By Jehna Devraj

A lifer at Collingwood, Alina Jiwani has a passion for dance that started when she was just four years old. Starting with mother-daughter dance classes, Alina eventually progressed to taking competitive classes at Vanleena Dance Academy. Now she is part of the Pre-Professional Half Day Program at Vanleena, where she spends over thirty five hours per week.

Although Alina primarily focuses on ballet, she also pursues contemporary, hip hop, lyrical, jazz, and musical theatre — the latter two being her favourites. She loves them because she has fun on stage using facial expression to strengthen her performance. Her favourite part of performance is invoking feelings in the audience since any feeling or emotion can be conveyed through dance.

This year alone, Alina has been in nine different dance competitions, as well as dance shows like the Provincial Honours Dance Performance at the Hard Rock Casino Theatre. In addition to her performances, Alina also teaches and choreographs dance: at the 2014 Workout to Conquer Cancer, she was the assistant teacher of the Hip Hop class.

Below is one of Alina’s favourite pieces: a lyrical duo done this year with her best friend Claire to the song “Gravity” by Sara Bareilles.

To her students and other dancers, Alina encourages them to never give up and to always take risks to step out of their comfort zone. She tries to live by her advice by trying new things every day, taking inspiration from her teachers who motivate her to always improve.

In the future, Alina aims to teach dance, attend university and possibly audition for a dance company. She wants to keep dance in her life forever, and there is no doubt that she will do just that. Recently, she was hired as a background dancer in an upcoming movie by Disney! Alina is taking the world by storm, one dance at a time.