The YouTube channel CarmoDance features dance routines from various competitions and events. Dancers can submit their videos to be featured on the channel, which has over a quarter of a million subscribers.
One of their more recent videos has earned thousands of views in just a few days. It’s an award-winning performance by a dancer named Ellary Day Szyndlar who won 1st place overall at the 2020 JUMP Kansas City dance competition.
At just 7-year-old, Szyndlar performed a stunning lyrical solo dance choreographed by Erin LaMoyne. She dances at Yoko’s Dance and Performing Arts Academy in Fremont, California, where LeMoyne also teaches.
The song she chose for her performance was Leona Lewis’ 2007 hit “Footprints In The Sand.”
JUMP defines the lyrical dance category as “A combination of jazz and ballet techniques to slow music incorporating emotional and storytelling elements,” and both the choreography and the music were spot on. Of course, that can only mean so much unless you have the right dancer too – and Szyndlar is it!
While dancers have to show off incredible flexibility during their performances, technique is the most important part of their overall score. And if “grace” were a category, this tiny dancer would have no trouble scoring even more points!
It’s clear that despite only being 7-years-old, this young lady has been dancing for quite some time – and perhaps indulging in some gymnastics as well.
We certainly didn’t learn moves like this in ballet class!
Szyndlar is well-known in her hometown for being a dancing superstar, and the second-grader had been featured in the local news and praised her dedication to her art.
Interviewing both the dancer and her mother, the Los Altos Town Crier reported that the hard-working artist had won awards in nearly every competition she had entered recently and has been dancing since the age of 2.
“I love how I can never get bored with dance. … I can always learn something new; I can always perform in a different way,” she told the paper.
In fact, she feels like dancing is a calling:
“I tell my family I just feel I was born to dance,” she said. “I cannot really explain it. Dance is full of happiness, energy, grace and expression. I love telling a story through my dance, and I love just feeling the music, then ‘dancing it out.’”
That makes lyrical dance the perfect genre for Szyndlar.
But at 7-years-old, she has other ambitions as well. She said she would like to be a Broadway star, a Rockette, AND a veterinarian when she grows up.
“My parents say it may be hard to do it all,” she said, “but I think I can.”
It’s likely that kind of confidence that allows her to take the stage so often without being intimidated, especially since lyrical dance requires so much emotion.
In fact, this style of dance requires multiple skills to begin with – acrobatics being one of them – so it’s clear she can already excel in many areas (though we’re not sure veterinary training will be a natural progression).
But who knows, when you’re 7 years old, anything can happen!
It’s clear she already has the dedication to apply herself to whatever she wants in the future.
Be sure to scroll down to see her beautiful, award-winning performance.
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