By Jaria Butler
The University of Maryland club dance team Unbound captivated the audience Friday night during their annual spring showcase in Adele H. Stamp Student Union’s Hoff Theatre.
Throughout the evening, the team performed 10 different dances that ranged from jazz to contemporary to hip-hop, with additional guest performers from Forward Motion Dance Group, Ballet Company M, Terrapin Tap Troupe and Ballroom at Maryland.
The team began choreographing and rehearsing the dances at the beginning of the semester.
Sahana Venkatesh, a junior mechanical engineering major and the club’s treasurer, said that the best part of the showcase is revealing a semester’s worth of dedicated work to her friends, family and fellow students.
“It feels so good! It’s like your work is out there for everyone to see,” Venkatesh said. “A lot of us come from competitive dance backgrounds, and there we don’t really get to choreograph, but here we have so much more control over what we’re putting on the stage.”
Two group performances opened and closed the showcase, both featured all 13 members of Unbound. The opening performance was a jazz routine while the closing dance was a contemporary routine.
The opening performance to “Teeth” by Five Seconds of Summer was a spunky, upbeat dance that included multiple pirouettes, which occur when a dancer performs multiple spins balanced on one foot. Applause erupted from the audience after these rounds of pirouettes.
Three solos were performed by the Unbound seniors graduating this semester: Unbound President Carson Francis, Unbound Creative Director Erin Daniel and Unbound Secretary Em Hickey.
Francis, a criminology and criminal justice and government and politics double major, performed a jazz-based solo to the song “Masterpiece” by Jessie J. Her performance featured straddle jumps and toe rises that elevated her off the stage.
“I was definitely a little nervous, since I haven’t performed a solo since my younger years,” Francis said. “Very emotional as well, given that I won’t be dancing on a team probably ever again.”
Daniel, a kinesiology major, performed an energetic tap dance to the rhythm of “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If I Ain’t Got That Swing)” by Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett.
Hickey, a cell biology and molecular genetics major, performed a contemporary routine to “Ride This Feeling” by Kate Miller-Heidke. Her dance featured pirouettes, leaps and smiles that lit up the audience.
The group’s final performance was to “Eat Your Young” by Hozier and it had a more intricate meaning, demonstrated by half the dance team wearing red ribbons on their wrists and the other half wearing none. The team paired up ribbon-wearing dancers with those dancers that did not have ribbons.
“The younger half, the freshmen and sophomores, were wearing the ribbons, and the older half of the team was predominantly the juniors and seniors who didn’t, and we paired them up,” Francis said. “Throughout the dance, you see back and forth between the old and young fighting each other.”
At the end of the last performance the older members prevailed and took all the ribbons from the younger dancers. That was the theme Unbound was going for, said Francis.
The showcase closed with a long standing ovation from the audience as the team members bowed.
Heartfelt hugs started and tears began to flow from some of the members’ eyes as they said goodbye to their senior members and handed off gifts.
Sydney Deery, a freshman on Unbound, said even though she hasn’t known the team for a full year, it was still hard to say goodbye.
“You get to know somebody so much when you’re doing an activity that’s vulnerable, and you have that team chemistry, so it’s hard to see them go,” Deery said. “I love dancing with them and looking up to them as role models.”
After the lights dimmed at the end of the showcase, team members exited the stage to be immediately greeted by loved ones and friends who supplied flowers and congratulations.
Featured Image: Members of the Unbound Dance team get ready to bow on stage after their final performance. Photo by Jaria Butler.