Vogue: Strike a pose, aint nothing to it. This young woman is in control of her performance at the Jamaica Festival 2007 National Dance finals day four at the Little Theathre on Friday. - Ricardo Makyn

Andre Jebbinson, Staff Reporter

Colour, choreography and charisma made all the difference at the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, JCDC, national festival dance finals.

This year's dance festival was under the theme "Take It To Another Level," and the dancers representing various schools, mostly from the Corporate Area, did just that.

It was a scorching day from outside, to the stage reaching all the way up to the balcony. With all the choreographed drama unfolding on-stage, tempers flared on the balcony when a representative of one of the high schools in the competition tried to have his school go on ahead of the scheduled time.

This led to an altercation with one of the behind-scene-persons, who called him a "Shebada." This infuriated the man and others who were a part of his posse and they began to trade insults with the other persons. The security team was quick to the scene and kept a would-be brawl under control.

The fracas did not detract from the action onstage where Tivoli High and Eltham High were the frontrunners. Tivoli's precise and entertaining energy ignited the theatre so much that it seemed it was a dance off taking place. Some of their memorable pieces included 'Flirt Anancy', 'Woman A Courage', 'Retrospect' and 'Celebration'.

No matter the tempo, Tivoli High kept the dancers' stature that had eyes glued to the stage.

Eltham High, also got a lot of 'oos' and 'ahhs' during their performance, their bodies portraying what their music was about. For example, 'Dance A Le Le' and especially 'Dance A Yatta', a soca mix with African beat, required the dancers to snap their bodies like a twig while performing other gymnastic moves. Still they kept the momentum going.

St Andrew High, too had many pieces and each were well choreographed. Their best may have been the piece they called 'Choices'. The stronger pieces of the day came in the Creative Folk class.

Jesse Ripol Primary by far dominated the junior categories. They did so with stage awareness, costumes and the most important of all, their dance moves. Lanaman and Mona Prep also made strong showings.

Of the 75 items on the programme only about ten were from parishes other than Kingston, St. Andrew and St. Catherine. Most entrants came in the creative folk and modern contemporary categories.