Dance students at IS 234 offered a moving lesson in life.
The movers and shakers at the Sheepshead Bay school put on a modern dance show called “Life” on June 3, and it was epic in scope — covering the full gamut of human experience with such themes as eating, movies, telephone conversations, love, success, money and death.
Twelve modern dance classes came together to form an ensemble of 350, with each class responsible for curating their own dance segment rifting on the theme of their choice. The students built the life-spanning show from the ground up, selecting their themes in brainstorming sessions and creating the choreography through improvisation.
The show’s director said the final product, was truly the handiwork of the dancers and their free-form improvisations, which she later helped them structure into a story.
“You just allow your body to move freely to a concept and then take whatever bubbles up, and then you cement them into something that’s repeatable,” said Elizabeth Alleva, the dance teacher at IS 234. “As a director, I sewed [the movements] together to make a cohesive dance.”
Alleva said the school is brimming with talent, with two of her eighth graders going on to the prestigious La Guardia High School for the Arts. Students begin their modern dance education in the sixth grade and continue through ninth.
“Many of them don’t come with previous dance experience,” she said. “But by the end of the three years, you would find that hard to believe.”
