Sending a message: Fall showcase tackles phone addiction, social issues through dance 

LBCC’s dance showcase kicked off on Friday Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. with 10 dances in total and three students presenting their first-ever choreographies.

The dance program had a total of nine weeks to prepare all 10 dances and showed a wide array of styles including ballet, modern and a dash of tap dancing. 

One of the highlight dances of the show was the third dance titled “And So, They Prevailed” choreographed by student dancer Amanda Arroyo. 

This was Arroyo’s choreography debut, with a group performance filled with sci-fi elements and a critique of phone culture that Arroyo believes forces people to conform.

Arroyo’s major inspiration for the dance came about when they witnessed how attached students on campus are to their phones.

“One day I was listening to the music you heard and I envisioned these robotic movements and I tried to get a story from that,” Arroyo said. “I was just walking around school and you can see people all the time on their phones, bumping into each other. We become so reliant on technology that we become frightful to be ourselves.”

^{Student choreographers produced original and unique dance sets with varying themes, aesthetics, and cultural backgrounds for LBCC’s Dance Showcase. (Alma Tamara)}

The finale of the show was “Mi Gente! Wake up.” was choreographed by dance director Martha L.Z. Pamintuan. 

The dance focused on the contributions of working-class Hispanic immigrants as well as the culture of these communities. 

The performance concluded with dancers walking onstage with slogans encouraging audience members to go vote. 

However, the cards raised by the dancers spelled “Go Ovote” when they had meant “Go Vote” 

Pamintuan attributed the inspiration of the dance as an effort to shine a spotlight on immigrants and their contributions to the U.S.

“I started the idea a few years ago back in 2009 when I was at UC Irvine. It’s just difficult because as a brown woman looking around and (seeing) how much we don’t value all of the people that do the work,” Pamintuan said. “So (the performance is) about the people behind the scenes, what they offer all of us, as a society, as a nation, as a country.”.

Dance student Alyssa Gallardo was deeply moved after the final act and approached Pamintuan with tears in her eyes.

As a daughter of a first-generation immigrant, Gallardo expressed that the finale’s message meant a lot to her.

“He came illegally at first but he’s now a citizen, he just worked in domestic service and farming for a long long time and got his education and our family. I’m a first-generation college student, so it’s had a huge impact on me. Seeing my dad being represented on stage to some degree and remembering how fun the culture is at the end,” Gallardo said.