The annual Spring Dance Concert was full of attention grabbing performances, spanning a wide range of origins, that made it impossible to look away from the stage.

In act one of the show, there were numerous superb works.

It started with Shaping the World in Between from The Choreography Classics, with the cream of the crop dancers all portraying many different kinds of dance. One could appreciate it for its vision of inclusiveness.

Besides that, the composition was quite sensible- as was Oh, Chute! My Time Has Come, a contemporary lyrical work choreographed by the director herself and having a sweet pun in it’s name, featured an ensemble of dancers using a parachute to exclude and then accept one rather short dancer.

The Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer effect, as I like to call it, will always be a relevant topic to young people.

Paquita- Pas de Trois, a ballet piece choreographed by Phoenix Cole, was an audience favorite for it’s elegance.

Only praises can be said for the three dancers featured in the work: Ismael Ramirez, Francine Toettcher and Desiree Watson.

Small Dances for Janet and Janetsancentric were also shining with uniqueness and focused energy.

Small Dances for Janet, where the dancers performed a simple routine on chairs was exquisite for its simplicity.

Janetsancentric was a large Afro-Modern piece, a bright and flamboyant number that has such a large and happy energy that transferred from the dancers themselves to the audience; by this virtue, it was truly genius.

A similar work was the closing piece of act one, Set el Setat, which was a contemporary Middle Eastern piece; it busted at the seams with positive, happy and sensual energy.

The second act started with I am THAT I am, another genius piece with focused energy.

It showcased the many dancers involved and showed them to be capable of being both athletic to the point of resembling a hurdle jumper, while still remaining graceful in the air and the ground.

By the end, the dancers were tossing and leaping to catch an invisible object.

After that was The Rose, a piece by the CSULB Salsa Dance Team; this could have been better.

The dance team put together a routine with the DIsney’s-Beauty-and-The-Beast-inspired narrative; with a vain dancer learning to love herself genuinely (in a way that defines confidence from arrogance) and dance with the ugly people.

Though the work was good in intention, it is hard for me to be nice to anything Disney inspired.

The work would have been better if the team let the dancing speak for itself rather than having a verbal narrative leaving the audience to question, “What is this, a speech?”

After this slump in the night, the momentum was picked up by Traction, an Afro-Modern piece choreographed by Christine Gerena Gregory, which was also happy and vibrant.

Four in One was another piece of simplicity and vision. It showcased Gilberto Quezada (among others) in El Pasacalles, a Ballet Folklorico.

This work within a work, along with the Middle Eastern and Afro-Modern pieces highlighted the multiculturalism of the 2017 Spring Dance Concert in a way that was relevant to the campus at large.

The more the merrier. All are welcome. Variety is the spice of life, and Cerritos College is spicy as hell!