Recently a new Starlite choreographer, Emily Barrozo, was welcomed to Bear River in replacement of former choreographer, Stacy Salter.

Emily talked about how her start at Bear River has been.

“Starlite has been going great,” she said. “The first couple months were difficult, when I was getting to know the set and completing Stacy’s choreography, [but] I have loved being the Starlite choreographer! I am so glad that I’ve gotten to come back to the program.”

Junior AJ Derise has enjoyed Emily becoming a part of Bear River’s Starlite program, and described how she’s impacted the group.

“She’s a good leader, and she just leads by example because she’s a dancer, too,” he said. “She’s been in Starlite before, and she’s pretty young, so we can kind of relate to her.”

He also added what he personally thought about Emily.

“She’s nice, and she cares about us and wants us to do our best,” Derise said. “She’ll give constructive criticism, and she’ll tell us what we can change.”

Katrina Ecke, a senior, also described Emily fondly.

“She’s very sweet and fun, and she’s really determined to make the best of the situation she was put in, and the situation we were put in,” she said. “She just really cares about everyone and everything.”

Senior Shelbi Beghetti explained how Emily inspires her and the rest of the Starlite members to do their best.

“Emily was in Starlite here at Bear River, so I feel like she understands us a lot,” she said. “She does a lot of really fun team bonding things to get us out of our shell, to make us try harder, and she’s also really good, so we try to be as good as she is.”

Beghetti talked about all the time that she and Ecke have put in outside of school to help Emily continue choreography and make the program successful.

“Since I’m a dance captain, Katrina Ecke and I meet with Emily sometimes on Saturdays to help teach her the choreography that Stacy didn’t finish,” she said. “…We’ve been known to spend five hours at Generations (Gym) together, just hanging out to finish the dances and stuff, but, because of that, we’ve grown a really close connection, and we’re all friends.”

Emily talked about some of her favorite memories with the kids this year.

“Some of my favorite memories are when we did an encouragement circle, the time I’ve spent choreographing with Katrina and Shelbi, when I make the students race, of course, and, finally, when I made Nick Tan run in front of everyone and do handstands,” she said.

Derise elaborated on Emily’s encouragement circle.

“We got into this big circle one time and said nice things about each other, and that was fun,” he said. “She said nice things about me, and I liked it.”

As a closing thought, Emily said positive things for the future of Starlite.

“I feel really good about the remainder of the year,” she said. “…I hope to make Starlite feel more like a family, and I hope the students are able to make memories that will last a lifetime!”