Once again, the TAS Dance Production’s hard work is evident in their rendition of Shakespeare’s classic “Romeo and Juliet.”
“Auditions began during the last week of August. Two days of learning choreo and one day of performing it in groups of five to six people,” Ms. Lagerquist said.
As for makeup, Ms. Flemming said that it is pretty minimal since “we’re not doing fantasy makeup and we’re not aging people so dancers are doing their own makeup with a little bit of help.”
This is not the first time TAS has done  “Romeo and Juliet” but the music and choreography was reworked for this year’s production.
“This time we wanted to make it more modern and more relatable to the people in this generation,” said joint choreographer Ms. Lagerquist.
Some songs used in the production are MKTO’s “Classic”, Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful”, Robbie Williams’s “Shine My Shoes”, and The Fray’s  “Be Still”.
About two weeks before the performance, the dancers started rehearsing on stage so they could learn to adapt to the spacing on the set as well as adding set pieces so the story makes sense.
“In November we put all the scenes together and worked out the transitions,” Ms. Lagerquist said, adding that changes would be made up until right before the show.
It’s a long road to a TAS Dance Production. It took about three rehearsals to create a scene and the choreography of the last scene was finished November 7th.
Ms. Flemming said, “every three days, it’s a new piece, so it’s been ongoing since September.”
The dancers also had to adjust to dancing in costume, one of the most difficult tasks being that the girls needed to dance in heels.
“Students had to adjust to working with different people, people they didn’t know, people in different grade levels. They got to know one another, learned to move with each other, learned to move in unison, and learned to work super super hard,” said Ms. Flemming.
It is not an easy feat to create such spectacular performances, but with the amazing amount of effort put in by the students and staff, it is no surprise that this year’s show was unforgettable.