RBR Holds Its Spring Dance Performance

The Red Bank Regional (RBR) Academy of Visual & Performing Arts presents their Spring Dance Performance on Thursday, May 15, 2014, at 7 pm and an encore performance on Sunday, May 18, at 2 pm. The show takes place at the Red Bank Regional Theater at 101 Ridge Road in Little Silver. Tickets are $10 and $5 for senior citizens and can be purchased at the door. Admission is free for all RBR students.

            Forty seven dances will perform 29 numbers in a mix of jazz, contemporary, hip hop and lyrical dance styles choreographed by students and six professional dance/choreographers. Guest artists include Jessica Berube, who teachers dance at the School at Columbia, RBR alumna Cari France who teachers and choreographs dance, Alex Vari who has performed in musical theater and Bollywood, Barbara Vari, Director of the Woodbrige School of Dance, Meredith Koloski Wehr, a dance and yoga instructor, and New York City dance instructor Dylan Smith who has danced in national musical tours.

            Dylan’s piece, Go Do opens the show with an energetic welcome to spring featuring the Junior and Senior Class majors.  Some of the other concert numbers include such favorites as Beyonce’s Partition, Rhianna’s Breaking Dishes, and Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky. The concluding, number, Celebration, is choreographed by the entire senior class in celebration of their graduation.  It fittingly features celebratory songs with Cool & the Gang’s Celebrations, Madmen’s Holiday, One More Time by Daft Punk and Whitney Huston’s Celebrate.

            Dance will continue to play an important role in many of the seniors’ post graduation plans. Alyssa Amato will major in psychology at Towson University and hopes to join its dance team or Pom squad. Kelly Bonner, who is pre-med at Boston College, hopes to join her school’s dance team. Katharine Cusack will be an exercise physiology major at Lynchburg College where she also plans to continue her dancing. Jennifer Kopceuch will study occupational therapy at the University of Tampa and wants to join the University’s dance team. Gianna Pianoforte will study kinesiology at the University of Delaware and has already signed up for Delaware’s Dance team. Psychology major Gabriella Redaelli looks forward to continuing her dance career as a Lionette on Penn State Dance team. Alissa Weisman hopes to continue to dance in the Virginia Tech Dance Company next year.

            “No matter what they do in their futures, dance has been a great motivator for them the years they have studied at RBR,” states Dorianne Murray, the RBR dance teacher.