By Danielle Smith

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Reaching further than her regular dance studio, Sophomore Sienna Lalau attended the WilldaBeast (William Adams) Experience dance convention in Los Angeles, Calif., where she spent five days taking dance workshops with different choreographers from around the world to perfect and learn new dances, an opportunity that helped her rediscover her passion for dance.

“Going up and dancing with so many different people and types of dances, it’s really motivated her to train even harder. It’s given her a more solid idea of who she wants to be and that she really wants to pursue dance. It’s motivated her a lot because now she just has this drive to take in as much as she can now and learn from both people in Hawaii and in the mainland,” said Sienna Lalau’s mother, Jeannie Lalau. Having never been to such an event before, the Lalau family didn’t know what to expect. “Every time I went on a trip to the mainland it was for a competition or something but it wasn’t something like this, it was my first experience attending a dance camp,” Sienna Lalau said.

Surrounded by nearly 800 dancers who shared the same passion as her, the atmosphere at the Experience was one Lalau could familiarize herself with and welcomed. “It was nice to be able to surround myself with people who had the same passion. We all had something in common and that was our love of dance. And it was so fun to be able to dance with everyone else and see all their different styles and there were so many talented people,” Sienna Lalau said.

With nearly 12 hours put into learning different dancing techniques and perfecting their skills, the daily workshops played a large part in strengthening Sienna Lalau’s passion for dance. “I got to learn a whole lot more about dance and I was able to perfect my skills just a little bit more,” Sienna Lalau said. “I think I love dance even more now after that camp because it was such a great experience and it taught me so much.”

Sienna Lalau’s largest amount of support and encouragement came from that of both her family and friends, as they contributed in submitting dance videos on her behalf to a contest held by the Willdabeast Experience. “Coming from Hawaii, she was very shy. And at the beginning, even in that big ballroom, she would just stand in the back. She wasn’t the type who was always trying to be up in the front; she was just there to enjoy the experience. We had to kind of tell her that the reason you’re here is because (William Adams) saw her and he picked her from all the videos. We had to give her a little nudge to tell her that, ‘Hey, you deserve to be here just like everyone else,’ and not to be shy. Then she really grabbed onto that within a day and she started to loosen up more in the middle,” said Jeannie Lalau. 

The experience not only taught her new techniques and different styles of hip-hop dancing, but left a personal impact on her as well. “I think it really helped me a lot to grow as a person. When you’re in the entertainment industry you always want to make sure to be nice and respectful to everyone because you never know who’s going to make it to the top. And not only because of that, but that it’s good to be kind and humble,” expressed Sienna Lalau.

Since returning from the event, many have noticed the positive change it has had on both Sienna Lalau’s dancing and personality. “Going up and dancing with so many different people and types of dances, it’s really motivated her to train even harder. It’s given her a more solid idea of who she wants to be and that she really wants to pursue dance,” said Jeanie Lalau. Ulep added, “I can tell that she has learned a lot and I can tell that she really has paid attention in every single one of those workshops. She didn’t just gather different dance moves, but also how to teach it to a class in general.”

Sienna Lalau intends to take the skills she learned and teach them to the three dance classes that she teaches, as well as be able to apply them to other aspects of her life while traveling between Hawaii and the mainland to continue training with other choreographers.