers will be allowed to attend and participate in the Arizona Dance Education Organization’s 36th Annual High School Dance Festival. Held at Shadow Mountain High School, dancers across Arizona will be allowed to choose from a variety of different classes to take and later perform their prepared dance for the other schools. The festival allows students to dance with master teachers and students from other schools. 

Perry has attended the festival for the past four years, luckily for but senior Annie Morill, she has has attended the festival twice before. “It’s pretty fun. I know Desert Ridge [High School] and Williams Field [High School] are going to be there. We know their dance team because we [dance] with them.  There’s only a certain amount of people from each school allowed in every class, so you kind of have to mix together. There’s schools from all over, not just Gilbert and Chandler. It’s not typical Chandler high schools.”, said Morill.

They offer classes for a variety of styles including Bollywood, ballroom, modern, contemporary, hip hop, voguing, Irish, swing, and African. “[Last year] I took voguing and flamenco. Since I’m a senior I get first pick. I think I’m going to take contemporary or ballroom. Anything but hip-hop. If there’s ballet, I will definitely take it,” said Morill. 

The classes are very interactive, some focusing on exposure to different styles that aren’t as typical. “Some of the teachers there are professionally trained and others are just local dance teachers that they find. I had never done flamenco or voguing before, but a lot of people had never done it either. For African, it’s really cool. There’s no music being played, it’s a live drummer. It’s that way for ballroom too. It’s very cultural sometimes. You get to be exposed to different cultures of dance,” said Morill.

“I used to go when I was in high school. Some of the masterclass teachers are the same each year. I know Jen McCusick, who is teaching lyrical jazz, teaches dance at Scottsdale Community College and at studios around the valley. Weezy, who is teaching the jazz funk masterclass, is the choreographer for the Mercury and works a lot with the Sun’s dancers, so he’s pretty well known for hip-hop. He also taught a masterclass here. We had a teacher conference and [Helen Buck-Pavlick] taught us a class, and it was so hard,” said advanced dance teacher Rebecca Miller. 

This year, advanced dancers will be performing a contemporary piece choreographed by senior Maya Miller. “The piece was about the struggle of overcoming covid and getting used to regular life again,” said Miller. The dancers cover their mouths with their hands to represent wearing a mask and a moment in which a dancer is isolated in the center, symbolic for having covid. She is also submitting the piece for a choreography project originally for her capstone project, which involves service hours and the experience to choreograph another piece. “I’m really excited because every piece that I’ve choreographed, I’ve been in. It’s really cool to choreograph a piece and see it on other dancers,” said Miller. 

Since their scores are adjudicated, they get to perform and watch the other schools without the environment of it being a competition. Instead, they send their scores back to the school for feedback based on Arizona state standards based on performance and technique. In addition, Miller is scored on choreography.