Leaping into history

Dance is serious business at Laguna Beach High School. The school has its own Dance Company, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary with a blowout performance titled “Reflections of a Decade.”

The company is almost shaking the foundations of the Artists’ Theater with a two-act show featuring 52 dancers, six choreographers, a two-screen video backdrop, and numbers reprising shows of the past and newly choreographed steps.

Director Tod A. Kubo hopes to bring the “true art of dance” to the public. His main concern is stimulating his audiences with compelling material.

“You need to walk away asking questions about life,” Kubo said.

“Dance has for centuries been bringing people to a whole new world. It’s more than doing steps, it’s about dancing for a reason. We want to reach out and make the audience feel something.”

In celebrating a decade of the company’s existence, Kubo recalls how things were when he first came to Laguna.

“The program has grown four times its original size in 10 years,” Kubo said. “As dancers have advanced, the program has grown.”

“I used to do stuff just to get them interested in dance, now it’s about choosing things that represent the company the best,” Kubo said. “It’s not what’s hip, but what’s best.”

Attendees of “Reflections of a Decade” will have much to ponder as the two act show holds no dominant theme, but rather flips through moods and cultures as if it were a National Geographic magazine.

One of the highlights of the show is a Saturday Night Fever medley that contains the original choreography from the Broadway show.

Professional dancer, and former Laguna dancer, Collin Rand returned to the school to teach the students the moves.

“He was in the Las Vegas production of ‘Saturday Night Fever’. It was great to see him working with the students,” Kubo said.

The show also gets into challenging issues with “Colorblind”, a number the company first did in 1998 that deals with the topic of racism.

Each dancer takes on the roll of a person in society as politics are communicated through dance set to new age music.

An all-guy number, “The Bottle Dance”, gives the audience a traditional Jewish folk dance performed with bottles on the head.

“Chapman Avenue” is a medley of lyrical styled dancing set to Tracy Chapman songs.

Lyrical style is a combination of ballet and jazz with the moves acting out the words in the songs, Kubo said.

Tap dancing commands a place in the show, with ‘80s style beat boxing as the soundtrack to a full on tap assault with performers decked in multicolored garb from the era.

“It has so many different things, it’s not like your average show,” choreographer Mychelle Perez said.

Perez put together ballet numbers set to classical music, adding sophistication to the ensemble.

The last number in the show is titled “Time”, and was chosen by Kubo as a nostalgic piece to symbolize where the company is going.

“I wanted to show the peaceful and beautiful side of dance. I didn’t want to end it with a bang,” Kubo sad. “It’s a gorgeous dance.”

“I want our concerts to be significant,” Kubo added. “I want audiences to have a new understanding as dance as art.”