Another great performance from the Verdi Academy of Dance, this time for their Christmas recital. It’s great to see the kids strut their stuff and as you can tell, they were all enjoying themselves.

Check out Verdi Academy of Dance web page at http://www.verdiacademyofdance.com/ to learn more.

I attended three of the four shows to try to get some different perspectives and with well over 100 performers, a shot of each, even if in a group performance. This year’s theme, “It’s A Small World”, was somewhat of a departure from the years past in that instead of an emcee, the show was broken up by short films projected on the screen.

Of all many styles of dance, I tend to favor the latin, flamenco and hip-hop genres. My favorite part of the show was the “Argentina” and “Sevilla” movements–two sets of dancers took turns dancing; a pair would dance while the single dancers held their pose. In my opinion it’s hard not to be inspired by the music, the dramatic lighting and of course the fantastic dancers and beautiful forms they display.

A crowd favorite was the “Men In Tights” dance. After a energetic and hard-core hip-hop dance, all the boys pulled off their pants to reveal green tights, and subsequently danced to “Men In Tights”, a song from the same movie.

View the Las Cruces High School Performance Dance Team Photo Gallery

I’ve had a lot of good fortune in getting to photograph this great group of dancers, and although my attendance was cut short by another gig, I always walk away with a renewed appreciation of how much work it is to go through the tryouts (from a dancer’s perspective) and how much work it is to organize the tryouts (from the coach’s perspective.)

Lucinda, who took back the coaching duties after a year off, had everything running like a well oiled machine. A former Sundancer, she is super-organized and I like to have her around when I’m photographing the group; she’s great with direction and knows exactly what she wants–she makes my job easy!

I’m not sure of who made the squad as of this writing, so here a some of my favorite shots in the short time I had with the group.

Here’s a collection of shots from Oñate’s pom group, the Knightettes. These were all taken at halftime of the boys and girls basketball games over the course of three performances. They’re a great squad of dancers, and have made the halftimes very entertaining!