- April 22, 2024
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The music wasn’t the only thing rocking and jazzing the night away at the Peabody Auditorium a couple weeks ago.
On Saturday, April 26, the Mystique Jazz Dancers of Dance Express Production won Diamond — the highest honor — in the Encore Dance Competition for the Stars at the Peabody Auditorium with their group jazz choreography, “Honey Suckle Rose,” which was choreographed by Micki Mansfield and danced by Mansfield, Ashley Koontz, Laura Hughes, Brenda Jones and Rosemarie Fauci, who is also the owner and manager of Dance Express Production.
When describing “Honey Suckle Rose,” Fauci said the number was “dancers just coming out and feeling proud, bringing out that nice blues-and-jazz-club feel to the stage. It was a way of showing regular women coming to life.”
Fauci said dancing is a passion.
“Dancing is more than just ‘shaking your tail-feather.’ … It brings sanity to your life,” she said. “Music is a part of my therapy. It is my therapy!”
Fauci said the group had practiced the dance every Thursday, plus extra days in between, since January.
In the competition, the Mystique Jazz Dancers came in first among 15 other dance groups from around the area in the Professional-Amateur division and were scored by judges for their style, creativity and unique form of dance.
Fauci said her group was excited at the outcome, and at the reaction of the audience.
“We would have parents with their kids coming and saying what we’re doing is so inspiring because, to be dancing at your age, it shows that their dance career … doesn’t have to end just at high school, and that they could dance throughout their lives,” she said.
The Mystique Jazz Dancers of Dance Express do not only perform and inspire people at competitions, though.
“Our true passion comes into the volunteering we do as a dance community,” Fauci said. “Sometimes we go to nursing homes and some of the people are doing nothing all day, but once we walk in with the colorful costumes and the music and the dance, it’s enjoyable to see them doing something as fundamental as clapping — or even smiling is amazing. … The nurses take them out of their rooms and for 45 minutes to an hour they’re doing something other than what they are usually accustomed to doing or dealing with.”
The Dancers of Dance Express are always looking for volunteers or people who are just having that urge to dance. Call Fauci at 679-4855 or email her at [email protected].
