LaGuardia High School sophomore going viral with love letter to New York City
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- A new video on YouTube expresses the love and passion dancers have for New York City, and "Big Apple: A Love Letter to New York" features a talented dancer who is just a sophomore at LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts.
It's the same school that inspired the movie "Fame," and the place where so many stars have been born though the years.
The young dancer sending a love letter to the tune of "New York, New York" is Sadie Fraser, who has been dancing since she was a girl and had to audition to get into LaGuardia -- only to find she had to spend her freshman year at him on Zoom.
"My living room was turned into a dance studio, which was lovely for me, but I don't know if my family loved that," she said. "But I would dance there. I would dance there. I would do the best I can. Sometimes I'd hit a table or my dog would come into the screen."
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We talked at Downtown Dance Factory, where the best are trained by the likes of choreographer Katie Drablos.
"Being in person, there's so much natural connection that happens," she said. "You're in the same room. You can look at each other in the eye, feed off each other's energies and feel them. And on Zoom, everyone is in their own little world."
Fraser is outgoing, and she found working this way very challenging.
"(I) had lived such a busy life," she said. "So finally sitting down with myself and my feelings and thinking about things and just thinking deeper about a lot of things you hadn't had to think about before was interesting, but also scary for me."
Still, she grew determined to find lessons in an experience she has called "traumatic."
"One of the things for me this past year was learning how to just be authentically myself," she said. "And not try to change myself to fit anyone's standards."
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So, in a larger sense, you could say that Fraser didn't really miss a step.
"She has this wonder in her eyes, which is moving, that cannot be taught," Drablos said. "We can encourage it and try to foster it and bring it out of people, but she is uniquely herself when she is dancing."
Fraser believes the pandemic has left her with a greater sense of excitement about the art of dance, a greater sense of appreciation for all life has to offer her, and a new determination to stay true to herself.
Her YouTube beautifully shot and edited by Pierre Marais.
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