Charisma Dancers Kick Off Winter Season with Busy MLK Weekend
Submitted by LoriAnne Anderson
The Charisma Dance team will perform at the Friday night basketball games before debuting their 2012 State routine “Ghost of a Girl” at a competition Saturday, January 14th at Thurston High School in Springfield.
“Ghost of a Girl” is a contemporary dance piece that continues to showcase the Charisma’s signature cutting-edge style. It is danced to music from “The Lonely” and “Stay” and presents an intriguing story line of perception, reality, and ambiguity that is interpreted with elements of ballet, jazz, and modern dance.
Coaches Jessica Anderson and Megan Hoffman are hoping for a good outcome at Thurston—a two-hour bus ride away. “It’s always a bit of a scramble getting everyone ready at Thurston. We will probably have to start their hair and makeup while on the bus so we can make our scheduled floor practice time and the coaches’ meeting. Then it’s a mad dash to get everyone into costume, warmed up and ready to compete,” said Anderson. “But it’s all worth it to be one of the teams at the first competition of the season. It gives us an advantage.”
The Charisma will be competing against teams of similar size but not necessarily from the 3A classification. “It’s not about winning at this stage of the season,” said Anderson. “Rather, it is the feedback from the judges and the scores that are critical. We need to know that the concept we have for “Ghost of a Girl” resonates with the judges. We need to know if we need to make revisions to the routine. The earlier we have this information, the more productive our season will be. For that reason, the Thurston competition is always exciting and a little stressful.”
It’s going to be a full weekend for the dancers. It starts Friday night with the performance at the basketball game. It will be a long Saturday at Thurston, with the team bus scheduled to head South at about 6 a.m. with an anticipated return that night around 9 p.m., after a full day of competition and team bonding. But it doesn’t end there; in fact, the weekend’s activities are just getting started.
The Dance Drill Coaches Association (DDCA) Winter Meeting is on Sunday, in addition to the DDCA All-State Team auditions. Leah Klaas and Molly Hoffman, both seniors, will be vying to be selected to the All-State team. Klaas is also auditioning for a DDCA dance scholarship on Monday. The All-State Team auditions commence on Sunday with a technical Across-the-Floor sequence that dancers will learn and then audition in front of a panel of judges. After the first round of auditions, the judges will make cuts, and call back the finalists to learn the All-State Audition Routine. The All-State Routine this year includes three distinct dance styles: Jazz, Contemporary, and Hip-Hop. After learning the All-State Routine, finalists will audition the routine for the judges. The dancers will have to wait until State in March to learn if they have been selected to the All-State Team.
Team captains this season are Klaas and Hoffman along with sophomores Patricia Nguyen and Clarissa Tolan. The Charisma roster also includes: Norimi Funatsu, Karina Jaroch, Danielle Lomartire, Mariah Stokes, Serena Stoiantschevsky and Naoko Yamawaki.
The Charisma dancers are scheduled to compete at four regional dance competitions prior to the state championships, beginning with Thurston and followed with competitions at Stayton High School on Feb. 4, Parkrose High School (Portland) on Feb. 18 and Liberty High School (Hillsboro) on March 3. The State competition is scheduled for March 14-17 at Memorial Coliseum.
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