Practice Makes Perfect!
The Peters Township Dance Teams, Junior Varsity (JV) and Varsity, competed at the 2012 National Dance Team Championships in Orlando, Florida. JV came home with the second place trophy from their division, and Varsity won third place out of the whole Small Varsity Hip Hop division. “We wanted to win so bad, but third place was close enough,” says Senior Camille B. Plus, if this wasn’t enough, the Varsity team went straight from the Preliminaries to the Finals instead of having to go to Semi-finals in between.
Both teams practiced the whole time while they were in Florida. There was a large patch of turf where at least six teams could practice at a time. This was where the girls practiced for up to eight hours each day. “Even though it was hot outside when we practiced, all of the hard work paid off in the end,” says Freshman Samantha A. During the practices, the JV and Varsity teams worked on revising and cleaning their dances. Cleaning a dance means that the dance gets perfected, and that is why the practices were so long and hard. “Every little detail has to be perfect in order for a dance to get a high score. A team can win by one tenth of a point if the other team makes the tiniest mistake,” says Sophomore Gina C. The teams had a lot of help with revising their dances, though. The other teams on the turf watched the girls practice often. An all boy hip hop group, St. Genevieve, and a Jazz group, Seton High School, were two groups that watched them. However, the girls watched other teams, too. "It was so fun to see all of the other teams practice, especially if they were really good," recalls Junior Lauren T. |