Dance Team Brings Home Regional Championship
When the dance team returned home from their dance competition in Nashville, they returned bearing the title of regional champions. However, the path to this victory did not come without its own set of obstacles.
A week before competition, the dance team was placed in disposition to either change a section of their original routine, or take a penalty from keeping it in the dance. This was because the dance previously contained an “illegal” front handspring, a move that is considered dangerous by NDA.
Choosing to minimize the possibility of any possible penalties, the team chose to replace the move with another trick. Instead of the previous front handspring, the girl instead ran down the middle and jumped into the arms of the other girls.
“That just kind of worried me because we didn’t have as long to work on that [new part],” Dance team coach Katherine Neis said. “However they did it flawlessly.”
However, even with the extra backstage 20-minute practice, anxious nerves about successfully pulling off their routine could not help but arise. For several of the new dancers on the team, this was their first dance altogether. They kept their conversations relaxed and they calmed one another through their own unique team handshake for good luck.
“We do a couple of fist bumps,” dance team member Sarah Neis said. “Then we do weird stuff with our hands, a chest bump, and then we hug it out. Then we pray.”
Maybe it was this short ritual before the competition that assisted the team in winning first place regional champions in the pom division, hip-hop and team, but Team Captain Kaleigha Boddie feels that the team’s performance at regionals had everything to do with the confidence team practices gives them in knowing that they know the routine as if it were the back of their hand.
“Changing [the routine] wasn’t that much of a deal,” dance team captain Kaleigha Boddie said. “We picked [up the new changes] really quickly and then it was okay.”
After their victories at regionals, the dance team is now permitted access to go to nationals. Sarah Lash, a former student that was on the SHS dance team that won nationals 10 years ago is now the team’s choreographer. Last year, the dance team succeeded in making it to nationals’ finals, and they have high hopes for nationals of this year.
“As a team, we’re really trying to encourage each other and push each other to do our best because we want to win as a team and dance as a team,” Neis said. “[Kaleigha] really wants [to win nationals] a lot, and she wants us to want it too. She really pushes us and [so do] the junior coaches. They push us to our best abilities.”