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6 APRIL HER
HER Feature
would perform. It would introduce us to a higher level of dance outside of just our studio.”
After becoming a member of the Hot Springs Dance Troupe in eighth grade, she took a break for a few years because of her commitment to the Hot Springs Children’s Dance Theater Company. Since rejoining and throughout her time with the troupe, Mitchell has engaged in multiple opportunities that have furthered her education, admitting she relishes all the knowledge gained during that time.
Amy Bramlett Turner “has taken us to multiple places outside of our school to go take class,” she said. “That’s given us different teaching styles, different styles of dance. The Arkansas Dance Festival every year, which Miss Bramlett takes us to, is a get together of a lot of dance programs in Arkansas and they have dance instructors for every school. That just opens up our mind, so we’re not used to one instructor the entire time we have dance.”
The senior has participated in multiple extracurricular activities in addi- tion to dance including band, cross-country and soccer. She says balancing all aspects of her life has been a challenge as she continues to pursue her path.
Mitchell is enrolled in the International Baccalaureate diploma program courses, “which are the most prestigious classes at my school, so it’s really difficult,” she said. “I have a job on top of that and I’m student council pres- ident. I’m part of the national honor society (and) the dance national honor society, which I’m vice president of as well. Balancing everything has been an obstacle.
“I’m also part of International Baccalaureate (IB) dance, which is a class where we have to write papers about dance. We have to create our own choreography, we have to do a performance, and we have to analyze cho- reography. I’ve had to write 4,000-word papers while I have rehearsals or (performed in) shows until 10 o’clock, but I’ve made it work.”
Mitchell has been able to taste the professional world since February last year when she started her residency at Maxwell Blade’s Theatre of Magic. With shows six nights a week in March, Mitchell has had to juggle her job on top of schoolwork and her dance troupe.
“When you get on stage, doing the magic tricks and everything, if you
mess up something up you just have to go with it,” she said. “You have to know what to do at specific times, how to react to certain things. If something goes wrong, you can’t be like, ‘Oh, this is wrong. I have to fix it.’ You just have to improv and go with it. I’ve choreographed the opener for him. I had to be in charge of choreographing me and my partner. There’s another girl that I dance with so we do the opener and it goes into another trick. I had to learn how to take dancing and move it so it flows into a magic trick. It’s something I’d never done before.”
Earning acceptances at multiple universities, the soon-to-be graduate
6 APRIL/MAY 2020 ¯ HER MAGAZINE