Year 9 Dance Students Inspired by Guest Artist

Guest artist Jade Lee ran a workshop for Year 9 Dance Elective students.

An exciting guest artist workshop has given Year 9 Dance students a deeper understanding of musical theatre and performance.

Year 9 Dance students have enjoyed an exciting opportunity in recent weeks to learn from a guest artist with over a decade of experience in musical theatre.

Year 9 Dance student Lilyrose G. shares her reflections on this experience:

During the past few weeks, Year 9 Dance Elective students had the chance to work with Jade Lee, who has a tremendous amount of experience in musical theatre. Jade has been a big inspiration to all of the Year 9 dancers, introducing us to real-life theatre and what it takes to perform and bring dance to life on stage.

Jade taught us a piece of choreography from PACA’s (Pan Academies of Creative Arts) production Roar. We learnt sections of the piece over three lessons and then brought all the choreography together in our final lesson to create a short dance number.

This new dance pushed many of us outside of our comfort zones. We learnt how to perform with expression while still executing sharp movements when the music became intense, and to move with flow when the music softened. This allowed us to expand beyond the styles we are used to and broaden our understanding of jazz, hip hop and musical theatre. Jade encouraged us to become better dancers and performers, showing us the original piece from the production and helping us understand what it takes to perform at a high standard.

Having Jade work with us over the week was an amazing experience, and we are all extremely grateful. She brought something different and exciting, which really helped us connect with and deepen our understanding of our topic, Hybrid Bodies on Stage: Musical Theatre Performance Practices.