An activity that started this year and has gotten more than a 100 students’ attention is the new dance club.

Club Adviser Edward Sariol came from Kona and taught choreography at Kealakehe High before moving to Oahu. Sariol dances hip-hop but has dabbled in break dancing, jazz, and ballet. He works in the Business Office at McKinley High School. In addition, he teaches beginning hip-hop classes at Honolulu Dance Studio.

“I love teaching beginners,” said Sariol.

When Savannah Dias (12), club president, listed dance as her senior project, it was suggested that she start a club. From Student Activities Coordinator April Nakamura she found that Sariol had previously talked about a dance club. When asked by the students if he could advise the club, he accepted their proposition, thus creating MHS’s first dance club.

The club is split between two levels. Junior Varsity and Varsity. The Varsity students have a higher skill level, regardless of age, and act as leaders. They help to teach and choreograph the Junior Varsity members. The Varsity students split up and take Junior Varsity students. In their own groups, they come up with dances and present it to the club towards the end of the meeting.

“ Since I joined the Dance Club, I learned how to not be shy,” said Darilyn Oberes (10).

She was taught by her father how to dance Hip-Hop.

Not only does this after school club teach you how to dance to music, it teaches teamwork, pride, “give[s] them good memories, and boost[s] their self-esteem and confidence,” Sariol said.

Dance can also serve as a “sort of outlet, to let your frustration go,” said Dias .

The club could also help students who would want to pursue dance as a career.

“Right now we are working to get a scholarship for the club so we can help the students out if they ever needed support,” Sariol said. “And if they wanted dance as a career at least they’d have a foundation.”

Sariol plans to showcase the club through assemblies, football games, and at pep rallies. Their first performance was at F-Building where the members danced to Usher’s “DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love Again.”

Aprilyn Pagaduan (10), current member of the dance club, said “I want to do more performances because people in the school said they liked it.”