Huntington Beach Academy for the Performing Arts closes out school year with ‘Synergy’
The 13 senior members of the Huntington Beach Academy for the Performing Arts dance company call themselves the “senior dogs,” a bit of an inside joke that dates to last summer.
“We were all dancing together for two weeks straight, and that was our first two weeks together as a group,” explained HBAPA dance company member Laci Ganier, a senior at Huntington Beach High. “We had come from all these different ensembles … and that was our first time under the same roof doing the same thing. A guest teacher that we had was telling us to stray away from dancing like a fast puppy with our movement, being really hyper, but instead be laid back with our movement like a senior dog.”
The nickname stuck. Now the senior dogs are out for one more prowl.
The dance department presents HBAPA’s final show of the school year this weekend. “Synergy” will take place in the Huntington Beach Union High School Historic Theater, with a show Friday night and two more Saturday.
It features several pieces from the experienced dance company, as well as two pieces each from the tap, jazz, ballet and modern dance ensembles.
“It’s got something for everybody,” said show director Marie Hoffman, who oversees the HBAPA dance company ensemble. “It’s very beautifully produced, brilliantly danced. In my opinion, it is a professional caliber dance concert in a state-of-the-art theater. I think the passion of these dancers, it’s what people comment on most often. They’re obviously brilliant technicians; the execution borders on perfection. But their love for what they do, their love for each other as people, their love for this program, you can feel it. ‘Synergy’ is such an explosion of passion and emotion.”
That comes through from the first piece — the seven-minute-long “Irreconcilable Differences” — to the last of the show, the funky “Miss Honey,” which features dancers dressed in silver and going into the pit in front of the stage.
“The opening piece has become a favorite to me,” said Ganier, who is headed to UC Irvine as a dance major next year. “I don’t go off stage for the entire seven minutes. While it’s grueling, it’s very fun to perform.”
“The Side Door” is a contemporary piece which features different duets of dance company performers with chairs, Hoffman said.
Many of the pieces have guest choreographers. They include Destiny Churchwell, a 2009 HBAPA graduate who choreographed a modern piece called “Origins.”
Churchwell is now dancing professionally in New York.
“It’s really cool to have choreographers like that who also trained under Marie,” Ganier said. “It shows us the lengths and possibilities of what our careers could become in the future. It’s very inspiring.”
Taylor Barbee, another dance company senior from Huntington Beach High, was fortunate enough to get one of her own pieces into the show. She called “Truce” a very intense number.
“For me, producing it was a very vulnerable process,” said Barbee, who will minor in dance at Boston College next year. “But it was very rewarding to see audiences reacting and understanding of the kind of emotion, everything that I poured from my heart into that piece.”
The seniors are feeling a bit emotional going into this last performance of their high school careers, and for good reason.
“Coming to see ‘Synergy’ before we were even in high school is what inspired us to be a part of [HBAPA] in the first place, audition and end up going here and being in ‘company,’” Barbee said, using the group’s shorthand for the program’s elite dance company.
Roslyn Brown-Bilyeu, who will study broadcast journalism and minor in dance and French at LSU next year, has had a full high school career. The Huntington Beach High senior has also served as a Miss Huntington Beach Princess this year.
Her background is in ballet, which remains her passion.
“Doing ‘company’ was an eye-opening experience for me,” Brown-Bilyeu said. “I’ve learned a lot of modern-based things, and I would definitely thank ‘company’ for making me such a versatile dancer. I can roll on the floor now and do that modern stuff that I would never have even thought of while doing ballet.”
No matter which dance discipline one prefers, Brown-Bilyeu said, “Synergy” is captivating for all. Trevyn Stephenson and Jana Taylor are the co-directors for the show.
“We love each other, and we’re doing what we love to do,” Brown-Bilyeu said. “It’s fun … and the pieces are really, really good.”
Tickets to “Synergy” run from $15 to $25. For show times and more information, visit hbapa.org/see.
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