Competitive dance is not for the faint of heart. So it went for the Syosset High School Varsity kickline, which recently returned from the National Dance Alliance (NDA) Nationals Competition. At this event, teams from 29 out of 50 states competed in six different categories of dance routines.
Held at The Hard Rock Live at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL, the team of 29 girls competed with three routines they had worked on for the bulk of the year. This event also marked the first time a booster club was formed and raised money through various fundraisers to help send the team to Nationals, defray the costs of the team’s custom costumes and to bring in well-known successful choreographers to teach the team winning routines.
The squad competed in three categories—large varsity kick, small varsity hip hop and small varsity jazz. Led by coaches Lauren Grasso and Marisa Sanders, the team went in fully prepared for the event.
First performances, known as prelims, feature routines registered for a certain category that are performed in the hopes of having them advance to the finals. All three routines for Syosset succeeded in going on to the finals this year. After prelims, the team took the comments and feedback from the judges and got back to practicing and refining the routines even more. In the end, the large group kick came in fourth, the small group hip hop came in third and the small group jazz came in eighth. All of these were nationwide rankings. The team’s success was a community effort, with residents, family and friends contributing to getting the girls to Nationals, and Perfecto Designs providing custom costumes.
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