During her freshman year at Summit High School in Bend, Oregon, Kyle Fox ’16 began taking art classes and joined the school’s dance team. Since then, both art and dance have become incredibly important aspects of her life. “I always do one of those things when I’m stressed out or sad or angry. They’re good outlets for me,” she said.
This year, Fox is taking Topics: Post AP Studio Art with Mr. Dickinson. She occasionally struggles, she explained, because she is quite the perfectionist with her projects. “I’m very tedious with art. It takes me forever to finish stuff because I never think it’s done,” she said.
Art is “a bit more disciplined” than dance, according to Fox. She said, “Mr. D has pushed a lot out of me that I didn’t think I was capable of.”
As for dance, Fox recently choreographed a hip-hop routine for the winter showcase to the songs “Slow Motion” by Trey Songz and “What Do You Mean” by Justin Bieber. The dancers in her piece range from complete beginners to advanced dancers.
Coco Spagna ’16 said, “The first day of rehearsal, Kyle really put in perspective how everyone has to start somewhere, and that even though I was a beginner in an intermediate piece, it didn’t mean I couldn’t dance.”
Nhyira Asante ’16 commented on working with Fox, “It’s really fun. We laugh and joke around a lot in rehearsal but Kyle is really good at getting us to pay attention when we need to.”
Fox wants the dancers to embrace the fun side of being on stage by learning how to express themselves through the choreography. Asante said, “there’s a lot of room for everyone to incorporate their individual style into the moves which is amazing.”
Hip-hop is Fox’s main style of dance. As a new junior last year, she took dance as a co-curricular but decided not to continue with it, because “the dance program forces you to take all the styles.” She explained further, “I was taking jazz and ballet, and I really just couldn’t do it.” Fox enjoys hip-hop the most, because “it’s very freeing.”
Fox plans to continue dancing and doing art forever, but she does not see either having a role in her professional future. She said, “Dance is something that I would never want to turn into a stress inducing job. I love it too much as a stress reliever.” up becoming, she will always have dance and art to turn to.