Hamilton dance school wraps tough year by looking back through the decades

The Street Squad Jnr hip hop dancers will be part of the Street Dance Sessions end-of-year showcase on Sunday. Photo / Supplied

For dance students, the annual showcase is the highlight of the year. Street Dance Sessions has had to weather the storm of Covid lockdowns and restrictions this year but the members were determined to go out on a high with a stage performance.

Street Dance Sessions will perform a journey through the decades, a theme that will include all the ups and downs.

Their end-of-year showcase "A journey through the decades" will be held in the Concert Chamber at the Gallagher Performing Arts Academy in Hamilton on Sunday, December 13, at 2pm and 5pm.

Director Miriana Wetere-Ryder said 2020 started with real promise, record class numbers, along with showcase and competition opportunities.

The Street Dance Sessions end-of-year showcase on Sunday will include the Street Squad Varsity crew. Photo / Supplied

"Everything really changed in March once Covid hit and alert level 4 lockdown took effect," said Wetere-Ryder.

"All our plans had to be shelved and we had to head online to connect with our dancers."

Wetere-Ryder says hip hop dance especially is one of those things where you feed of each other's energy so the challenge was connecting and engaging with dancers from as young as 3 years through to late teens.

"Like many local business owners I was worried that what we'd built over the last two years could slip away, but online was the only option," said Wetere-Ryder.

"But when I started to receive thank you messages from parents saying it was giving them some time out and helping keep the kids active then I knew we could keep going."

Street Dance Sessions headed back into the studio at alert level 2, but with restrictions in place.

"Everyone was so happy to get back together, especially my competition crews as it's not easy to practise formations when everyone is in different locations."

While training times for competitive dancers and crews have been limited and many competitions cancelled, there have still been opportunities to put the training into practice.

"I guess one positive of the situation is that all the dance schools across New Zealand could not travel overseas so all the local and national competitions featured some amazing talent," said Wetere-Ryder.

"We headed to Hastings to compete recently and were blown away to get to see the Royal Family Varsity crew perform – really inspiring for our kids – and we got to come away with two firsts, a second and two outstanding dancer awards."

Street Dance Sessions has been running in Hamilton East and Rototuna since 2018.

Tickets to "A journey through the decades" are available through the Gallagher Performing Arts Academy website.