Harrison Dance Earns High Honors

It's 1:30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, and after a long day of classes, dancers line up in their first-floor studio to prepare for a rehearsal.

"Today, we're preparing two dances that made it into the Regional High School Dance Festival," instructor Toi Banks said. "We're one of the few regular high schools to be selected; it's mostly performing arts schools that attend."

The students left Wednesday for Norfolk, VA, where they'll meet with more than 800 participants from around the country. The weekend includes master classes, workshops and performances.

Both of Harrison's showcased dances were choreographed by Ray Mercer, an artist who has performed with the cast of Broadway's The Lion King and has been a guest artist at the school.

The dancers have also been selected to perform at the Michigan Youth Arts Festival Gala in  May, Banks said. Festival judges select 1,000 students from about 250,000 adjudicated to participate in the three-day event.

"It's been a very successful season," Banks said.

The performance group is just one aspect of Harrison's dance program. Other classes serve everyone from absolute beginners to those with some recreational dance experience.

Harrison's program has been around 11 years, but the program is "very new. Detroit Schools has had a program for over 70 years," Banks added.