The success of the fifth annual Choreographer Showcase which took place on Friday, Nov. 17, and the reveal of the 2024 winter musical “A Chorus Line” has set KO’s performing arts department on a promising path for the 2023-2024 winter season, with high expectations and an exciting production that will appeal to all members of the KO community. “It’s exciting because it’s something that I started at KO and I’m so proud of it,” Director of Theater Kyle Reynolds said, reminiscing on the Choreographer Showcase’s beginnings. “To start any program is really difficult, let alone to keep a program going. To make it to the five-year achievement mark is very exciting.”
In the Choreographer Showcase, KO students spend ten weeks learning different styles of dance, ranging from ballet to contemporary. As usual, several professional choreographers were brought in to help teach the choreography in the weeks leading up to the performance, including Beau Harmon, who appeared on the reality show “So You Think You Can Dance.” The showcase has evolved greatly since its debut in 2019, especially since the program has become more well-known over the years. “Now I have choreographers contacting me to be a part of the showcase, versus me going to choreographers,” Mr. Reynolds said. He also cites the increase in KO students who perform in the Showcase as a positive development. “The first year, I think we had eight kids in Choreographer Showcase,” he said. “We had over 20 this year, so that’s huge. We’ve doubled our numbers.”
While this year’s Choreographer Showcase included many different styles of dance, Mr. Reynolds feels that including ballet in the Showcase in recent years has helped KO students improve their technique overall. “It wasn’t the kids’ favorite thing, but we needed that ballet to get better at dance in general,” he said. “I feel like we’re on our way to being far better technical dancers, not just learning choreography.”
Having wrapped up the Choreographer Showcase with a success, there was only one more question to answer: what is the winter musical? To the excitement of many KO thespians, the 2024 winter musical was announced to be “A Chorus Line.” This musical tells the story of 17 dancers auditioning to be a part of a chorus line in an upcoming Broadway production. Each dancer has their own life experience and talent to bring to the table, and by the end of the show, only eight dancers are chosen to be a part of the line.
The show is heavily dance-oriented, with difficult jazz, tap, and ballet numbers, but Mr. Reynolds is confident that KO thespians will be able to perform the show well. “I feel like we are at a place where we have the dancers to pull it off and most of that is due to the Choreographer Showcase,” he said.
When considering options for the winter musical, Mr. Reynolds considers three things: Can we afford to put on the show, including costumes and building the set? Do we have the students to perform it well? And, most importantly, does the show fit one of KO’s core values? “A Chorus Line” is a story about perseverance in the face of hardship, whether it be personal or professional, which is a message that will resonate with all members of the KO community. “The thing about ‘A Chorus Line’ is that anyone in the audience can identify with anyone who’s onstage,” Mr. Reynolds said. “There’s 17 people on the line who all have very different stories; who come from very different ethnic backgrounds, different areas of wealth, and there’s someone on that line for everyone to connect with.”
Congratulations to all of the KO students who performed in this year’s Choreographer Showcase! We’re proud of all of your hard work, and we cannot wait to see what you do next. We also wish Mr. Reynolds the best of luck with this year’s production of “A Chorus Line.”
