Senior Tay Otte leads Concert Choir in dance
Senior Tay Otte poses for a picture demonstrating one of the dance moves he taught concert choir. This particular move he taught to the tenor and bass sections. Tay Otte currently plans to attend the University of Kansas after high school with an emphasis in biology.
In the first few days after spring break, senior Tay Otte began teaching concert choir a dance for one of the songs they will be performing at contest. The song, called “Balleilakka”, originates from India, specifically the Tamil film Sivalji. Tamil is the language of the Southern Indian province of Tamil Nadu, and the language dates back to before 300 B.C.
Otte learned the choreography to “Balleilakka” on the Sunday night during Easter Break.
“I watched a video from YouTube of another school doing the dance and then based the dance that we are doing off of that,” Otte said. “I didn’t really come up with the dance myself, I just copied most of the steps and added some changes.”
Otte has had to learn and sometimes teach choreography from a video for cheer, but never has he had to teach a group as large as Concert Choir.
“It was really fun,” Otte said. “I was super nervous though and I was trying so hard to make sure that everyone was doing it correctly so that they didn’t pick up bad habits for rehearsals.”
Vocal Instructor Johnny Matlock will have the Concert Choir perform this piece of music with choreography at large group contest, as well as the spring concert.
Otte said he is very proud of Concert Choir in their learning of the dance.
“Just watching the choir do it now from the back row, it makes me so happy and proud because I taught it,” Otte said. “It looks amazing and I can tell that people are getting into the music more when we do it. I can also tell that as we dance we are able to stay on the beat a lot easier.”
This is Dawson Rooney. He is a senior and this is his first year in newspaper. Outside of newspaper he is involved in Orchestra, Chamber Singers, Web Team,...
