'Dancing with the Green River Stars' returns to the stage

The much-requested "Dancing with the Green River Stars" event will make its return to the Green River High School stage next week.

Student dancers and "stars" representing different high school clubs and organizations will compete in the event to raise funds for activities their groups will be participating in over the summer, including conferences, workshops and trips. The winning dance partners will get an extra portion of money for their group. Organizations being represented include theater, choir, dance, band, speech and debate, the National Honor Society, student council, tennis and track and field.

This year is the second time "Dancing with the Green River Stars" has been put on at the high school, returning after a two-hear hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Obviously with COVID we had to shut down quite a bit and made a lot of changes to what we could and couldn't do," GRHS Theater Director Bradlee Skinner explained. "But now we're actually excited to be able to bring it back."

When the event was performed in the 2018-2019 school year, it was a hit.

"The community has been really supportive of it," Bradlee said. "They've actually been constantly asking us, 'When are you doing Dancing with the Green River Stars?' We loved it, we had such a great response to it the first year that we did it, so we've just been waiting for that opportunity to be able to again have not only a lot of individuals in the audience but to have students that were able and ready to participate in it."

The student participants were able to audition if they were interested, and the 10 dancers selected then picked their partners from organizations in the school. The dance duos then had only a few weeks to learn their routines before the performance in front of the audience.

While each duo has a designated "dancer," those students may or may not have had previous dance experience. Austin Macer, a senior at GRHS and one of the dancers, said he enjoys watching dancing but has never considered himself a dancer. He admitted learning the routine has been challenging, but he feels confident he'll be able to get it down. He decided to be part of the event to do something new.

"It just looked fun," Macer said. "It's my last year of high school so I might as well."

Other participants, like Kaylee Noyes, Madilyn Grubb and Alona Brown have experience dancing in theatrical productions at the school but are new to ballroom dance styles.

"It's a lot harder," Noyes said. "It's just going to be me and one other person on stage instead of all of us."

Grubb agreed dancing one-on-one is harder than in a group.

"There's not people that you can hide behind or have people cover you if you screw up, you just have to work at it and hope you get it right," Grubb said.

The most challenging part for Brown has been getting everything in sync and remembering the choreography.

While learning the dance routines - which include swing, tap, salsa, hip hop, mambo and tango among other dance styles - has been a challenge for the students, the "stars" are excited for the chance to represent and raise support for their groups.

Lucy Adams is dancing to represent the National Honor Society (NHS), which she is currently the president of. Adams hopes the event will bring more attention to NHS and encourage other students to want to be a part of the group and push themselves to be included.

Abigail Smith is excited to be the star representing choir.

"I want to bring more awareness to our performing arts," Smith said. "We just need more of a voice in general, just for choir and band and stuff like that, and just to show that choir supports the other performing arts and other activities."

As the students have prepared for their dance performances, they've been helped by the previous "Dancing with the Green River Stars" champion, Katherine Skinner.

Katherine and her partner James King, who represented NHS, won the event the last time it was held in 2019, a month before Katherine graduated from GRHS. Katherine is now working at Washington Elementary school but was asked by Bradlee help with bringing the event back the second time. With her love for ballroom dancing, Katherine was happy to hop on board, helping Bradlee choreograph the 10 dance routines for the show and working with the students.

"I just wanted to see it put on again," Katherine said, explaining she'd enjoyed being part of it the first year and was disappointed when COVID canceled the event. "After two years of not having it I'm really glad we're bringing it back, and hopefully making it something that's going to happen for a long time here at the school."

The event gives students from different organizations the chance to come together and get to know each other better, which brings greater connection in the school, according to Katherine. It also gives the community the chance to support the high school.

"It's a great time to come and watch how much support that all these other sports get and coming all together to help fundraise for them to keep going," Katherine said.

"Dancing with the Green River Stars" will take place at 7 p.m. at the GRHS theater Feb. 16. Tickets are $5.

 

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