Windermere Prep dance students hit the stage for concert

Windermere Preparatory School’s dance students are eager to show off their steps — and you can catch them onstage at their upcoming dance concert. 

The school will be hosting its annual winter dance concert, called “An Enchanted Evening of Dance,” at 7 p.m. on Dec. 12 and 13 at the Cypress Center for the Arts at the Windermere Prep campus.

Gilliane Hadley, the dance department chair at Windermere Prep, said the concert includes performances from all of the middle school and high school dance students. A total of 160 dance students will be hitting the stage to perform 15 different dances.

“We have a very large program,” Hadley said. “The show consists of dancers who’ve only been dancing, maybe, this semester or dancers that have been dancing with us since they were in fifth grade and now are graduating seniors. (It showcases) a wide range of levels. … It’s a great way for people to see the evolution of someone who joins our program in sixth grade and by the time they graduate 12th grade.”

Hadley added that the concert will feature not only a wide range of skill levels, but also will feature a variety of dance styles and techniques. One of the dance performances is inspired by a Japanese style of dance and will include live music from Taiko drummers, which will be a new experience for the students.

“It has lots of variety and lots for people to see in the diversity (of dance) that they do,” Hadley said. “Our students are trained in everything. They’re trained in ballet, jazz, contemporary, composition (and) hip hop, so all of those elements are all thrown into one show. The goal of our dance program is to make them the most well-rounded (dancer).”

Mirabella Miranda and Benjamin Haidukewych are both junior International Baccalaureate dance students at Windermere Prep, and they’ve both been in the dance program since the fourth grade. 

“My favorite thing about being in the dance program here is definitely (the fact) that we have lots of freedom,” Miranda said. “In our dances, we get to choreograph many parts of it, and we really get to develop our (choreographical) skills — especially with IB dance. … It really kind of helped me build those skills. Before, it would just be me getting taught a dance, but now I actually get to create, and I really like that because I feel like I’ve really grown as a dancer.”

“I joined dance because I really love music, and I wanted to try a new outlet to explore music and how to express myself,” Haidukewych said. “I really loved seeing how everybody works together to create a picture, an image and make the audience feel a certain way (through dance). I thought dance was a really interesting way to interpret emotion and make a story.”

Although Miranda and Haidukewych have been in the dance program for a number of years, the upcoming concert will be their first time dancing to live music onstage.

“The Japanese dance has been a challenge, definitely, because it’s a whole new style we’ve never really been exposed to before,” Miranda said. “And then when you have that element of live music, you have to consider the fact that the pace and the tempo could go faster or it could be slower. You don’t know. We have a recording that we always practiced with, but obviously on show day we have to come prepared. I feel like we’ve done a really great job adjusting and adapting to the new style.”

“There’s some really complex rhythms in the music,” Haidukewych said. “We have to find where those certain impulses are to guide our movements, so if there’s a really strong impulse there, we can use that as a marker when we’re counting. Or we can use certain accents in the music to emphasize certain points of the movement too, and that’s been a challenge.”