The Royals performed their annual Royal Revue from May 1-3, bringing together dancers from across the district under this year’s theme “Fanatics.” Each routine was inspired by a different obsession from cars to travel expressed through styles like hip hop, jazz and contemporary.
Every night featured a new guest performer including Wiley Middle School’s Silver Spurs, Stiles Middle School’s Golden Sparks, the varsity and junior varsity Colorguard and Rhythm Dance Company.
“In the month leading up to Revue, the lights come on and everything comes together as a production,” senior manager Riyanjali Sengupta said. “The theme of Fanatics was about all the things people obsess over, but truly I’m a Royals fanatic. Getting to see all of the girls and the love that they pour into this and the production coming together with all these diverse groups is beautiful.”
Rehearsals began at the start of the year, with the show highlighting routines from the competition season along with new dances created specifically for the event.
“Even if you don’t know any of the dancers or anything about the show, it paints a beautiful story that you can only know if you go,” Sengupta said. “Each and every person has such a love for the organization and what they’re doing whether it’s pulling the traveler in the back or dancing their hearts out. Everyone is there because they want to be and getting to see that manifest itself on stage is something that I would tell everyone to experience at least once.”
Despite the first performance being canceled due to weather, the team made the most of their time together by watching Descendants 2.
“ It was really disappointing when [the district] canceled all after school events because the weather cleared up and was really sunny at the end of the day,” junior social officer Alexis Frank said.
Traditionally, dancers perform a skit at the end of their rookie year. However this year’s juniors were unable to perform last year due to time constraints which they made up for with a performance this year.
“ In our costume closet, we have these comic book striped pants and we thought of those immediately because we wore those our rookie year when we were getting pranked by our director,” Frank said. “We took inspiration from that prank and made it into our junior skit. It was kind of like a full circle moment.”
The juniors were in charge of choreographing the skit themselves, meeting before school at 7 a.m. to prepare.
“[Our director] told us that she wanted it to be fun but not silly,” Frank said. “ I got to dress up as Spider-Man and nobody could see my face, but I was still able to bring energy and make the crowd laugh which really showed our character.”
The Revue is an opportunity for dancers to share their growth with family and friends as well as inspire the next generation of dancers.
“ I’ve seen so many little girls running out of the auditorium, tugging on their parents’ shirt sleeves, telling them, ‘I’m going to be a royal when I’m in high school’,” Sengupta said. “Seeing the love of our dancers pour out into the audience and inspire so many young dancers shapes the team and our spirit so much.”