A crowd becomes enamored with the new iPhone Infinity during the first number (Daft Punk’s “Technologic”) in Benicia High School’s spring advanced dance show “Scrolling Through Time,” which opens tonight. (Photo by Nick Sestanovich)

Remember a time when people weren’t consumed by their smartphones? Benicia High School’s performing arts department will take audiences back to such a time period— several of them, in fact— for its advanced dance show “Scrolling Through Time,” which opens tonight.

The dance show— which combines the talents of Benicia High’s drama, dance and other performing arts students—is put on once or twice a year and features a story and choreographed dance numbers based on a theme. In this instance, the theme is the clash between the past and present eras.

The story centers around Scott Bledsoe (Played by Logan Bledsoe), a young man whose inventor father leaves him with a prototype of his newest product: the much-hyped iPhone Infinity. As he plays around with the Siri function, the phone glitches and the digital personal assistant comes to life as a human being, played by Ava Keffer, who takes Bledsoe back in time to several different eras.

The dance show this semester is directed by Juliet Farnsworth, a 2012 Benicia High graduate who was in the advanced dance show for four years. She is currently an instructor at Farnsworth Dance Academy, a studio she co-owns with her mother Carla. Some professional choreographers and returning alumni were brought in to assist with the choreography, which is mostly done by the dancers. Farnsworth is impressed with the amount of effort that has been put in.

“I like seeing it all come together and seeing how hard the dancers have worked,” she said.

The characters visit several eras throughout the course of the production, ranging from the prehistoric ages to Ancient Egypt and Rome to the Renaissance to the 1980s and ‘90s. Farnsworth said a big challenge was making sure everything was historically accurate to each era.

“Since we do go back in time and we do touch on some historical figures, I wanted to make sure all of our timeline was correct,” she said.

An added challenge, Farnsworth added, was also depicting each era without props or backdrops.

To coincide with each era, the dancers will be performing to appropriate music pieces that either fit the era or have appropriate themes. These include instrumental Egyptian pieces to songs from musicals like “Hamilton” and “Something’s Rotten” to popular artists like the Backstreet Boys, Whitney Houston and Imagine Dragons.

“We have songs from the ‘70s, songs from the ‘80s, songs from the ‘90s, current songs that you hear on the radio,” Farnsworth said.

Overall, Farnsworth hopes audiences connect with the message of communicating and refraining from technology and enjoy seeing a different kind of production, which happens to have a history lesson.

“(I hope they) walk away smiling and happy that they saw something different,” she said.

“Scrolling Through Time” opens tonight at 7 p.m. with additional performances at the same time on Friday and Saturday. All performances will take place in the BHS Performing Arts Building, located at 1101 Military West. Tickets range from $10 to $15 and can be purchased at  tickets.vendini.com/ticket-software.html?t=tix&e=03007e500fbe7a9b21f59d42c6.

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