Every year, Wando’s dance program conducts a Winter Dance concert for its students to showcase their own creative choreographies and their knowledge of modern and historical dance.

Since the end of August, the dancers have been hard at work on a number of solo and class projects.

“We finished the class piece by the end of September” said senior Lexi Gravino “and then we just started working on other stuff.”

Even though they had very little time to work on their projects this semester, the students’ dances were nonetheless breathtaking. They focused on a number of themes such as self discovery, overcoming obstacles in life, and cultural conflict.

“We had two group projects, and we just selected the solos that the class wanted.” said Gravino.

The solos were original choreographies created by each dancer over the course of the last couple of months. Each solo was introduced with a small narrative from the soloist explaining what had inspired their piece and its personal significance to them. Some were inspired by sculptures, past experiences, or an artist the dancer admires.

“About a month ago, we were all given artists to study, mine was Shen Wei,” Gravino said. “He was from China and came over to the US on a scholarship for dance when he was in high school, so [my dance] was inspired by his Asian heritage.”

The last dance was a stunning group piece where every student had a chance on stage. The piece incorporated themes and music from the previous dances along with segments of poetry sprinkled here and there, as a final note to their dazzling performance

As the students danced to the middle of the stage, the concert came to a close with graceful curtsies and bows and a loud, well deserved applause from the audience.