Varsity Dance is one of the few, if not only, sports in the school that goes all year round. The busy dancers start off the season with tryouts in March, then begin choreography for a national routine to perform to judges in July for a qualification for nationals.

They do this when they go to camp, which lasts a week. At the camp, they recieve classes where they learn routines and get critiques for school oriented genres of dance such as pom, hip-hop, and jazz.

After camp, the team resumes practice in August, cleaning the routines they learned at camp for football games. They begin at the end of August or beginning of September until the end of football season: around the middle of October.

Over these months, the team learns sideline dances to perform at the games, and the other two routines that will be taken to compete at nationals (this year, it was Hip-Hop and Pom).

During December is when they have their first competition: regionals. This year, the competition took place at Battle High School; the team took second in Hip hop, Pom, and their home-made Mix routine. (Mix consists of thirty second of pom, 15 team kicks, thirty seconds of jazz and/or hip hop. They did all because they’re overachievers.) The rest of the month is spent preparing for Farmington and St. Charles, which are both in the month of January.

At Farmington, the team received second in pom and mix. Hip-Hop was competing against a score-sheet where the team received a superior rating for their dance.

At St. Charles, the team received second in Pom (beating LaDue, a Nationally ranked team) third in hip hop, only ten points away from first, and second in Pom. The team takes the critiques from the judges from both competitions and rearrange the dances to improve them to the judge’s liking.

In the last weekend of February State is held, and at the very end, February 28, the team packs and leaves for the final battle.

Nationals.

As soon as they come back, tryouts begin and the cycle continues (hopefully with better placings) for everyone on the team except the seniors. The bond that this amazing team creates will certainly have an impact on the dancers; some that will last a lifetime.