It is scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 19, at the Ted Adcock Community/Senior Center at 535 Kelly Ave. in Half Moon Bay. Admission is $5 at the door.
What viewers get is a variety show of pure dance, said company founder Shely Pack-Manning. Fifty dancers ranging from 2 to 19 will perform 10 jazz, lyrical, ballet, tap, contemporary, musical-theater dance and acrobatic numbers.
 Photos courtesy Shely Pack Dancers Top. young members of the Shely Pack Dancers strike a dynamic pose for the acrobatic 'Icicles' dance that will begin their performance. Above, dancer Darragh White choreographs one of the numbers from the show. |
This show also introduces a handful of Pack students working behind the scenes as choreographers.
Grace Holmquist, a former Miss Dance of California (Dance Masters of America) is choreographing some of the littlest Pack dancers. Senior students Lexi Viernes and Jackie Clark are co-choreographing a jazz routine to “Rock and Roll Christmas” to close the show. And current Pack student Darragh White, 13, is making her debut choreographing a contemporary lyrical number, “Winter Song,” for about 20 dancers, age 11 to 17.
A Pack student since age 3, White had insight into how dances are put together. She envisioned the number early in the process, and then it was a matter of teaching it, incorporating spontaneous ideas and fitting it all to the experience levels of dancers.
Choreography is very easy, she said. “It’s like school,” she said. “You have to learn to work around the levels people can handle.”
She says she starts sessions with warm-ups and has the students run through the number to fix problems. Then she gives new steps, sometimes verbally, using dance terminology, and sometimes through demonstrations.
Then she has to incorporate the hardest part — her own placement. She’s in the number too.
“It’s interesting because it’s hard to know where I am at any point in time” in the number, she said.
The Pack Dancers can be reached at 726-7811.
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