This year, the West Potomac Dance Team will be traveling down to Orlando, Florida to compete in the National Dance Alliance (NDA) Nationals. This will be their first year coming back to NDA since competing at Universal Dance Association (UDA) for the past few years. Since the beginning of the year, the dance team has been preparing, practicing and learning their dances in anticipation for the national competition. With a veteran team, a new choreographer and a new coach, the dance team is ready to leave it all on the mat.
This season, lots of new changes were made for this year’s dance team with the hire of a new coach, Allison Walters. Before becoming a coach, Walters was a dancer for the University of Kansas and is hoping to push the team into the NDA finals. Along with a new coach, the dance team hired a new choreographer to choreograph their jazz routine. Isabelle Wakeham taught the team their jazz dance in just one day back in late September, and the dancers have been perfecting it since then.
Senior Captains Rachel Jurta and Emma Sowers have been competing at the NDA nationals since they were freshman, and have now come full circle with this being their final nationals. As captains, both Jurta and Sowers are responsible for being role models and leaders for other members on the team.
“It’s a bigger time commitment than we both realized in the beginning, but it’s definitely worth it,” Jurta said.
Along with being role models for the team, they help with the little things like sorting through uniforms, lead stretches and anything else the coaches may need. After competing at UDA for most of their high school careers, both captains are excited for the change to NDA.
“I really hope we can go a little bit further this year [than last year at UDA], I think it’s going to be interesting to see, but I think it’s going to be really exciting,” Sowers said. “No matter what nationals we go to, I’m proud of this team.”
After the fall season ended for the dance team, the winter season immediately kicked off. With practices Monday through Thursday and four-hour practices on Saturdays, the team has been preparing for this competition for months.
“We’ve worked really, really hard. With lots of long practices, every person on the team has shown up and showed out to each practice, game, and performance,” Sowers said.
In addition to weekday practices, dancers often compete in local competitions in order to receive feedback from judges and tweak any imperfections. Winter season also includes dancing during the halftimes of both boys and girls basketball games, which allows for additional practice and community entertainment.
At nationals, the dance team will perform both a jazz routine and a pom routine. With the help from choreographer, Isabelle Wakeham, the jazz routine follows a story about a collective struggle to get to the top [finals] and that goal is finally achieved by the end. The second routine is a pom routine, which many dancers feel is difficult. The pom routine is fast paced with difficult timing and tricks.
“I think both of the routines are really challenging, but they’re really fun and I love the choreography. I think it showcases our best technical elements while also combining a lot of our passion and emotion for dance,” Sowers said.
