During lockdown, students from the Level 3 Extended Diploma in Dance, based at the Amersham campus, have filmed and put together a video of what would have been their ‘finale number’ for their final College theatre show.
The show, called ‘The Company 2020’, was due to take place in May, and would have showcased 26 dance numbers in the styles of ballet, tap, contemporary, jazz and street dance. The students had worked incredibly hard, having rehearsed for 2 months and were just 4 weeks away from the performance when the country went into lockdown.
They made the decision to continue the project online, and course leader, Helen Charalambous directed the project via live Zoom sessions, parts of the dance were choreographed by her, and parts were choreographed by the students. The students had to then video themselves performing all the various sections separately. They then sent all the video clips to one of the students, Chris Travers, who spent around 10 hours editing it together! Chris is fantastic at editing videos, and music, and has practised this skill for various previous performances. It was near impossible to get all the students dancing in sync, but he did an amazing job, and layered the music over the top.
Helen added “I would like to say, how incredibly proud I am of all the students. The work they had produced for their theatre production was of such a high standard. The show numbers were choreographed by staff, students and also a professional guest choreographer. The students were devastated to miss out on their theatre production, but have really made the best of things by continuing to dance from home. I was really touched by the effort they went to for this video, which is just a snippet of the happy ending of the show we had planned.”
The students are also currently working on a rehearsal montage of the 26 show numbers, which is a more serious compilation of their technical dance skills, and innovative choreographic numbers. This montage is intended for the college online show, which will take place soon.
The year 2 students who are leaving us this year have done really well at gaining places on HE professional training courses. Between them they have had offers from prestigious institutions including Performers College, London Contemporary Dance School (The Place), Creative Academy, LIPA (Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts), WILKES Academy and Stella Mann College.
Well done to all students and staff involved, their dedication shines through and we look forward to seeing the montage of their other work soon!
Find out more about our Dance and Performing Arts courses here.
