View from 'the gods'

Whiterea Commercial Dance: Year One Variety Showcase (2017)

I went to another enjoyable evening of energetic dancing at the Whiterea Performance Centre. The year one commercial dance students were showcasing what they had learnt during the year.

One thing that I realised about commercial dance compared to other dance professions,is that there are no intervals! 14 students danced non-stop for over an hour – in 22 numbers. These ranged from contemporary, jazz, classical ballet, tap, hip hop, and showgirl. There was even singing – by Tamsin Howe, who sang and danced her way through “Rule the World”

This year’s intake had a strong tap contingent and it was nice to see a whole chorus line of tap dancers doing their thing to ‘Puttin’On the Ritz”.

This year’s showcase only had one ballet number, which was artfully disguised as show girls doing a fan dance – to strains of Swan Lake – entitled Fanfare – choreographed by Anne Gare. There was the crowd pleasing circle of fans – where the dancers arrange themselves in a circle and appear to descend down onside and up the other;there was also two lines of fans doing a ‘Mexican wave’ effect. This was all nicely intermixed with some classical ballet.

There was a nice little musical theatre number, with another take on a love triangle, sung and danced around the Charleston. It was little cheeky and fun – the ‘boy’ (Cole Bockman) doesn’t end up with either ‘girl’, one off whom walks off with the ‘mike’!

There were some ‘darker’ pieces – one that stayed in my mind was Lost in a Book Choreographed by Shenna Dunn. In fact six of the numbers were choreographed by the first year students; with Georgia Wilson doing two – Escalate You and Roxie.

Mr Bockman was a busy man; being the only male dancer in this year’s intake, I and sure he appeared in more numbers than most of the other dancers. He was in the chorus and partnering – so was on stage a lot. He got to showcase his agility with some nice gymnastic moves (as did some of the other dancers); he got to do lots of lifts, supports (dancers high kicking to rest on his shoulder, dancers doing forward walkovers over him), catches, and jumps. In one sequence he does a ‘frog jump’ over his standing partner. In multiple numbers he ends up catching his partner who literally runs then jumps into his ‘safe’ arms.

Another fun night at one of Wellington’s best kept secrets.