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Moore 'kickin it' this summer

By SHAWNNA ROBINSON
Farmington Press

Thursday, May 22, 2008

“I always love a challenge,” says Shalimar Moore. This Farmington High School junior admits she “doesn’t go for the easy things” in life.

“I just can’t sit down,” she said.

For one week this summer, Moore won’t have much of a chance to stop moving. She’s been invited to participate in Rockette Summer Intensive training program led by the famed Radio City Rockettes. The camp will take place on June 15-21 at Point Park University in Philadelphia. Besides Radio City Music Hall, this is the only location for the camp.

While at the program, Moore will take part in six hours of daily dance class with emphasis on Rockette jazz, tap, formations and kick line. At the end the of week, the students will get an opportunity to show their skills from the week.

Moore has been a student at the Farmington School of Dance, under the direction of Sue and Kim Savage, for 14 years. She has taken part in the school’s “Broadway Kids” competition dance team and teaches ballet, tap and jazz to students ages 4-11 at the School of Dance. She has also danced in the Young People’s Performing Arts Theater productions of “The Nutcracker”.

When she’s not shuffling her feet to the music, she’s involved with the Junior ROTC program at the high school and has been a part of the marching band and Knightline. She’s kept busy as well with youth mission trips at First Baptist Church-Farmington.

Also, she loves to spend time with the musical arts as well.

“I play the piano, flute and violin,” she adding that her favorite instrument is the violin.

Moore traveled to Chicago in February to audition. There were 30 other dancers alongside Moore at that audition site. Once she returned home, she eagerly awaited word in regards to her acceptance.

“I checked my e-mail daily,” she recalls.

She finally received the message she was waiting for in March while at a church retreat in Lake of the Ozarks. For those in the cabin with her, though, the time could have been better.

“It was 1 a.m. and I ran to my mom’s room saying ‘I made it! I made it!’,” she said. It even took her mother, Karen, a bit to realize what this early morning declaration was all about.

Through all her year’s of dance experience, Moore says that tap is “most definitely” her favorite form — one that makes her expand upon what she has learned.

“It’s always challenging. You can mix and match the steps, raise and lower the tempo,” she said.

Once she returns from the camp, she hopes to share some of what she has learned with her students — most of who seemed to know a bit about the famed instructors their own teacher will be learning from.

“My students are excited, but the younger ones are always excited,” she said. “Some of the older students actually know who the Rockettes are and they think it’s pretty cool.”

Moore says everyone has been behind her “110 percent” as she prepares for this week — from her mom and father, David, to her sisters — Anna-Kay and Victoria — plus all her family and friends.

At Farmington High School, Moore says that instructors who “got wind” of her acceptance had pretty much the same reaction.

“They said ‘what?’,” she said, as they expressed their excitement and bit of disbelief to the magnitude of the trip.

Col. Steve Wenninger, one of Moore’s instructors in the ROTC program, continually reminded her of the countdown to her audition.’

“He would tell me that there was such and such time left before I was to tryout,” she said. “He was really excited for me.”

Moore explained her friends know what the trip is all about, but she’s had to explain it some to her classmates at FHS. There’s no denying how Moore feels about the week in June.

 “I’m just ecstatic,” stated Moore. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I can’t wait to go.”