On Saturday, April 26 the Glenn High School and Danielson Middle School dance teams came together for the final performance of their Spring show “Rise Up”. The group had 3 performances and each was met with approving, and even emotional, responses from the audience.

The show followed a storyline of a young girl trying to find her female role model for a school project and ultimately comes to the realization that it was her mom. Dance styles and music choice ranged from multiple different decades, each one centered around women empowerment.

“The show is all about empowering women and bringing them up from their struggles,” junior Rachel Henson said. “Like what they suffered through, we acknowledge it. We’re trying to give them the spotlight; they’re survivors.”

Both the high school and middle school dance teams were involved in this production, making it a fun time in which both groups encouraged each other. 

“Coming from the middle school dance team myself, it was really cool to see how far me and my friends have come,” junior Guardians Lieutenant Emma Mitchel said. ”Hopefully we could inspire them to continue dancing in high school.”

All performers put many hours into preparing for this showcase of their abilities. Student leaders were important in the process, maintaining motivation throughout the teams.

“I think that there was a lot of extra behind the scenes work like at home and in the officer period,” Mitchell said. “Just really cleaning routines, watching videos of the routines during practice. Just really making sure that we get everyone to the level of preparedness that they need to be so that they can go on the stage and feel good about their performance.”

These students’ hard work was recognized by their audiences. 

“It was so good,” junior Blessing Lamar said. “Honestly, like, coming into the auditorium and just sitting down I was just thinking it’s just going to be a regular performance, like it’s not gonna be that big. But I feel like when we started watching it, the meaning of it . . . just hit really hard. Like, the music choices and the scenes and everything like that, it just hit so hard and it was actually meaningful and powerful.”