Every year, Niles West Orchesis hosts their annual spring show, with the performance this year being named “Limitless.” The Orchesis dancers have been working long and hard, practicing twice a week and perfecting their dances since the beginning of the school year. This year, the team is coached by Liz Scola and Kristin Baron, and is led with the help of the officers, seniors Alba Ahmeti and Morgan Oliay, and junior Alyssa Nano.
The team performed three times: Thursday during school, Friday and Saturday. Each show lasted two hours, with a 10-minute intermission between each half of the show. Nano explains the amount of time and effort it took to produce this show.
“We started the season back in August. Our Orchesis show is all student-choreographed, so a lot of our choreographers and orchesis members spent a long time practicing to make each piece possible. With a lot of hard work and dedication, we were able to showcase our dancing to friends and families. It was a memorable moment for all of us because our hard work paid off,” Nano said.
Junior Joell Garcia attended the show’s first half on Thursday and saw the full show on Saturday. Garcia explains his favorite performance of the show.
“My favorite dance was ‘Iced,’ which was choreographed by Nano and Oliay. In this dance, they wore black vests but my favorite part of the dance was the style, which was hip-hop. Overall, I loved all the hip-hop pieces equally,” Garcia said.
Ahmeti has been a dancer since she was 7 years old and has been on both Orchesis and the dance team since freshman year. The show this past weekend was Ahmeti’s last show and her commitment to the Orchesis club shone through at the performance. Ahmeit choreographed multiple dances, including the closing performance with all members of the team.
“As an officer, my role is to choreograph a bunch of pieces, so my own pieces like hip-hop or jazz, or a whole company piece, making sure practices are in order, and communicating with the team and making sure that everything is how it should be and that everyone is doing what they need to make sure that the pieces are all in place,” Ahmeti said.
During the Limitless show, Ahmeti was featured in several different dances, including a Flamenco piece that she performed solo.
“A few years ago at my ballet company, we used to do Flamenco dancing which is a cultural Spanish style and it’s been a few years since I’ve done it, but I wanted to bring it back because our coach loves to have more cultural pieces in the show, so I just swept it up last minute and decided to do it for the show and it was really fun,” Ahmeti said.
Because this was Ahmeti’s last show with Orchesis after spending four years on the team, the show meant a great deal to her, and she spent countless hours making sure that her last performance would give the crowd something to remember.
“I don’t really think the fact that [Limtless] was my last show hit me that day, I don’t know, I think everyone was a lot more emotional than I was. It was definitely weird walking out of there knowing that I wouldn’t go back to perform, so I’m grateful that we at least have the Women’s History Month Assembly to perform at, but it definitely felt really weird knowing I wouldn’t be able to choreograph and perform again with Orchesis,” Ahmeti said.
Senior, and one of Ahmeti’s closest friends, Lindsey Boudakh, came to the show to show her support for Ahmeti.
“I thought the show was great. I came to watch Alba and she did an amazing job, I was so proud of her and of everyone on the team. I thought Alba’s solo was so fun to watch and it was just great being able to support her and watch her do what she loves,” Boudakh said.
