Sisters who study in Peters Township earn dance accolades
Gionna, left, and Rayna D’Alessandro at Ultimate Dance Complex in Peters Township.
Rayna D’Alessandro
Gionna D’Alessandro
Contest rules can be flexible, as Gionna D’Alessandro learned as one of 13 dancers selected for RAE Productions and Millennium Dance Complex Pittsburgh’s Student Choreography Showcase.
“It’s pretty cool that I got it, because the ages were actually 16 to 21,” she said. “And I’m only 13.”
Cheering her on during the Feb. 26 event will be her three-years-younger sister, Rayna, who has earned plenty of her own honors, including the national titles of VIP Dance’s Petite Miss Dance and Extreme Talent Showcase’s Petite Miss Extreme Talent.
Such accolades, as Ringo Starr would say, don’t come easy.
“Every week,” Rayna related, “we dance on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.”
You’ll notice the lack of Wednesdays, but not necessarily.
“We may go down and take extra classes that day,” their mother, Vera, said.
The South Park Township prodigies primarily study at Ultimate Dance Complex in Peters Township, under the direction of studio owner Brianna Lewis.
“They both work extremely hard,” said Lewis, an Upper St. Clair High School graduate. “They go to every competition that we have through our competitive team. They always go the extra mile to make themselves better.”
That includes frequent trips to Millennium Dance Complex Pittsburgh, a South Side studio that offers drop-in classes with a variety of instructors, including guests of national prominence. The complex is teaming with RAE Productions, a Pittsburgh-based organization that creates performance opportunities for local dancers, to offer the student choreography showcase.
Gionna’s entry is a contemporary piece called “Stop.”
“It’s about life and how everything is so busy and hectic, and always worrying about everything,” she said of her initial foray into choreography.
As busy and hectic as the D’Alessandro sisters’ lives may seem, their worries have been mitigated to some measure by attending PA Virtual Charter School, which serves about 2,300 students in kindergarten through 12th grade throughout the state.
Vera and her husband, Mark, decided to enroll their daughters two years ago.
“The kids kept saying, ‘Mom, the only way we’re going to get better is if we’re able to dance more, and it’s just so hard because with school, we don’t get out until this time,'” she said.
The charter school’s approach tends to better agree with the youngsters’ packed schedules.
“I can wake up and do ballet for about an hour,” Gionna, an eighth-grader, explained. “If I did go to school, I wouldn’t be able to do that, because I’d be going on the bus.”
She also commended the practice of teachers recording lessons for future reference.
“I can go back and watch it as many times as I want, to figure it out,” she said. “And sometimes, if you really don’t understand it, the teacher will send a video of her explaining it in a different way than she did in class.”
The school was able to offer additional support for Rayna, now in fourth grade, when she was diagnosed with dyslexia.
“You can see that they really want the children to succeed,” Vera’s mother, Lois Illar, said while explaining that she has come around regarding her granddaughters’ enrollment. “I was initially against it, but I can see that it’s working for both of them.”
Both of them are working on a first-time project: a dance duet to the Charlotte Martin song “Every Time It Rains,” which they plan to debut in March.
“We wanted to do this because whenever we go to competition, the duos are always with sisters, and they do really, really well,” Gionna said. “At first, we didn’t think it was going to go well, because Rayna and I are two different dancers. She’s more flexible and lyrical, and I’m more contemporary. I just kind of let go. So it’s very hard, but it’s been good.”
Given their dedication to their art and their resulting successes, the D’Alessandro sisters plan to continue with what they’ve been doing practically all their lives.
“I love to dance,” Rayna said. “I want to own a dance studio. And I want to be on Broadway.”
For more about the Student Choreography Showcase, visit mdcpgh.com/open-auditions/#tab-id-3.