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Smiling bright, Alicia Kanazawa de Figueiredo ‘25 poses with both hands up, staying in sync with her teammates. During the Warrior Pride’s “Another Day of Sun” dance performance, the whole team had to work together to match up the timing to make the dance look organized and synchronized. “The dance is just really fun and energetic, and I love this song so much,” Kanazawa de Figueiredo said.
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Bringing the high energy, Anamitra Ghosh ’26 performs in a hip hop dance “Clap Back” alongside her fellow teammates. Taking center stage, Ghosh puts on her performance face, setting the energy for the rest of the dance. “You can kind of just release all your energy with hip hop and that’s something I always appreciate,” Ghosh said.
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Preparing for her pirouette, Magdelyne Hang ‘28 dances alongside her teammates in their “Another Day of Sun” dance. Hang stares out into the audience, continuing to stay focused to stick the landing on her turn. “You have to be way more expressive when doing this dance because it’s so upbeat and theatrical,” Hang said.
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Deep in focus, Betsy Soberanes ‘25 participates in the emotional performance “Dreams” alongside her teammates. As she stares out into the crowd, Soberanes pauses with her team to add an emotional, dramatic pause to the dance. “I felt like I could connect to it [the dance] a lot, making it feel more natural to dance to,” Soberanes said.
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Lining up to celebrate their last merge, Betsy Soberanes ‘25 was awarded a white rose to commemorate her time in the program. Claps filled the auditorium to celebrate each individual senior as they got announced while accepting their rose. “The directors of Merge made the show very nicely dedicated to seniors so it felt special receiving all that love,” Soberanes said.
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Dancing as one under the spotlight, Warrior Pride performed onstage at the RRISD ensemble team showcase Merge on Friday, March 7th at the Raymond E. Hartfield Performing Arts Center. The night featured dazzling performances from all the ensemble dance teams, including the Stony Point Golden Dancers, McNeil Sapphires, Round Rock Dragon Pride, and Cedar Ridge Nobility, encompassing a variety of musical genres and styles.
To open the show, all teams performed a dynamic, emotional piece together to the song Hold my Hand by Jess Glynn which showed off the skills the teams had been working on and brought them together in spirit. Each school got a section of the dance to choreograph and perform onstage, creating a constant cycle of movement flowing through the stage in addition to a special section at the end which highlighted the seniors for their last time at Merge.
“We run [onstage], and it was just really fun because you get to meet the other teams and you’re all a part of one dance together,” Warrior Pride Manager Clare Braun ‘25 said.
Starting their string of pieces for the night, Warrior Pride Dance Team brought excitement to the stage with their hip-hop performance titled Clap Back. The dance featured hype movement, which allowed them to engage with the audience and increase the intensity of energy in the room. Adorned with street-style attire, the costuming for this piece features a brightly-colored green shirt to signify the intention of being bold throughout this dance.
“It’s probably one of our best dances, and I think all of our energies together really made the dance better,” Nikhita Thirukonda ‘25 said.
Dancing to a rendition of Dreams by the Cranberries, the team shifted gears to focus on storytelling through fluidity and adding breath into their movements. They had been working on polishing this piece for their participation at the Central Austin Challenge, which garnered them a first-place win. The lyrical piece explored feelings of fulfillment and achieving one’s goals, something the team personally connected with.
“Learning lyrical was somewhat stressful when we had to regroup all of our dances that we had already conditioned for contest,” Betsy Soberanes ‘25 said. “After we learned our new movement I was glad the team got that challenge as it felt rewarding afterward, during our performance.”
To finish out the entire show, Pride put on an interactive production, performing a Novelty piece to the hit song Another Day of Sun from the Oscar-winning movie-musical, La La Land. The piece maintained a fast-paced style and used musical-theater style expressions to accent the atmosphere of the song. Filled with tricks and technique, the team was able to end the show on a high note.
“I loved the energy that novelty brought with Another Day of Sun, and then also Dragon Pride also did Another Day of Sun so it was interesting to see two different perspectives on it,” Siya Majmundar ‘27.
The Warrior Pride Dance team will finish out their season with Escapade, the annual dance show hosted by the SunDancers and Westwood Dance Department on April 11th and 12th where they will show off these pieces for one final performance.
