Keep on Movin'/Don't Stop

Is there a greater redundancy than to write that Dance Ensemble has been on the move? Probably not, especially with this year’s crew, under the endlessly creative and inspirational direction of Gallia Vickery (day job: Thacher mathematics teacher).

Beyond the “usual”—several rehearsals weekly, performances on campus for just about any and every special event—Dance Ensemble recently devoted a weekend to their art, in the company of a dynamic dance troupe named Lineage.

Backstory first.

Last year, the Lineage Dance Company offered a master class at Nordhoff High School in Ojai, which five of Thacher Dance Ensemble members attended. Gallia got to know Hilary Thomas, the choreographer—a science teacher at Flintridge Preparatory School and therefore, in many ways, a kindred spirit—and the girls so enjoyed the group that they committed to auditioning a piece for the Pasadena Dance Festival that Lineage hosts.

Done deal. Earlier this year, the Senior Dance Ensemble—Laura Ammons, Sydney Bowie, Jane Fisher, Sarae Snyder, and Taryn Van Vliet—took it on the road to the said festival, having had a contemporary piece, Searching for Home, accepted for performance, the troupe spent a month learning and restaging the piece. Since dance is not “in season” during the winter months, this special endeavor necessitated the quintet’s giving over much of their precious discretionary time to rehearse. But that they did, and after a warm-up performance for their wildly enthusiastic hometown fans at a Friday Assembly and the rest of the class day, they headed south-southeast to Pasadena, where Emily Williamson Hancock CdeP 1983 and Henry Hancock—parents of Charles ’10, Sarah ’12, and Ellie ’13—would play gracious hosts during their time there.

Writes Gallia:

We arrived at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium and Convention Center early for a full day of classes, workshops and showcase performances. Dancers took classes in ballet, modern, modern partnering, lyrical, salsa, yoga, hip-hop, African, and Kylian repertoire (Jiri Kylian is artistic director of Nederlands Dance Theatre). At various other times during the day, there were showcase performances including works by dancers from Idyllwild Arts Academy, LA County High School of the Arts, and Maple Youth Ballet. Midday the dancers performed in a panel performance with Arcadia, Laguna Beach, Mayfield, and Van Nuys High Schools. Rather than a competition, this performance was an opportunity for the dancers to be evaluated by a panel of five professional dancer-teacher-choreographers, who watched each performance piece and offered feedback in writing, both constructive suggestions to improve technical and performance skills and thoughtful compliments.

Our dancing was finished by 6:00 pm and we had just enough time to unwind and have a nice dinner before returning to watch another performance. The evening performance was just as varied as the day and included performances by Revelations Aerial Dance, Yogen's BollywoodDance, Terri Best Dance (one of my personal favorites), and Lineage Dance, the host company.

“This dance festival,” said Jane afterwards, “was an amazing opportunity for me to try totally new dance forms—lyrical jazz, contemporary ballet. Not only were the classes fun and challenging, the student showcases were awe-inspiring and the evening show was phenomenal. Best of all, I got to share this experience with my fellow senior dancers and closest friends. It was a weekend I'll never forget, from the lovely and relaxing evening at the Hancocks’, to taking class with professional dancers, to sharing dance combinations while in line for ice cream in the evening.”

Sarae agreed nearly word-for-word, adding, “I really enjoyed the classes that I took and I loved watching others perform—especially the pros. [It all] reinforced my appreciation of Ms. Vic's choreography and inspired me—an extremely positive experience, worth every bit of exhaustion.”

So moved was Gallia by Lineage’s approach, philosophy, mission, and performance that she invited them to lead a two-day workshop that involved hours and hours of dynamic interaction with the seniors, as well as juniors Francesca Fataar, Valorie Denton-Moore, and Steffi Star, and sophomore Tabitha Sullivan-Wallace. Four 1½-hour sessions later—plus a dress-technical rehearsal on stage and as a short rehearsal with other collaborators (seniors Sam Meyer and Teresa Findley in a vocal/guitar duet of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, and Jackson Berler and Max Hoffman as Right Brain/Left Brain)—and there it was: a shimmeringly beautiful whole cloth made out of what had been mere threads.

“The girls worked every muscle,” said Gallia later. “They were very sore the next day, but they tried new things with versatile, eclectic older dancers. I was very proud of what they accomplished.”

The Thacher dancers weren’t too winded or otherwise incapacitated to add their perspectives. Tabitha wrote, “My experience with Lineage was amazing! It was a lot of hard work, but I tried some things I’d never done before—and it was great to get out of my comfort zone. I’m especially grateful about getting to share the experience with the rest of Dance Ensemble.” Four-year Ensemble veteran Laura Ammons called the weekend “an excellent taste of someone else's choreography,” going on to say, “I learned so much, and loved having the chance to perform with such a talented group of people.”  Steffi loved the dynamism of the workshop and performance: “It was impossible not to feed off of Hilary's energy. We had so much fun!”

Gallia wrapped it all up humbly: “The best of our dancers get only me. For them to have a [different] choreographer who will challenge them in different ways is the start of their becoming unafraid of trying new things and of working with other teachers—the start of their becoming real dancers.”

If well-begun is half-done, Gallia will just have to take the credit for the launch.