Those who make the beat met those who dance to it on the night of Monday, Nov. 21. The percussion and dance programs here at HHS performed together.

Dance instructor Amber Corriston feels that her dance classes, both Dance 2 and Dance 3 and 4, did well with the concert.

“I was very proud of them because they all did it and managed to make it happen on their own,” Corriston said.

This was despite Dance 2 performing after school earlier than Corriston normally plans and her being up in the light booth without being able to be any kind of lifeline.

“I definitely felt confident in the student’s energy. But [Dance 2 performing early in the year] made me a little bit nervous just with having forty students getting ready to perform and I’m up in the light booth without being able to help them with anything once the show starts,” Corriston said.

According to Corriston being a dance instructor is an enjoyable job.

“[Being a dance instructor] is awesome. Besides being fun, it’s just a really rewarding job. And I do have [fun], every day that I come to work, even with all the stuff you have to do as a teacher. I’m smiling, I’m laughing, I’m having a good time with the students, I’m getting to know them. And really, you see people grow right in front of your eyes. And watching, especially, people go from Dance 1 all the way to Dance 4 is really just an amazing process to watch,” Corriston said.

Junior Cary Hardwick, a representative of the other part of the concert, percussion, also thinks her experience with the musical arts is fun. She gets into the music a little after beginning, and that’s when the fun starts for her.

Her preparation for the concert included going over the music in class and taking the piece home to practice.

“I think we’ve been preparing for a month or so… Well, we got the music in class and we kind of sight read it in class and worked on it a little bit on our own time… and kind of read through the notes,” Hardwick said.

Hardwick expresses that her choice to do percussion has to do with the fact that percussion is so versatile.

“It’s just really fun when you can let loose and you can enjoy the music and you can hit stuff. And it’s kind of like a universal thing where you can play percussion anywhere. And you use anything; you can make up new instruments, you can use your body and and conga drums and trash cans and metal pans and pots, and it’s so cool,” Hardwick said.

Sophomore Sofia Thomas continued her eight year long career in dance on the night of the 21st.

“I’ve done dance for eight years. So I’ve been doing it for a while, so it was kind of natural for me to come into the dance program at the high school,” Thomas said.

Thomas agrees with her instructor, Corriston, that the dance classes did well with their performance.

“I think that the class as a whole did really well especially since we were still learning some new choreography today in class so I think we did a really good job of performing it,” Thomas said.

She also notes that the pairing of dance and percussion worked well.

“It’s also really nice to do a concert with percussion because it allows us to work with a different group when performing,” Thomas said.