By Mary O’KEEFE

Is dance hip-hop or ballet? Is it jazz or tap? Does the type of dance define the student?

At this year’s Crescenta Valley High School’s Spring Dance performance, the questions of who dances and how they dance will be played out on stage via a West Side Story-type of tale.

“It’s a cross of ‘West Side Story’ and Romeo and Juliet ‘Step Up’,” said Rebecca Thomas, member of the Advanced Dance program.

The story will follow a ballerina who goes to a new high school and meets a boy who is a hip-hop dancer.

“The two groups [of dancers] don’t like each other,” Thomas said.

The couple in the middle tries to get all dancers to dance together.

This scenario is a different than dance performances in the past at CVHS. Before, the dance company would have a theme but not a storyline that ran throughout. Thomas and fellow dancer Ani Agabalian began talking about the new direction and came up with the idea. Other dancers added their ideas and once they received the approval from teacher Fredda Manzo, the company began pulling the show together.

The Spring Dance is on Friday and Saturday; curtain is at 7 p.m. at the CVHS MacDonald Auditorium, 4400 Ramsdell Ave., La Crescenta. Tickets are $5 for students with identification and $10 for adults. The ticket sales support the CVHS Dance Dept.

  Mary Okeefe