Libby Llanso is a force to be reckoned with on the Groton arts scene. She’s hard to miss in the sea of seniors, and her bright personality and bold sartorial choices make her a standout. Even from seeing her from afar, it is clear to the onlooker that Libby is a huge presence in Groton’s arts department. She is a longtime dancer, an avid photographer, and has recently dipped her toes in the discipline of drawing.

Libby started dancing at the age of three, when her sister was taking classes at a nearby studio. She started out with ballet and tap classes, and has been hooked ever since. She loves doing barre work, though she says, “I can’t explain why I love the torture so much, but it’s one of those things that I think a person can only understand once they’ve done it and felt that same passion.” She has also taken jazz, hip-hop, and modern dance classes.

Coming to Groton was a big change for Libby, because she knew that dancing outside of high school would make time management difficult. Instead of being discouraged by the significant cutback in time allotted for dancing each day, she decided to fully immerse herself in Groton’s dance program and take advantage of it.

While dancing here, Libby has had “a lot of ups and downs, between the sadness of losing seniors and valuable dancers and the stress of not being taken as seriously as sports.”

But her experience has ultimately been positive. Her favorite piece she has danced in to date is one that Denia Viera ’12 choreographed in Libby’s Second Form year. It was a lyrical piece to “Someone Like You” by Adele. The dance told a story and at the end of the piece, the girl is left on the stage with the memories walking away.

Libby loved every second of that piece and part of that was because she loved the people with whom she danced in that number. It’s the community that creates the atmosphere.

While this was Libby’s favorite piece, her most memorable performance was that of last spring. She cites it as particularly special because she had the opportunity to choreograph Ale Pablos’ ‘15 last piece at Groton. Last year also proved to be memorable for Libby in regards to her venture back into musical theater with her role as one of the Gemini in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”

Although she hadn’t been in a production of this scale since leaving her old middle school, Libby immediately fit right back in, happy to be in that atmosphere once again. “When you dance it is so important to act in order to portray a specific emotion.” Libby said about the musical.

It is clear that her experiences with dance have changed over the years, but one thing that has not changed is the role as a creative outlet that dancing fills. She can often be found in the dance studio after a particularly taxing day or on a Saturday night, simply dancing to clear her mind. “My favorite thing about dance is that it is an escape,” she concludes. “A dance studio is my safe haven. It’s the one place that I feel as if I can be entirely myself and really allow that person to show. I love that I can share parts of that person when I perform.”

Students who haven’t seen Libby on stage are likely to at least see some of her paintings and photos around the art center. Photography is a hobby which she picked up from her older brother years ago and has not let go.

She explains that she feels comfortable behind a lens because it allows her to “see beauty through a different perspective.” Elaborating on this, she says, “I love that I can capture beauty. I love being able to create art from the mundaneness of life around me.”

This is a lesson which she has carried with her from Ms. Emerson, that “sometimes you just have to look at something differently to see the beauty in it.” Keeping this in mind, her favorite subject to photograph is, unsurprisingly, people. Not necessarily those whom she knows, just anyone she sees anywhere.

“It’s kind of creepy,” she admits, “but I have SD cards filled with pictures of random people at parks and in cities I’ve traveled to. There’s something about a portrait of a person you don’t know and the story that lies inside of them covered by their eyes and wrinkles.” She manages to find inspiration in the most normal of daily scenes and constructs fascinating portfolios in the process.

An easy place to hunt for inspiration, according to Libby, is Instagram. Students who have seen Libby’s Instagram will agree that it is undeniably artsy, with “National Geographic”-worthy photos of her travels to Tanzania (which comprise some of her favorite shots she has ever taken) dotted throughout. The reason for this might be her so-called “obsession” with every “National Geographic” photographer.

She regards their work highly and says she could spend hours going through there Instagram pages. One of her favorite photographers is, surprisingly, actually a “National Geographic” photographer’s child. Going by the name Hawkeye Huey, he is a four-year-old who photographs the Midwest with a Polaroid camera. Libby admires his work because “even at such a young age he has so much passion for the people around him” and urges everyone to look at his work.

Her newest artistic endeavor, drawing, has been more of a challenge for Libby recently. She decided to go to Mass Art this past summer to take both drawing and fashion design classes, expecting to love the latter and despise the former. However, this was not the case. She ended up liking the two just the same, despite being “not good” and “nowhere near as talented as the other artists in the class.”

This, of course, is Libby’s modesty showing through; in reality, she is an excellent artist in this medium, though she says that sometimes her tendencies to be a perfectionist hinder her work. Nevertheless, she has learned from her experiences that “often people have this idea that a drawing must be realistic and look as if it is a photograph, but I have learned that it doesn’t have to be that way, and allowing myself to let go has produced some of my best pieces. I think that I’m much more critical of my drawing than of my photographs because it is still something new for me.”

Like with dance, drawing allows Libby to find some peace during a hectic day, saying the best aspect about it “is when I find that moment of absolute serenity—when my music blocks out the world and it’s just my charcoal and me. I love that three hours can go by and feel as if it’s only been three minutes.”

On the whole, she says that dance, photography, and drawing are all intricately connected. “I think that all forms of art influence other forms of art,” she explains. “For example, I think that knowing the peace I can find in a dance studio has taught me that I can find it with a pencil in hand and that same music blaring into my ears. I think that the fluidity or rigidity of a movement in dance translates into how I see shapes and colors when I take a photograph. I see texture and shadows that I have learned to master in a photograph materialize into a movement in dance in order to portray a specific message.”

Libby is a true tour de force of Groton’s art department, so be sure to watch out for her on the stage and in the art center.