New MIM choreographers put the music in motion

“It’s gonna be a special year. I thoroughly believe that.”

Jeremy Klein, a senior at Solon High School, is the current president of the show choir group Music In Motion (MIM). He’s participated in the club all through his high school career. For the past five years, the club had one dance choreographer, Antwon Chavis. This year, MIM let go of Chavis and, for the first time ever, hired two choreographers, Victoria Burns and Jarad Voss.

“I had mixed emotions [at first], because doing something for three years and then switching all of a sudden is quite drastic,” Klein said. “But now looking back on it I think it was the best decision for the group because our choreography is so awesome now.”

Emily McCulley was nervous because as dance captain, she would have to adjust her dance style to theirs. McCulley said this was never particularly hard. If she got confused she could just watch their routine and eventually get it herself. McCulley realized how well they work together and how productive things are now, and knew it was the best decision for the team.

The kids weren’t the only ones who were nervous about the new change. Burns stated that the nervous feeling was felt on both ends.

“The students of MIM were nervous coming in for the first rehearsal, as was I,” Burns said. “It was a new experience for all of us, but they eventually warmed up to us and we had a great time. They are all perfectionists and big time overachievers, but when has that ever been a bad thing?”

Burns also explains how she and Voss go about teaching the kids. Burns works with the girls to teach them their moves, and Voss works with the boys. Burns also says how much she loves to work with the kids, and she hopes that she is able to get them to love dance as much as she does.

She has been dancing since she was 4 and has studied tap, jazz, ballet, hip hop, lyrical and pointe. In high school Burns started traveling to conventions, camps and other classes.

In prior years with only one choreographer, teaching the dance moves was more of a process and much slower. With two choreographers, that’s no longer the case.

“It’s different because [now] there’s two people,” McCulley said. “They can teach the guys and the girls at the same time so that’s a lot more efficient.

McCulley and Klein praised the new instructors for being extremely kind and positive. They said the duo wasn’t hard on them at all, and would explain how to do the dance steps correctly. McCulley stated that what made Burns and Voss stand out is that they truly show an interest in the kids as people, and they teach the group valuable life lessons and make them feel important.

Along with teaching the kids valuable lessons, they also teach a whole new style. Klein described the dancers’ style as more loose and wavy.

“Our last choreographers’ choreography happened in a [sharp] style,” Klein explained. “It was blocky and we had certain positions we needed to be at at certain times. But with Jarad and Tori, every move flows into the next, so it’s really great.”

As dance captain, McCulley was expecting to feel a lot of pressure at the start of the year. She claimed that Burns and Voss gave her the exact opposite feeling. They were always there to help her out and to answer any questions she had.

Even though there may be pressure, everyone has high hopes for competition season this year. With the new choreographers’ style, Klein is hoping to slip right into first place. McCulley also shared that she hopes to catch the judges’ eye with the new dance style.

“Hopefully we can get our choreography really clean and the judges will like the new style, and we’ll win best choreography at least once.” McCulley said.

Klein sees this year for MIM as being one of a kind, and with everyone’s incredible uniqueness he is confident that they’ll be triumphant .

“Everyone in this contributes a different attribute that we’ve never had in this group,” Klein said. “It’s gonna be special in all aspects from our choreography to our band, our crew and our singer dancers. We’ve got our work cut out for us this year, and we’re gonna show up and show out.”