This past Saturday, February 1, a spectacular showcase of Howard County high schools’ dance departments was performed at Oakland Mills High School. The 2025 Howard County Dance Festival was the 29th Howard County Dance Festival, and featured dance performances from all 13 high schools’ junior and senior dance companies, along with the All-County Dance Performance Ensemble, which is made up of a select few performers from each of the schools. The festival also served as an adjudication for the dancers, acting as a way for students to receive feedback on their performances and experience an aspect of the professional dance world.
The Oakland Mills auditorium was packed with friends, families, and supportive members of the community from all over the county to see the show these students had spent so much time and effort on.
The show opened with a wonderful contemporary dance performance from the All-County Dance Performance Ensemble, which they had only fully rehearsed as an ensemble the day of the performance.
“We have a video that we are learning the dance from, but we will rehearse from 8:30-2:00 on Saturday and perform the piece that evening,” said Eliana Krakower, a Glenelg student and member of All-County, prior to the event. “We do not practice as an ensemble until that day.”
The All-County performance was choreographed by Janusphere Dance Company director Darion Smith, who was also an adjudicator of the festival. Smith said of the All-County dancers, “They did a wonderful job. They came in, and they just had a lot of heart.”
Another adjudicator was Jaye R. Combest, who has been involved with the Howard County Dance Festival for over two decades. “I love seeing the creativity every year,” said Combest, who is currently a jazz and musical theater teacher at Metropolitan Ballet Theater.
The festival included many different genres of dance, including modern, contemporary, musical theater, tap, jazz, hip hop, ballet, even a dance number inspired by Michael Jackson’s signature dance moves. Some dances were an interesting blend of dance style and musical genre, such as Centennial High School’s Junior Dance Company dancing a ballet to a country song, or Reservoir High School Dance Company doing a modern dance to classical music while wearing jumpsuits and beanies.
“It really is an amazing show,” said Holli Tucci, the lead dance teacher of the school system and organizer of the All-County team, who also performed in this festival while a student at Hammond High School in the late 90s.
Oakland Mills High School dance teacher Allie Rocco described the show as, “A full dance work that has been well-rehearsed, practicing spacing, performance quality, wearing costumes,” and saying that the dancers, “have driven all these different skills to come together in this performance.”
The energy in the auditorium that night was one of enthusiasm. The audience was engaged and excited watching the performance, whether it was audience members cheering when a dancer nailed an aerial or kept up the momentum of a pirouette, or students and families shouting support for dancers in between acts.
The energy from the dancers themselves was even more vibrant. They truly gave it their all, not just in the physicality of their dance, but in their passionate expressions too. Faces ranged from wide smiles for upbeat numbers, somber frowns for slow, melodic songs, acting a variety of emotions for the musical theater performances, and all the expressions in between.
“I saw a lot that I enjoyed,” said third adjudicator Alison Seidenstricker, who is an assistant professor of dance at Towson University. “A lot of great technique, a lot of very unique choices compositionally, it’s very impressive.”
When watching the dances, it was sometimes easy to forget that these weren’t professionals. So much movement was in perfect sync, every team worked together perfectly no matter if it was four dancers onstage or 15, and the dancing was always a beautiful expression of the music, whether it was a Billie Eilish song or a tribute to the moon landing.
As said by HCPSS’ Fine Arts Coordinator Gino Molfino before the show, “Dance is a universal language, one that connects us, inspires us, and allows us to express ourselves in ways words typically cannot.”
The finale of such a remarkable show, all of the dancers taking their bows before filling up the stage and the aisles of the auditorium to perform a simple choreographed dance to Dynamite by Taio Cruz, was a fun and energetic end to the festival.
The show was overall a true celebration of dance and those that dedicate their lives to the art.
This article was written by freelance reporter Megan Duffy.
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