Summary: Chino Hills High School Dance Team

With every experience comes a lesson and I believe that to be true with every life experience that I have been through. Throughout high school especially, I have participated in the important activities that shaped me to be the person I am today. Between the classes that I have taken, the people I have formed friendships with, and the activities I have been a part of, I am someone who has taken lessons from each of those aspects and put them into my daily life to make me a better person.

The La Costa Canyon High School Winter Dance Recital was a fun and upbeat, communal experience that allowed the opportunity to watch fellow students excel in their own individual strengths. Each dance was creatively choreographed to portray a message whether slow or fast, happy or sad. The overall experience was enjoyable and definitely repeatable.

I’ve been able to travel to places I’ve never been before, to bond with ladies who share the same passion as me, and of course to grow as a dancer. One of my most memorable dance experience’s was competing in my first national dance competition my sophomore year in high school. I was able to compete with thousands of teams from across the United States and even a few teams from other countries. I love the competition atmosphere and the moments I have to bond with my teammates. There’s nothing that can compare to dancing in front of thousands of people underneath those stage lights. The adrenaline rush I get is indescribable and to know that I’m sharing the dance floor with thirty-four other ladies that have the same goals as me is unbelievable. One of the best moments at the competition was walking away as third runner up overall when we competed against over 200 teams. Another memorable dance experience was when I went to dance camp at Oklahoma State university my senior year. I remember the very first day of camp they ran out of food and we had to order pizza to our dorms. The worst part about this was that we had to be performance ready within an hour and try to eat at the same time. It was extremely frustrating and stressful but at the end we performed and received our bid for nationals in Orlando, Florida. I honestly believe that the most excellent

Abby Payne at Lake Travis High School claims her team is all about the show. They do football, contest, and spring show but spring show is the team’s favorite. One thing that seemed unique about her team is that they devote an entire group or the “Elite team” to preparing the dancers who want to dance collegiately. This is a great idea when you are in an area like Lake Travis because those dancers work hard in both academics and dance so they are more likely to attend prestigious schools that have excellent dance teams. It is a wonderful that Abby is taking steps to set them up for success in their future. Another thing that is interesting to me is that Abby encourages them to be in other organizations and to involve themselves in other things besides dance team so they can build their resumes. From my experience a lot of directors prefer their dancers keep the dance team as the number one priority and to not make too many other time commitments that take away from their devotion to the team. It’s very generous of Abby to allow the kids to take these opportunities to further prepare them for their future. The thing

Marie and I had just left her house and were walking to the tryouts. It was a really quick walk because she lives only 2 houses away from the studio. This was back in August 2017, a few days after dance camp ended for the summer. We hurried down the stairs to go inside and kept talking about how nervous and excited we were the whole way down. Once we got inside of Bleker’s, we started talking to the other girls. After just a few minutes we were all taken into the dance room and together we all learned a hip hop, jazz, and tap routine. We only had about 30 minutes to learn all of the routines so we were all feeling a little rushed. Before we knew it, the dance teachers put us into groups of 3-5 girls. These groups were the people we would perform our dance routines with. My group was Meghan S, Grace, and I.

On April 14, 2017, my friend and I visited for the first time Salt Lake City Community College dance company’s annual performance. The show was presented at the Grand Theater at the South City Campus of the college. The performance’s name “Moving Words” imply what the audience was about to experience. “Moving Words” consists of 18 different dances and each of those dances brought a unique feeling to the overall performance. I thought that the dancers and choreographers have done an amazing job. However, after seeing all the different dances there were two that stuck together with me, because of the ideas and the morals these dances introduced.

Championships are a huge part of All-Star, sideline, and college cheerleading. Each of these types have their own championships which are held down in Walt Disney Orlando Florida every year. Sideline cheer as well as college cheer attend national championships. “Cheerleading Championships is the most prestigious cheerleading in the country” (Varsity, 2018). On the other hand, All- Star teams do have a championship but it’s called the Summit. In order to attend the Summit, you need a bid in order to compete. In order to receive a bid, you must attend one of the competitions that offer bids. One step above championships and the Summit is Worlds. “Worlds is the best competition and the goal for all level five cheerleaders” (Englebert, 2011).

All-star cheer and High school cheerleading have a lot of major differences and as someone who has competed in both I have a lot to share about them. The biggest difference between the two would have to be the motive. High school cheerleading is about school/team sprit whereas all star cheerleading is about determination to win and all about the competition. In case you haven’t heard of all star cheerleading it takes a little bit of high school cheerleading’s focuses but magnifies them with a breakdown of about twenty-five percent worth of stunting, twenty- five percent worth of dance, and seventy-five percent worth of stunting. Whereas high school cheerleading’s target is composed of only

My mouth hung open as I watched the gorgeous, graceful girls leap and twirl across the gym floor during their annual summer mini-camp. From that point forward, I knew that I wanted to be a Chiefette. I studied up on the history of the team, watched every one of their public performances, and enrolled in dance team preparation classes. Each year, the Chiefettes got better and better, and during each dance, their pirouettes and jetes grabbed my heart and carried me with them through their emotional journey. Their movement quality astounded me; I wasn’t exactly sure how a team of so many girls could dance in unison with seemingly effortless grace. I knew from talking to the girls on the elite team that they maintained excellent grades, participated in other school activities and sports, and volunteered within the community. These girls were my idols, and I thought that the only way to have a positive high school experience was to join the dance team. There was no question in my mind that I would be on the team all four years of high school, and because I had prior dance experience, that I would be one of the better dancers on the team. Throughout middle school, I dreamed about the day when I would finally be able to call myself a Chiefette, but I soon realized that I had no idea the amount of hard work and talent that it took to earn that

Our coaches had told us since the beginning that the months and months we would spend preparing for one particular day would all be worth it in the end. Taking place at New Castle Fieldhouse in early March 2015, I competed in the IHSDTA Dance team competition with my fellow teammates and members of the NHS dance team. We walked into the vast, expansive Fieldhouse knowing that it was the largest High School Fieldhouse in the Nation. The anticipation in the air was electric and full of excited chatter of girls who had been preparing for months for this one day… actually for these two minutes.

Lilly, Brynn and Kaeli made a big splash in thier first ever competative trio. They took the stage at Center Stage Dance Competition and blew the judges away with thier energetic performance.

I attended UWM’s dance program from 2004-2008 where I made friends with Megan Zintek (to me, she’ll always be just Megs). When my daughter was 2 years old, I was looking for dance classes to put her in and discovered Megs had opened her own dance studio, Bella Via in Mequon. Thankfully my daughter inherited my dancer gene and still enjoys taking classes there. I’m so thrilled that a UWM graduate is using her arts degree and started a business that she is passionate about. I’m very proud of Megs.

This weekend I will be at school trying out for next year’s Foley Falconette Dance Team. This consists of girls in grades seventh through twelfth,you do not have to have any experience of dance. It will last seven hours, it starts at nine in the morning and will end at four in the afternoon. We will work on a lot of dance moves, we will stretch, learn our tryout routine and work on our splits, kicks, turns, jumps and a lot more dance moves. Once we do all of the stretches and learn everything, we will move on to the actual tryout part. Our coach will put us into groups of three to five and we will perform everything that we learned that day. While our coach “grades” us on our moves and our flexibility that we have, our coach will tell us where she thinks we should be placed for next year’s team, the Varsity team, the Junior Varsity, or the C-Squad, Varsity is for the advanced dancers who can do anything without a problem, junior varsity is made up of dancers who have experience, but they are not at the varsity level yet, and the c-squad is for new dancers or for people who need help with their moves and everything else.

This weekend I, personally did not have much planned. The only activity I attended was a seven-hour dance tryout for the Foley Falconettes Dance Team. At the dance tryout, all the people were made to do learn a dance, jumps and leaps, the splits, and stretch plenty therefore people wouldn’t hurt themselves. I needed to attend this to figure out what team I will be attending this for the winter. After my seven-hour dance tryouts, my family held a campfire. I could sit under the stars and listen to the campfire crackle.

Most of the dancers came from a voluntary background as in they like to do it for fun, but, for some they use this as a professional aspect for their dance careers. The environment is a mixture of voluntarily and professional backgrounds. Although some may just do it for fun, the coach has a strict regime way of getting stuff done to prepare for performances. In the other hand, the coach can be laid back with a nice sense of humor from what I can tell. I asked the dancer named Karen Delgado where and how she gains her knowledge and ability for dance, she quotes “During the summer, we head to Santa Barbara to compete with different schools all around the world, this is where I take away the different cultures in dance that are divergent and this is how I prepared for the dance team ” (Karen Delgado). According to the dancer she felt like she’s not gaining much from the dance team, she says “ I feel like the coach does not have the knowledge for dance because she is a cheer coach not much of a dance coach, she does have the ability to teach us but sometimes it is difficult” (Karen Delgado). From my perspective, the coach seems to have more knowledge about cheer and is well known for it. Overall, the dancers were well focused, their excitement for it was great, there was a lot of enthusiasm. In the end, Coach Tiffany say “Go home and practice, and get it together”