Catholic Spirit writer Maria Wiering reports on the National Catholic Youth Conference in Kansas City, MO.
During each general session, the Sprint Center stage has been abuzz with 35 youth who set the tone for each speaker and song. They sing, act and dance with the music, adding a theatrical atmosphere to the performances.
They’ve got some good moves — thanks to Laura Mahler, a parishioner at St. Therese in Deephaven who’s choreographed their dancing.
The students are called “animators,” and that’s apt, since they animate the stage and the crowd. Laura, 26, was an animator when she was in high school. She also sang in the pit choir.
Laura attended DuPaul University in Chicago where she studied physical theater. She consulted on the last NCYC, and she was brought back again to teach the animators this year.
The animators are from ALL over the United States, and they gathered together for a weekend in July to learn the music and dances. They practiced over the months leading up to the conference, and they spend much of their days running through songs and skits. Sometimes they only have time to rehearse a number once before the actual performance, Laura said.
Laura’s own experience as an animator was great, she said. “I was really changed by this opportunity,” she said. It was a chance to be a rock star, she said.
Laura has a special love for break dancing, and several of the moves she taught the animators involve break dance steps. When students felt they couldn’t get it, Laura encouraged them to embrace the challenge, she said.
“They’re doing things they didn’t think they could do,” she said. “It pulls the rug out from underneath them in a good way.”
The animators’ rehearsals always begin and end with prayer, she said, and students often lead it.
The most satisfying part of Laura’s work is the moments she sees it all come together, she said — when she choreographs the dance, and then the lights are added and her “visions of grandeur” are actualized.
Tonight, the animators will lend their talent in the grand finale: NCYC’s closing Mass in the Sprint Center.
