By Jasmine Born, Staff Writer
River Hill is elated to welcome the new dance teacher, Ms. Byrd! She began teaching dance in 2007 after growing up studio-dancing back in Texas and has an abundance to offer to River Hill with extensive background in teaching, creating dance curriculums, and previous work with the national branch, Young Audiences. I sat down with Ms. Byrd and fellow dance students to chat about their experiences.
How did you get into teaching at River Hill?
I had talked to Holli Tucci and Gino, who are the Head of Fine Arts and the Head of Dance… Met with them one week, turned in my portfolio, got a call from Ms. Lidgard the next week, was basically hired the next week!
How has the transition been for you and for students?
It is nerve racking coming into an already established program with already established dancers. I think everyone was really hesitant at first… Once [my students] realized I do have something to bring to the table and that [they] are my top priority that kinda reassured everyone. I’m having a great time with my Dance 2, 3, 4 and my Dance 1 classes. I get to talk one-on-one with them more. We have so much fun and they’re so goofy.
It’s sad I feel like I kinda miss that here [with Dance Company] because [they’re] kinda older and there’s not as much of that space for me to intertwine myself as I would hope. But the cool thing is that with my Dance 2, 3, 4 kids who will be auditioning for Company next year, and some of my Dance 1 kids, I can cultivate it as they’re coming in. So in a couple years I’m hoping it’ll be a lot closer with all of the companies.
Junior Piper Stephan, who transferred from Glenelg’s dance program said, “it felt a little disorganized, here it feels very organized. I feel like I always know what’s going on in class.”
Freshman Rebekah Santos from Dance 2 stated, “I think I speak for everyone in my class when I say that this is going to be a fun and exciting year!”
The Dance Company has already had the opportunity to perform this year at pep rally, what was the process for creating the whole piece?
Ultimately it was really cool [they] gave me the “go ahead, we trust you to make a good mix”… so I spent an entire 3-day weekend cutting music and putting it together. Then we broke it up into pieces for different groups to choreograph and I choreographed the end. I would work one-on-one with the groups for a minute and try to elevate it and give it that extra layer of umph…
I think it went so good! Yeah, I think the biggest thing is people all said it looked like [they] were having fun and really enjoyed it. I’ve heard good things from the faculty and other students.
For me personally, is it at my standard? No. Do I accept that as what I want our baseline to be? No. I want it to be higher. All things considered, we did great but I definitely want it to be impeccable.
Freshman in Junior Co., Helen Quill, goes on about how Ms. Byrd “planned out all of the choreography, who was doing what, cut all of the music for us,” and after students came up with their choreography Ms. Byrd made many changes to “mesh it together, and she did that beautifully.”
How do you maintain a friendly atmosphere for dancers while also preparing them to do and look their best?
I think I try to fill [them] with confidence and build [them] up. We all know that we would rather put in hard work now so that we look good later… I mean I’ll be honest, I held back on how intense I wanted to be with [them] because I don’t want to push anyone away and I don’t want to come across too hard, especially since we’re still building our relationship… and can hopefully build up for that for our concerts.
We talk about fun things and that kind of stuff I think helps keep it light and airy. So trying to do all of the little things that show how much I appreciate [their] hard work but also try to keep it not always so regimented, and let it allow space for there to be fun and laughter.
Senior, Ava Gesell, in Senior Co. exclaimed that Ms. Byrd “is like the perfect amount of foot-down. We needed that… It’s so much appreciated.”
It was so endearing to hear Rebekah Santos say, “Ms. Byrd has brought many laughs and creative freedom to our classroom,” and that “she makes even the less favorable activities and events like certain styles of dance–and just recently a lockdown–a little more fun and a lot more tolerable.”
What do you hope to achieve by being the River Hill Dance teacher?
I hope to create a welcoming space where new and previous dancers are able to thrive and find self-development and come out more confident, prepared, and with a whole book of fun experiences that they get to look back on.
Stay tuned for a fantastic show from Ms. Byrd and the RHHS Dance Program on December 8th and 9th! More dance content can be found at @riverhillhsdance on Instagram!