South River High students inducted into dance honor society

At a ceremony in Edgewater earlier this month, 14 dancers from South River High School were inducted into the National Honor Society for Dance Arts. Each of the inductees take dance at the school, and most participate in dance with other dance schools and companies.

The dancers bestowed with the honor include seniors Christine Moren, Alison Quigley, Jennifer Snowden, and Lindsay Tarr; juniors Andrea Crino, Kara Halsey, Violet Hill, Ashley Krogel, Molly Maloy, Kelly Olsen, and Madeleine Raley; and sophomores Samantha Blonder, Cara Ervin and Emily Vitacolonna.

The dance honor society is new to South River, where teacher Nicole Deming teaches an elite group. Deming offers a dance class that meets every other day.

Students can take dance as a fine arts credit, as their second physical education credit, or as a general elective.

Through the course of the year, the class goes through ballet, modern, jazz and tap. They also learn choreography and choreograph student shows in the winter and spring.

Getting into the class is competitive and requires an audition.

Deming said that she heard about the honor society program through Judy Fey, dance consultant for the county schools. Deming said Severna Park High School has a dance program and also participates in the dance honor society.

The honor society is administered through the National Dance Education Organization, a nonprofit that promotes dance. The organization was launched in 1998, and has received grants from the U.S. Department of Education to further research in dance education.

At South River, students needed 30 credit points in order to be inducted. At least 20 of the points had to be earned through participation within the school. The other 10 could be in school or outside of school.

Students in grades nine through 12 were eligible, although earning 30 credit points for ninth-graders proved too difficult a hurdle. No freshmen were inducted at the April 15 ceremony.

Since it was the first year for the honor society, the necessary points were retroactive to a student's freshman year.

Students were also required to maintain an overall 3.0 grade point average.

Deming said that students could earn points in a variety of ways, although all points had to be dance related.

"I made a cheat sheet of how each point is earned, and from there students were responsible for figuring out how many they had," Deming said.

For example, a performance at a county dance festival could earn one point. Teaching creative movement at a day care center might earn a point.

"Some of the girls stage manage or crew for other productions like Talent Machine," Deming said. That could also earn them points.

One girl earned points for doing the program layout for one of the school's dance productions.

Now that the school has an established chapter, the seniors who participate will be given honor cords to wear at graduation.

For more information on the National Dance Education Organization and the National Honor Society for Dance Arts, visit www.ndeo.org.