Will light survive? The dance classes of Ms. Diane Hula and Ms. Reesa Zagnoli asked this question as they took us through worlds of stormy seas and bubbles and statues and paintings come to life in the most recent Dance production, “The Game.”
Three characters in blue, green and red rolled light blue dice and carried glowing orbs of light through a series of realms, including a kingdom of statues, a sea of painted waves and a world of floating bubbles. The story follows their separation and reunion as they tried to keep the light alive.
The concept worked on stage. Getting there was harder.
“We kind of lost the main idea of what we were going for,” senior Armando Pacheco said. “I don’t think we ended up doing what we were originally really wanting to do with this show.”
Pacheco has been in Dance Company for most of high school and now serves as Ms. Diane Hula’s teaching assistant, helping with choreography and technique.
“I like being able to do more than just dancing,” Pacheco said. “I want to be able to represent our school, and specifically Dance Company, very well — as people that aren’t the stereotypical rude, nasty dancers, but as people you can look up to.”
Junior Malia Thomas danced en pointe in the Act I finale.
Thomas performed the ballet duet with junior Leo Gragnani in a number called “The Kingdom of Shades.” She trains en pointe at her studio, but this is new territory.
“It’s very restrictive,” Thomas said. “Balancing, first of all, is harder because you’re just on one thing keeping your whole body balanced and it throws off the rest of your dancing which makes it harder for your body to be cohesive and work together. It’s more nerve wracking doing it at school. It’s new territory, a new stage, new people that I’m dancing with and it triggers my brain and trips it out which makes it seem scarier and harder.”
The three main characters guided the audience through the board game, connecting each number. Junior Lucy Tallman, who played one of them, approached the role differently than his castmates.
“I feel more like an entertainer than a dancer,” Tallman said. “The roles that I’ve done in these dance shows are silly characters who interrupt often, and I get to see so many different types of dances. I really get to be fully indulged in the world of dance because I’m literally smack dab in the middle of it.”
Tallman is the treasurer of the Technical Theatre Club. Most shows he’s crouching over the sound booth or running props backstage. Dancing isn’t his default.
He played Mr. Beaver in last year’s “Narnia” dance show, another character role with less choreography.
The show ran three times, each with a bigger audience than the last. By the final performance, the Donna Hubbard Auditorium was full of friends and family, cheering for dancers at every level, from first-time freshman to seasoned seniors in their final winter show.
“The Game” didn’t turn out the way Pacheco imagined. But by the time the lights came up on closing night, it had become something else. It was a show that worked, even if it wasn’t the one they planned.
This article originally appeared in the Early Spring 2026 print edition.
