By Carolina Cuevas & Cameron Ryan
Dancing With the Teachers is an event held the Class of 2018, advised by Chemistry teacher Kate Haskell. The event was brought in by Haskell when she became a class advisor back in 2015. This year will mark it as the third annual performance. Groups of students choreograph dances and perform with teachers as the audience watches from their seats.
The idea was inspired by Haskell’s time as a teacher at Chelsea High School. During that time, the school had their own Dancing With the Teachers, which encouraged Haskell to bring the event here at MHS. Since then, teachers and students would come together and perform on stage to compete for the title of best performance.
Dancing with the Teachers was an hour long event that lasted from 7pm to 8pm, which consisted of two acts and five dances in each, hosted by seniors Manny Quesada Nylen, the president of the Class of 2018, and Patrick Pereira, the secretary for the Class of 2018. Prior to the event, Pereira said that “[He thought] [it would] [go] really well. The music chosen and dances are going pretty well and [it is] something the teachers and students like and enjoy so [he thought] [it would] be a fun event.”
The first act kicked off with History teacher and Class of 2019 advisor Rebecca Corcoran with a group of juniors consisting of Libby Taylor, Sebastian Romani, Shataeya Smith, Helen Eshetu, Bryan Burgess, Jennifer Crespo, Mattheus Farias, Santiago Portillo, and Salma Bezzat. They danced to the song “Mi Gente” by J. Balvin, Willy Williams and Beyonce. Next up came Math teacher Chris Giordano with sophomores Matthew Mijares, Jason Chan and Gabriella Celona dancing to the songs “Got Shapes” by Blau and “ABC (glee cover)” by Jackson Five, starting off with a hip hop dance solo by Mijares. Followed by each dancer in the group coming on stage to dance as a team and Celona performing gymnastics during the dance.
Then was Special Education teacher Jennifer Brody and students from the PACE Program, Jonathan Angaspilco, Izabelly Barros, Nykenge Blue, Alexis Brown, Sean Castrucci, Jennifer Crespo, Danielle De Moura, Edwin Flores, Cassie Gammon, Alexander Gentile, Gabrielle Gonzalez, Isabelle Maraschi, Taijay Nazaire, Jennifer Rosario, Aparajitha Seethamraju, TIffany Tortora, Kyle Wong and Alexander Colon with the song Crank That by Soulja Boy. As the curtains opened, the students were lined up side by side around the stage dancing in sync. During their dance, three separate students from the program took turns doing their own solos at the front of the stage.
Proceeding them was History teacher Michelle Filer performing “Work”, a Rihanna and Fifth Harmony mashup, with seniors Gerdley Cadet, Alexis Wright, and sophomore Christina Charles. Within their act, Filer and her group performed many of the dance fads from the past year, including dances such as the “whip” and “nae nae”.
And finishing the first act, the last dance was performed by Play Production teacher, Miranda Libkin and her students of multiple grades from the Malden Play Production Class, or “Play Pro” to a remix of “Mama Will Provide” from “Once on this Island”, a musical the class will be performing in later this season.
The first performance of the second act was Jessica Sullivan and Kayla Scheitlin with seniors, Alicia Tan, Jeannie Basile and Blue and Gold Editor-in-Chief Megan Downer to a “Disney Medley”. The act up next was Physics teacher Julie Fox with students Mirabelle Jean-Louis and Menna Beshah with the song “Trap Queen” by Fetty Wap. Chemistry teacher Gregory Simone danced to “Heathens” by Twenty One Pilots and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” a Lorde cover of a Tears for Fears song along with juniors Jenna Vanella, Libby Taylor, Jessica Ong and Gabby Carli. It was then Kate Haskell’s turn with her group consisting of the students Chon Hyuhn, Vincent Truong, Erica Mei, Vivian Dang, Jenny Nguyen, Sammy Lee, Astha Llama, and Q Nguyen danced to the song “Ko Ko Bop” by EXO. A Korean pop song made by a popular Korean boy band.
The final act of the night was performed by first time dancer, the MHS Band teacher, Erin O’Brien-Mazza with seniors Barbara Castro, Allia Julien, Bryana Bichotte, Gaelle Musasa and Isabelle Maraschi performing to the songs “Mask Off” by Future, “Cash Me Outside” by Remix God, “Passinho Do Volante” by Os Lelekys, “Look Like You” by Dee Jay, “So Mi Like It” by Spice I K.O. and “Crazy in Love” by Beyonce. Their performance began with Ms. Mazza sitting on the floor with a flute in her hands as the girls surrounded her from behind. Mazza then began to play “Mask Off” as the student dancers stomped their feet to the music. Once done, Mazza put her flute down and began to dance with the girls to the rest of the songs. The last song, “Crazy in Love”, had acoustic music played by some of the students from Mazza’s Band class as they walked out from the audience and continued to perform in front of the stage. The players also wore pink bandits to promote awareness for breast cancer and to match Ms. Mazza and her dancers.
Once their performance was over, all of the contestants came together on stage. The voting then began by students going on a link or on twitter to vote for who they thought had the best performance. Within minutes, the winner of this years Dancing with the Teachers was announced to be Mazza and her group.
Putting in three hours of work almost every day after school for two months, Mazza’s win was well-deserved. Mazza had said to her dancers “If [they were]] doing this, [they were] doing it to win”. Mazza exclaimed that “[She was] so grateful [she got] to work with teachers that [wanted] to stay after school with students and share in their lives. [She was] also grateful that [they] [had] such amazing students that the teachers want to be around after school! [She was] truly blessed to work with so many amazing students!”.
Haskell said “Everyone who is doing it is really brave” and “everyone who is participating has been wonderful.” Junior Chon Hyun, who danced in Haskell’s group, mentioned how fun and hard working it was but enjoyed it. He explained that “[it is] like that feeling after you work out. And then you feel free after.”
Since Ms. Haskell’s Class of 2018 will be graduating this year, there will be no one holding the event again next year. But that would only happen if the students at the school decide to make that happen. Maybe the school will have another Dancing with the Teachers next year. “It would really depend on the students that are here whether they want to keep it going or not.” said by Ms. Haskell.
