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When freshman Katherine Viviano stepped into STA’s Goppert Center on Friday April 8 for dance team tryouts, she was greeted and welcomed into a circle of nineteen stretching and spinning dancers, each dressed in black leotards and leather dancing shoes, hair tied tight in high ponytails. The girls, some more anxious than others, warmed up together to prepare for the three-hour tryouts.

She was surprised that instead of feeling nervous as she had anticipated, she felt excited and confident to audition. Viviano hoped to land a spot on either the varsity or the newly-added JV team. Along with her fellow dancers, Viviano had attended a pre-tryout clinic after school that week, where the girls learned a Bollywood-style routine, consisting of a variety of pom, kickline, hip-hop, and jazz moves.

At the tryouts, girls performed their newly memorized Indian-themed dance in front of five judges, including head coaches Ms. Savannah Vose and Ms. Deena Schaumburg, and then waited in the locker room as they were assessed on their routine. The girls were free to leave once they had performed.

The following morning, the girls returned to Goppert to discuss their team placement and dance evaluation individually with the coaches.

‘On Thursday at the clinic, we reviewed our routine, and I was feeling pretty nervous,’ Viviano said. ‘Then I felt more confident once we had gone over it as a team. When Friday came, we were just hanging out in the back all together. The senior [dancers] circled us all up, and we all said a prayer. They [reassured] us we were amazing. And then I just went out there and did my best!’

According to dance team coach Savannah Vose, twenty girls tried out for the team and nineteen made the final cut, with each dancer being placed on either JV or varsity according to several prerequisites.

Requirements included the ability to perform double and triple turns, full splits, and to possess a high level of flexibility. Ultimately, eight candidates were placed on junior varsity and eleven on varsity.

‘[The administration] tried to make the dance program more consistent with the other programs of the school by having both a JV and varsity team, instead of just one dance team [as it has been in previous years],’ Vose said.

According to Viviano, who ended up making varsity, one of the main differences between the two teams is that, unlike the varsity squad, the junior varsity dancers will not have the opportunity to compete at state. However, many dancers still feel that having both JV and varsity teams will be helpful to the dance team as a whole.

‘I think it’s beneficial to the JV girls because they have an opportunity to be part of dance team without having to be up to the level that varsity is at, and then work their way up [to varsity],’ said freshman Kim Fryer, varsity dance team member.

Even though Fryer feels that the two different levels will be a positive asset to the team, she hopes that having two different squads will not affect the closeness and sister-like bonds within STA’s only year-round sports program.

‘We’re all really excited about having a JV team, but we don’t want it to change the strong bond that our smaller team had last year,’ Fryer said, ‘But I know that we’re all definitely going to work really hard to be just as close with the JV team.’