LC Dance Company creates unique show

To close out the Spring semester, the Lewis & Clark Dance Company puts on the second major dance show of the year, Dance Y. While Dance Extravaganza (Dance X), the Fall semester dance show, is heavily advertised and attended, Dance Y often sees a smaller turnout, due to lesser guidance from the Theatre Department and subsequent funding. Dance X is choreographed by Dance majors and minors for their final projects and represents the culmination of dance courses at LC. Dance Y, on the other hand, is entirely extracurricular and run by students, and open to choreographers of any major, at any point in their college career. 

Dance Y participants work diligently to create a show worth seeing. The lack of departmental oversight surrounding the show creates opportunities for less experienced choreographers to try their hands at directing a dance, and makes it a draw for people who may want a more relaxed schedule and overall experience. 

Alaura Diaczun ’24 is excited to experiment with choreography for the first time.

“I’ve been involved with the dance program here, and I’ve also danced for most of my life: social (dance) and theatre,” Diaczun said. “Dance Y is usually a little lower-stakes (than Dance X), and more casual. There’s more room to wiggle around with ideas that you have, and I figured it’s my senior year, so if there’s a time to do it, it’s now.” 

Her experience choreographing so far has been an inspiring one, despite it being new territory for her.

“I knew the feelings I wanted to portray, and I made sure to get dancers who I knew could emulate those feelings. I did improv with them to ‘steal’ ideas and get inspired,” Diaczun said. “All of my moves are very natural. There are fun, interesting, technically cool moves, but also a lot of moves that just feel good in the body.”

Diaczun is using the song “Oh That’s Nice” by Pete Rodriguez for her dance, and she combines several genres of dance moves to this music. 

“I chose this song because I knew “I wanted to do something that mixed together different Latin ballroom and Latin social dance moves, because that’s my specialty and what I love to do,” Diaczun said. “I discovered this song because it’s part of a genre called Boogaloo, which mixes a lot of different elements: salsa, mambo, R&B, merengue.”

Another dancer venturing into the realm of choreography, Lila Ward ’25, has embraced her time creating a dance on her own. 

“I wanted to choreograph because I’ve been doing Dance X and Dance Y the whole time I’ve been here,” Ward said. “Being a part of the LC dance community has been a great experience — it’s the nicest dance community I’ve ever been a part of. I wanted to expand my skills and try something new.”

It being her first time, she has formed her own creative process, beginning with selecting a song and gathering thoughts along the way from her peers.

“I just do what feels good. For choreographing, I didn’t really know where to start, so I decided to just choose a song that I liked and choreograph to the song specifically, which gave me a framework to work around,” Ward said. “I also always encourage the people I’m working with to collaborate with me because it gives new ideas and widens the pool of creativity.”

Ward chose a song by Lous and the Yakuza, a French-speaking female rapper, called “Courant d’air.”

“I thought the musicality of this song would look really awesome with dancers moving along to it. Most people would say (my dance) is contemporary or modern, but it’s to a rap song, so there are more rhythmic aspects to it,” Ward said. “My dancers tell me that a lot of my movement styles are kind of animalistic, so we’ve started playing with that. We’re just having fun.”

Dance Y is a beautiful collection of a wide variety of different styles and genres of dance, with many influences from new choreographers. If you missed it, or if you enjoyed it and want more, make sure to keep an eye out for more dance events next year!