A group of senior dance enthusiasts were able to showcase their talent and passion at the first-ever Senior Concert.

Although the dancers come from a variety of majors, their love for dance brought them together. The show featured 12 dances, choreographed by the seniors.

“It was great to focus and unite as a senior class — to give a last dose of our passions to ISU,” says Stephen Kuhlke, senior in English.

Kuhlke has been dancing for 23 years, two of them at Iowa State. Although he is a senior this year, he did not choreograph any dances. He was only a performer at this concert but had the opportunity to choreograph a previous show this year called “Focus.”

Stephanie Kobes, senior in journalism and mass communication, organized, choreographed and performed in the show. She came up with the idea for the show based on what is done at many performing arts schools.

Iowa State is a science- and technology-based school and does not give as much attention to the arts as it deserves, she says.

She decided she wanted to change this and worked with seniors to create a show for them to produce and choreograph.

“For me, it was really important to dance with all these people I had grown with for four years, one last time,” Kobes says. “Just to be able to share my art with other people and share dancing with other people was really important and especially to do it with people I had spent four years dancing with.”

Although the senior dancers’ biographies show many will be moving on to something other than dance, some will always keep dancing in their lives. Kuhlke plans to move to Taiwan to teach English as a second language.

“I don’t know how much I’ll be dancing there,” he says. “I don’t know what dancing is like in their culture. It’s something I’ll always want to do because it’s so good for your body, though.

“I’ve been dancing for 23 years, but I like to say every day is a dance through history.”