We Are Celebrating International Dance Day 2023

April 29 marked International Dance Day 2023, also known as World Dance Day. This day was introduced in 1982 by the International Dance Committee of the UNESCO International Theatre Institute. It was intended to promote dance worldwide, make people aware of the value of dance, and enable the dance community to promote their work on a broad scale.

St. Agnes Academy celebrates dance and its many benefits every day in various ways throughout the school year. Take a look at how we celebrate!

Dance connects people, spreads school spirit, and makes you smile. Every year, St. Agnes kicks off the school year with a Welcome Dance to give new and returning students a place to build community and have fun outside of school.

Our annual Cultural Pageant features traditional and cultural dances from around the world performed by students celebrating their background and culture.

We dance at pep rallies, assemblies, athletic events, and even in the hallways. This year, as a treat to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, our seniors invited an authentic mariachi band to play for the school during Community Time. Students, teachers, staff, and administrators all gathered to sing and dance together.

We even participate in competitive dance!

St. Agnes offers a variety of dance classes and even has an award-winning Tiger Girls dance team.

The Tiger Girls perform during halftime at the Strake Jesuit home football games, select St. Agnes and Strake Jesuit athletic games, dance competitions, St. Agnes pep rallies, and annual shows. Each year the dance team, soloists, duets, and officers continue to bring home regional and state championship titles!

The TG Elite dancers are St. Agnes Academy’s elite dance company that performs at special school events and competes at NDA Nationals in Orlando, Florida, every spring. This advanced dance team is focused, determined, and committed to excellence in dance technique, flexibility, strength, and endurance. TG Elite specializes in ballet, jazz, hip-hop, contemporary, kick, and pom styles.

If being on a dance team isn’t your thing, students can take dance as an elective class during their four years at St. Agnes.

Introduction to Dance, an entry-level course, introduces ballet, modern, hip hop, jazz, and contemporary dance forms.

This course focuses on stretching to increase flexibility and strength training to improve athletic agility and ease of movement. Students practice dance terminology in various styles and learn to execute choreography.

Intermediate Dance is designed to build upon beginner-level dance techniques and terminology. Students study a variety of dance styles, such as ballet, lyrical, modern, hip hop, jazz, tap, and contemporary dance forms at the intermediate level.

Students increase performance quality and musicality while learning to execute intermediate-level choreography. Students who participate in this class often perform in the Spring Dance Concert.

Advanced Dance is the advanced-level study of ballet, lyrical, modern, hip-hop, jazz, tap, and contemporary dance forms and their corresponding history, choreography, and performance practice. All students in Advanced Dance perform in the Fall and Spring Dance Concerts.

Cultural Dance introduces the fundamentals of dance and performance skills (steps, patterns, and formations) found in the dances of selected nations or ethnographic regions, including non-western dance forms (i.e., street dance/social dance).

Students also learn the geographic, historical, and cultural context with additional emphasis on contemporary musical forms and meters.

Dance Composition & Choreography is intended for students to explore the wide range of movement within our bodies and the world around us.

Developed as an introductory studio course in the art and craft of composing and choreographing dances, students explore dance-making elements through the manipulation of time, space, and energy.

Each student works within their own technical skill level to uncover the endless possibilities of movement within the human body and the vast opportunities for communication of the human experience.

In honor of International Dance Day 2023, you can see that there are many ways we encourage students to explore, learn, participate in, and have fun through dance.

If you are looking for a school that offers dance as an elective, a sport, an art, or just for fun, look at St. Agnes Academy. Reach out to our Director of Admissions to learn more about enrolling!