Senior Recognition: Award Winning Dancer
Aaron Choi, senior at Lincoln, is an accomplished musician (Iowa All-State Choir-2017) and a dance captain for varsity show choir. He was even asked to choreograph the junior varsity show choir this year. He is well known in the halls at Lincoln because of his performances with the Railmen-Lincoln’s male dance team.
Aaron taught himself hip-hop from watching YouTube videos growing up, but when he realized that videos could only take him so far, he decided that he wanted to venture out and learn about all types of dance forms and Des Moines Public Schools helped him make this new found passion a reality. At the beginning of this year, he enrolled in Central Academy’s dance workshops led by Kathleen Hurley and Ben Rethmeier who introduced modern dance and tap to him. These workshops opened up the world of improvisation and storytelling. He also found his dance home in the local dance school, Dance Vision, where he was introduced to technique classes and competition dance. Aaron also was able to take a Gifted and Talented Extended Learning Seminar at Lincoln focused on choreography and future opportunities as a dance professional.
The growth Aaron has showed in this past year is indescribable. He went from having no formal training and knowing nothing about the world of dance to winning Dancer of the Year at the Hollywood Vibe competition (January 2018), “Mr. Dance” at the Dance Masters of America competition (January 2018), First Place Overall in The Movement competition (February 2018), and second place in the Velocity competition (March 2018). He was recently awarded a dance scholarship to the University of Iowa and plans to graduate in three years before heading out to Los Angeles to start his professional dance career.
What is really amazing about Aaron’s success is that all of the dances Aaron performed this year were his own creation. Most dancers pay their teachers to choreograph dances for them. Aaron picks his own music, edits the music, and tells his own story.