With hazel ombre hair flowing down her shoulders and a bright smile illuminating her face, Zoe Kister (12) sweeps her right leg up into a scorpion-like position, displaying her exceptional flexibility and grace, hard-earned during her time in dance and ice skating.

Zoe’s first year of dance was in seventh grade; the next year, she performed with middle school dance team Showstoppers after years of figure skating since she was 7 years old. She had first been introduced to skating at a friend’s birthday party and found it such an exhilarating experience that she decided to take up figure skating as a competitive sport. Zoe’s peerless skill at the activity opened up new opportunities for her; she was offered brand deals with various companies and even trained for the Olympics. Through and through, Zoe’s love for performance and her love for the thrill and freedom of it all is evident in her dances.

“I love performing so much. I think dance takes a lot of courage … in order to be able to perform in front of hundreds of people,” Zoe said. “But it is one of the best feelings, and it’s very freeing for yourself. You dance for yourself in the end, honestly, and I think that’s the best part.”

Throughout high school, Zoe has been a member of the Harker Dance Company, and she eventually rose to the position of choreographer in her junior year, continuing to choreograph as a senior as well. Since starting dance in middle school, Zoe has worked tirelessly to improve her skill and hone her performance technique. Dance teacher and former Showstoppers coach Rachelle Haun noticed Zoe’s affinity for performance and has been working with her in Harker’s dance program ever since.

“The first time I actually saw [Zoe] was when she was still in eighth grade. I remember her technique was not what we would normally want in performers for the dance team, but her performance was so great. She was so much fun to watch that we wanted her on the team. Zoe is like a ray of sunshine on stage,” Haun said.

Whether it be her audience onstage or her friends and family offstage, Zoe’s sociability and bright mentality extend past the spotlight and into her daily life. Close friend Emma Boyce (12) notes Zoe’s extroverted personality and the ease with which she is able to openly communicate with others.

“She is very outgoing and very energetic, and she’s basically a social butterfly. She loves meeting people, and she’s very outgoing in the way that she looks for new experiences,” Emma said.

As Emma stated, Zoe enjoys interacting with and engaging in a discussion with people, even if they are complete strangers to her.

“I always try to make a good impression with people. I’m always the first one to talk to someone or spark a conversation or try and get something going with someone … Even if it’s some random person, I’ll always try and go out of my way to make an effort,” Zoe said.

With her social skills, Zoe is presented with many opportunities, such as volunteering, that involve socializing and conversing with people from many different households and cultures. She volunteers at Brentwood Elementary School as a teacher’s assistant to a class of third graders. She quickly realized that even though the students live in Silicon Valley, their school cannot afford the same luxuries as others in the area. Zoe strives to connect with her students on a personal level even if she does not share common ground with them and utilizes her gregariousness to learn more about them.

“I’ve always been naturally outgoing and extroverted whether that’s through dance and my teammates, or specifically, volunteering and learning from children who have different lifestyles and different ways of living. You can learn a lot from people who you’re not comfortable with, whether that’s [by] talking to someone. That can also teach me more about myself because I’m comparing two completely different lifestyles,” Zoe said.

Furthermore, Zoe notes that in her volunteering, she is not only teaching her students, but also learning from them and gaining valuable experience that helps her with her conversational Spanish. At the school she works with, English is not the first language for many of her students, so Zoe makes an effort to communicate with them.

“I can teach them English. I’ll be providing a service to them because that’s what volunteering is, in a literal sense. It’s providing your ability or your skills or your help to people who are less fortunate, or people who need it, but I think in the end, it was great because it was more a hand-in-hand experience because I found them helping me with my Spanish,” Zoe said.

In addition to bettering her linguistic skills, Zoe thrives off of the benefits of her volunteering work and cherishes her time at Brentwood when she is able to improve other people’s days.

“What you get in return … is the feeling of seeing those kids smile and happy and thanking you and giving you a hug and saying how grateful they are,” Zoe said. “It all makes it worth it, and you feel proud of yourself and you feel like you’ve done something right for someone else, which is probably the best feeling.”

Close friend Ashley Gauba (12) recognizes and admires Zoe’s ability to lift others up and relate with others around her.

“Zoe is super hardworking and a fun person to be around,” Ashley said. “Whenever you’re around her, she’s so caring and cares about everyone around her. She walks into a room, and she brightens it up,” Ashley said.

Zoe forms natural bonds with everyone she meets with her bright personality and proactive sociability. She wishes that people would be more open to learning and experiencing new things through relationships with others like she is.

“One thing that I wish other people cared about was being more conscious and aware about other people and focusing more on learning from other people. Some of my most memorable learning experiences have been from working with other people and learning from them, whether that’s communities or my friends, and a lot of people take that for granted and prioritize learning from books or school and not actually learning from experiences or other people,” Zoe said.