By Darah Protas
Staff Writer ’06

Considering the many students who participate and the countless hours it consumes of their time each week, dance does not often receive the recognition it deserves. Dance has not weaseled its way into the “sports” category like cheerleading. But, it is not exactly an art either. Sophomore Danielle Berke (for more see p. 10) sums it up best, “Dance is a physically active art. I don’t think there are a lot of things that approach the same level as dance, furthermore ballet. There are a lot of things that go into being a convincing and captivating dancer. It has to be athletic and artistic at the same time.”

Ballet is the basis of dance. While some Lassiter dancers take an hour or two of ballet a week for technique, others may spend up to 10 times that amount per week in ballet.

Sophomore Kaylee Niemassik dances at Georgia ballet. She also averages about 20 hours a week and takes ballet, point, modern, pilates, and some partnering. This year, she performed in Swan Lake and Nutcracker with the Georgia Ballet professional company, and Continuum, a tribute to the director. In the summer, Kaylee takes a 5 week intensive, a 1-week overnight-camp, and 4 days a week of morning and afternoon classes with the professionals in between. She says that she would “love to join a professional company while I’m in college, balancing both schedules at the same time, and continue with ballet until it wasn’t practical anymore or if I had an injury.”
On the other side of the dance world, there are competitive studios. Tight, skimpy costumes, covered in glitter and rhinestones are perfectly acceptable, if not expected. Rhythm Dance Center and Centre Stage School of Dance are just two of the many competitive studios that train Lassiter students.

Freshman Nicole Blochinger is in Senior Danceline at Rhythm Dance Center. This year, Senior Danceline went to 3 competitions, 2 festivals, 1 convention, and took 2 guest classes by dancers who choreograph for J.Lo, Christina Aguliera, P. Diddy, and Justin Timberlake. Nicole takes 1 ballet, 1 jazz, and 1choreography class a week at Rhythm. In addition to that, she also dances at John Robert Powers, a talent, modeling, and acting school 3 times a week which adds up to about 12 hours of dance a week. This July, Nicole is going to New York for a competition. After high school, she says she wants to “Join a dance alliance and travel around. But I’ll definitely go to college.”
Sophomore Claire Richie dances at the Centre Stage School of Dance in Senior 2 jazz company and Senior 1 tap company. At Centre Stage, Claire takes ballet and pointe, jazz, tap, and super production which is a big production dance with everyone in all the companies in it. At Centre Stage, she performs 4 dances at each of the 7 to 8 competitions a year as well as company show and recital. Claire also dances for the dance ministry at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church where they dance a more lyrical and conservative style at the big church productions like “The Easter Story.” The dance ministry will also be dancing on choir tour this year when they travel to Poland.

Although this physically active art is often lost between the recognition of band and football, keep an eye on Broadway because Lassiter holds dozens of great dancers.