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Junior and Senior high school students who have been inducted into the National Honor Society for Dance Arts are eligible to apply for this award, one of the highest dance honors program in the US. Candidates for the award must excel in all three categories:
To see read our Winner and Finalists essays about their choreography and see Videos of their solos, scroll down.
To view all of the Videos of the solos (including Honorable Mentions), click here.
Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School (PA)
North Fort Myers High School (FL)
Willamette Valley (OR)
The Dancer's EDGE (IA)
USC Hybrid High School (CA)
Howard High School (MD)
Princeton Day School Dances (NJ)
The Archer School For Girls (CA)
All That Dance (WA)
San Marino Dance Academy (CA)
Ridge High School (NJ)
Shishya School of Performing Arts (NJ)
Shanghai American School Pudong (China)
McCallum High School of Fine Arts Academy (TX)
New World School of the Arts (FL)
Ursuline Academy (MO)
Choreography Essay - The title of my solo piece is"Unmasking My True Self." The motivation for this dance stemmed from the constant struggle to fit societal standards as a performer in the arts and the stress to meet the expectations of others. In our daily lives, many of us wear metaphorical masks, concealing our authentic selves to meet the expectations established by others. This solo represents my individual journey to overcome these stereotypes and embrace my true self. The purpose of my initial choreography was to express the emotional and psychological struggle of trying to fit in a mold established by society.Through complex movements and expressive gestures, I tried to illustrate the tension and frustration of existing behind a mask. The dance starts with limited and stiff movements, representing the limitations set by social norms. As the piece progresses, the movements become more fluid and unrestricted, representing the journey towards self-acceptance and the shedding of the "mask." One of the main challenges I encountered during the choreographic process was finding a balance between technical precision and expressing deep emotions. It was essential to make sure that each movement carried a significant emotional weight while maintaining the technical aspects of the dance. Additionally, translating the abstract concept of wearing a "mask" into tangible choreography required a lot of experimentation and refinement. However, overcoming these challenges allowed me to create a piece that not only showcases technical skill but also resonates deeply with the audience on an emotional level.
Choreograhy Essay - The title of the piece I choreographed and performed was “Dissension.” The music is titled “The Winner Is” and was performed by DeVotchKa and Mychael Danna. When I found this piece of music I instantly felt connected to it. I felt a storyline full of wonder, exploration, and an internal battle. I chose to title my piece “Dissension” because it means a disagreement that leads to discord, and the discord being within oneself. Once, I had this concept of the story I wanted to tell, I took inspiration from climaxes, accents, rhythms, dynamics, and changes within the music. I wanted to have a mixture of fluidity and staccato to show the change between peace and conflict. Also, I found that when thinking of an internal battle, it felt natural to make contact with my own body or to concave within myself. To me, the most important part of my choreographic process was allowing my heart to feel the music and tell my body what to do and the progression of the story. The most difficult obstacle I encountered was falling into habits. I feel all dancers have a specific movement or rhythm they fall into while choreographing, so I worked hard to break out of this habit. I had to focus on exploring all possible steps that could lead to the next step and allow curiosity flow through the choreography. Once, I became comfortable with the uncomfortable I found the movement flowing out from a deep place inside of me.
Choreography Essay - The main intent of my choreography, idontwannabeyouanymore, was to create a competition piece that I was proud of. Initially, I wanted it to show my accumulated skills like technique, musicality, and quality of movement. As time went on, I played with different songs and styles. As I rediscovered and saw others dance to idontwannabeyouanymore, I knew that this was the song. I picked it because of the feelings Billie Eilish presents; the deep confliction and sadness automatically connected and drew me in. Whilst choreographing, I would often get stuck, wanting to make sure the movement felt natural and performable. The way that I got over this block would be to start the music at the beginning and perform it as if I were on stage. This often put me in a different headspace, and new movement would flow out of me. If this didn’t work, I would stop choreographing, and come back to it, say, the next day. This put less pressure on the task, and in the long run, positively affected the piece. Once I was finished with the choreography, I truly found myself within it. I discovered how much I was subconsciously choreographing with my heart and psyche. Easily, I was able to write down a story that paralleled my struggles with confidence, and self-hatred. Now, every time I perform it, I feel free. Being able to reflect and present my own story to an audience has been, and will continue to be, the most therapeutic to me.
Choreography Essay - The title of the choreography is The Professor & La Fille Danse (contemporary solo). My goal for this piece was to change up the choreography style I had been dancing for the last few years, where I had a lot of big, bombastic movements and tricks throughout the whole piece. I was unhappy with how my solos ran in this style because it felt like I was yelling loudly through dance instead of making artistic choices. This time I wanted to reel it in by working with more thoughtful movements and saving the big movements for later. Making this switch up wasn’t easy because my natural instinct was to do what I had done before, so I had to get a lot of inspiration from dancers who were better at smooth movement. They were mainly my older peers at my dance studio. They were an example of good movement quality to me and when creating my solo, I tried to create something similar to their style while still maintaining my own strengths. The song selection was another difficulty because in order to meet my goal, the song had to match the style I wanted. I ultimately landed on Damien Rice’s The Professor & La Fille Danse because of how story-driven it was and its surprising French lyrics at the end. It gave me a lot to play with as a choreographer and it was also extremely unique.