By Monique Garcia ’22 News Reporter
tech week /tek wēk/ (noun): a 168-hour long period leading up to the fall dance showcase in which Mercersburg Academy’s dancers spend grueling albeit joyful hours practicing their pieces
Saturday, November 9, the Burgin Center for the Arts presented this year’s fall dance concert, and while we get to see the dancers perform only once, they rehearsed the full show cue-to-cue beginning a week prior.
Tech week also allows for lighting, costumes, and staging to be perfected. This is the week when choreographers decide how to portray their piece’s mood through lighting and sound. Lighting plays an important role seeing as it has the ability to turn the choreography into a different work of art. “[Lighting] transforms a piece from good to great,” says Kelly Flanagan ‘20. The choreographers spend a great deal of time thinking about the backdrops and lights they want in their pieces. So, when the time arrives, they find it quite easy to tell Franklin Williams ’22, light crew director, exactly what will allow their pieces to reach their full potential.
Tech week is about putting final touches to the pieces. The dancers have run through their dances countless times before tech week but run through them countless more in tech week alone. To newcomers it may be the first time they experience the chaos that occurs, but seniors say that it’s upsetting to know that when the week is over, so is their last-ever fall dance concert.
Few people see the behind-the-scenes effort being put in not just by the dancers, but also by their dance instructor, Denise Dalton, the choreographers, and even the tech crew. Without each and every one of them, the show simply would not happen. And though the week is very stressful, it is, says Lian Wang ’21 “always worth it in the end.”