With a zest for life, dancing under her desk, and a vibrant heart, junior Sadie Margolis is often seen around campus socializing with peers or on stage embracing her creative side.
Over the course of Sadie’s past two years at Kingswood Oxford, she has thrown herself into various groups, some of which include Concert Choir, numerous selective choirs offered at KO, the new dance initiative run by the Director of Theatre Kyle Reynolds, Student Government, and extracurricular activities in order to enhance her artistic talents.
Sadie has been dancing since she was two years old, performing in tap, ballet, jazz, and hip hop. Outside of school, Sadie takes dance classes every day and has voice and acting lessons scattered throughout her busy week. Her excellence in these genres of performance was highlighted by her choice to participate in a Master Class located in New York City this fall.
On Sunday, Sept. 29, Sadie headed into the Big Apple and attended Chryssie Whitehead’s Master Class. Sadie mentioned that she had done a summer program with Chryssie two years ago so she wasn’t going into it blindly.
The Master Class was an all-day experience and ran from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The class started with journaling about how they were feeling. “Having not known anyone and being with older professionals by a decade, I had mixed emotions of being nervous and excited,” Sadie said.
After journaling, they transitioned to dance, working on “across the floor,” which was where they went two at a time across the floor to work on technique. Sadie noted that Chryssie was super helpful in teaching her how to find her balance so she could then perform a triple pirouette. The group worked all together on the “Tick-Tock” dance from “Company.” According to Sadie, the “Tick-Tock” dance was a great acting piece and she found it enjoyable to tell a story through movement. Following the “Tick-Tock” dance, Sadie went right into singing. She sang “Pretty Funny” from “Dogfight.” “Chryssie really helped me find the truth in the song and made the stakes higher.” This experience taught Sadie all about performing in front of an audience and manipulating the emotions of a crowd to give them an internal feeling.
At the end of the day, Sadie connected with Chryssie to talk about how she had been to her summer program of Broadway Arts Community a couple of years ago. In this, Chryssie talked to Sadie about how much she had grown and would continue to in the years coming. “The whole process was so fun, having no pressure, and just learning and absorbing from other people, mentors, and learning new things about myself was so much fun,” Sadie reflected. She also mentioned that Chryssie is a huge inspiration to her and she will always remember Chryssie’s two sayings: “Practice makes progress” and “The joy is in the work.”
Sadie has taken her expertise back to KO where she is the co-captain of the dance program. Mr. Reynolds has been working to bring in a different choreographer each day of the week to teach students different aspects of dance. Sadie is a leader in this as she has gained a tremendous amount of knowledge from her New York City experience.
Through interviewing Mr. Reynolds, it was clear that he truly believes in Sadie. “She is truly a gem in every way,” he said. “She embodies what it means to have a hunger for the craft of musical theatre and she consistently gives a 110% to work in her craft.”
Sadie was a student of Mr. Reynolds at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts before they both came to KO, so he knows what she’s capable of. Mr. Reynolds has high hopes for Sadie, “Long term, I hope that eventually, she can get a job where someone pays her to perform,” Mr. Reynolds said. “Short term I pray that she gets into a BFA musical theatre program.”
Sadie is looking forward to seeing where this crazy and rewarding process will take her in the future. Some of her aspirations include becoming a triple threat dancer, singer, actress, and performing on Broadway.
She is confident that she can achieve these goals with hard work and time. We are all looking forward to watching Sadie advance with her artistic abilities and continue to improve in her techniques through her next two years at Kingswood Oxford.
