Northwood junior teaching hip-hop dance

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:54:21 GMT

By Rayanne Antonelli

Alex Lloyd
Mary Rizkalla dances in class with friend Aki Suzuki.

“To say you’re a paid choreographer at the age of 16—now that’s some pretty good stuff.” Nancy Brown, a coach for the Northwood Dance Team, is talking about junior Mary Rizkalla, who is currently teaching a hip-hop class for nine-to-11-year-olds at Chatham Dance Connection. “Dance is one of my favorite things to do, and hip-hop is my favorite kind of dance. I really like kids too, and it’s fun to teach them what I love,” said Rizkalla. Ebony Grissett-Delgado, Northwood Dance Team coach and leader of Chatham Dance Connection, noticed a hip-hop spark in Rizkalla. She asked her to teach a class at her studio and choreograph a dance to be performed at this spring’s Relay for Life, and potentially for the Chatham Dance Connection recital. Rizkalla’s spark is apparent to her other coaches and teammates as well. “Any time she’s ever choreographed anything for the girls, they would immediately fall in love with it. The ending result was always awesome,” said Brown. Northwood dance teacher Leah Smith has known Rizkalla since her freshman year. Since then, Smith says she has been one of her most improved and eager students. She thinks that Rizkalla, a particularly spunky person, would make a great hip-hop teacher. “[With hip-hop] you have to have attitude when you’re dancing. Hip-hop is not a soft or flowy technique; it is very strong and at times aggressive. She definitely leans toward that powerful side, so I think it’s a good match,” Smith said. Lots of people associate the power and aggression that comes along with hip-hop with things at the more negative end of the spectrum. As someone who views hip-hop as an empowering and confidence-building form of art, Rizkalla is not one of those people. “You can put a lot of emotions into hip-hop… Dude, any kind of emotion basically. It doesn’t have to be just anger,” she said. Rizkalla shapes the classes to consist of some stretching and warm-ups, and then the choreography is taught. “[The kids] are quick learners,” said Rizkalla. “They’re really dedicated to dance. They love to dance. It’s good to see them excited to learn new things.” Rizkalla also needs to keep the difficulty of the dances at an appropriate level for children so young. “I don’t make it too fast-paced. I make sure to choose music that is easy to comprehend, that you can hear the words, and the beats are clear, so you can get used to hitting the movements,” she says. Until performance time rolls around later this spring, Rizkalla has 45 minutes every Wednesday to work with her students and exercise her teaching skills. “Sometimes I second-guess myself, and I don’t think what I’m giving them is good enough. But I’m always happy at the end because I see their reaction and they like it,” says Rizkalla.

The Northwood Omniscient

Northwood junior teaching hip-hop dance