The dance company presented “The Language of Dance” last week. The performers showed different types of dance as well as how they connected to each other. Their goal was to use “The Language of Dance” to add emotion to the show.
“[The show] was just an exploration of all the different types of dance,” senior Ryane Byrd said, “and how each of them connected.”
The “Language of Dance” is a notation that Tina Curran teaches at the University of Texas. “Language of Dance” helps dancers come up with choreography and refine their movement.
“It made me not take each thing as a step,” Byrd said. “It’s a movement that has to grow or expand.”
Guest choreographers worked with MAC’s Youth Dance Company, to help them learn new styles of dance.
“The guest choreographers really helped to give it more of a flavor,” sophomore Eliza Dahmen said, “and make it different.”
Out of all the dances, the most meaningful to Dahmen was the piece Cohen, one of the dancers, danced in. The piece was about people’s spiritual connection to the universe and everything’s connection to the universe.
“I felt I could really connect to it,” Dahmen said. “I could really relate it to stories in my life and give it personal meaning.”
Photos by Maya Coplin
![A PRIDE-FUL WEEK OF CELEBRATION:
As part of AISDs week-long celebration of PRIDE, students of the McCallum Spectrum Club worked to create a week full of activities, prizes and helping hands to support the schools LGBTQ+ community. The club is widely available for anyone to join, and specializes in creating a safe space for students to share and give advice. While Pride month itself isn’t until June, AISD designates one week in March to celebrate and commemorate the importance of this part of the student body.
As part of the week of festivities, the club held a booth in the front hall handing out pride stickers, pins and merch to passers by. For junior Zane Joly, the booth idea was brought up as a way for students to engage with one another, and connect with the community.
“I call out to people in the halls, ‘hey, do you want stickers?’” Joly said. “We just give out free pride stickers and sometimes other free pride merch to the students of Macallum because everybody likes pride stickers.”
While the week itself is packed with a variety of different activities, the overall goal is to bring students closer together and create a safer environment for self expression at McCallum.
“The idea for the student panel largely came from the black [history] student panel that is done during Black History Month,” Joly said. “And the idea for giving out free stuff was developed at Spectrum last year.”
Joly is not only a member of the Spectrum club, but also holds a leadership position giving them a more hands-on role with the projects and Pride Week activities.
“McCallum has a very high queer population,” Joly said. “I think Its nice that we get a chance to celebrate Pride because Pride Month is during the summer, and I think its just a nice thing for the community and getting to just celebrate it.”
While the merch table at lunch was only a small part of the numerous parts of McCallum’s Pride week, for Joly this small impact made all the difference.
“The purpose of Pride is to make people not feel alone and to make them feel safe,” Joly said. “The goal is [to make people] happy about a part of themselves that theyre often conditioned to not feel good about.”
Caption by Chloe Lewcock. Photo by Shila Gill.](https://macshieldonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/53597258192_6e7168d8ae_o-1-1200x676.jpg)
