The tap dancing group “Footnotes” performs at the Andover Dance Festival.
With full turnout in the Pan Athletic Center (Pan) on both Friday and Saturday evening, the Andover Dance Festival (ADF), brought electrifying energy to the stage. Supported by a dedicated team of student producers, the dance styles ranged from ballet to hiphop to flow arts, giving Andover dancers the opportunity for diverse expression.
Speaking towards the diversity of dance styles on campus, many unique collaborations debuted during ADF. One included a partnership between Photon, Andover’s flow arts group, and JVNE, the dance division of Andover’s K-pop group. Gavin Shyroc ’28, a performer in Photon, explained the process in more detail.
“It’s been a project that’s been going on for about the past two months now. I’m definitely excited for an audience to see Photon collaborating with an actual dance group because we’ve never done this before. To be able to mesh with traditional dance and do something which is capable of [a] more dynamic, expressionful effect, one you can achieve with real faces and people’s body parts you can see tangibly moving around, is uniquely meaningful. It’s different from Photon [where] you don’t have to be worried about how your face looks or if everyone is wearing the right costume or if you’re entirely in sync because [of the] dazzling lights,” said Shyroc.
Another act pioneered by Breanna Ren ’29 with Jia-yi Zhi ’29, Sophia Zhang ’29, and Sophia Zhan ’28 featured a self-choreographed ballet quartet based on the famous Dance of the Little Cygnets in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.
“[It’s] a Swan Lake parody of the Four Little Swans, but a funnier version that [contains] a lot of intentional mess-ups. To make a parody out of [Swan Lake] is how we decided to get more attention to ballet. At this school, people are very conditioned to watching jazz and fusion, pop with familiar music. Adding that little bit of humor makes it more relatable,” said Ren.
Student producer Yumi Lai ’27, who had blended the roles of performing and managing, emphasized her work as a producer as well as the hard work of everyone involved.
“[It was] a really great role because it teaches you how to be organized and also being able to manage all the stuff the dance clubs need. I just hope [the audience takes] away how much work everyone put into this. It’s definitely not easy to do one performance full out and then only have two acts to change, but a lot of dancers had to do that. The reason why we do this is not just to entertain everyone, but also to show them how much we love dancing together,” said Lai.
Fellow producer and dancer Morgan Hsu ’26 commented on the pride she had for dancers, producers, and teachers alike in their combined dedication to ADF.
“Despite the sound malfunctions during rehearsal on Wednesday, Thursday, and the Saturday show, which I know were frustrating for the performers because they created a very bassy sound in the music, I am proud of how resilient the dancers have been and the energy we’ve created. I’m very proud of everything we’ve accomplished for ADF,” said Hsu.
Nishi Amin ’28 compared the energy of ADF to Grasshopper (G-Hop), the annual Family Weekend talent show.
“I loved watching every single act, and it was a little different than G-Hop, and I liked how people came in and said [something] at the beginning of each act. I liked how they introduced each section of acts. I really liked Hypno[tiq], just the song that they chose and the way they were all so synchronized and together really stood out to me,” said Amin.
Jourdyn Taylor ’29, echoed similar sentiments on the night, shouting out Fusion as one of her favorite performances.
“Honestly, Fusion was an amazing starter for ADF. It was so hypnotizing [and] it really caught you. The audience was very supportive of all the dancers. I really liked that we were very loud. I would definitely come next year, it was so amazing being here. I hope they continue doing it for many, many years,” said Taylor.
