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As I finish up my blog of my senior year at dance, the last thing I wanted to share was about all of the amazing things dance has taught me and people it has brought me. This is a picture of me with three of the dancers on the youngest competition line that I teach. It is a great experience to be able to teach younger dancers at my studio because it teaches me patience and leadership and gives me new relationships with the young dancers. Being able to teach kids is just one of the many things I have learned through dancing at Larkin. Being a competitive dance is a big commitment. It takes up a great amount of my time, I dance for almost 25 hours a week. This has made me have very good time management. It keeps me motivated to stay super focused in school. I always make sure to study hard and get as much work done during school hours as I can because I know I will be going straight to the studio and won’t have time to do it at home. Doing a sport that is so competitive at such a young age has taught me discipline. I have become very self reliant and self motivated at a very young age. I also learned about respect very early on too. Our dance teachers are strict, but it taught us a lot about respect and still to this day, I will notice young children or kids my age not grasping the idea of respect for adults. I also notice with some of the younger dancers at my studio, that dance has taught them to be much more mature and smart than other kids their age that don’t dance. Being a dancer, you have multiple dances to memorize and many dance steps to perfect. Being young and learning how to do this definitely makes dancers smarter. I would not be the person I am today without dance and I am so grateful.

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It is finally recital time at Larkin Dance Studio and it is very exciting. The Larkin recital is very iconic and there are many steps that lead up to this amazing event. The first step to our recital weekend is ticket selling day. It’s important to buy your tickets fast because our recital is very popular and they sell out quickly. Next is picture day, which is what we had today. Every year each line takes pictures that will go in our recital program. The graduating seniors take extra pictures as well in their solo costumes and in formal dresses. There are many important tasks for graduating seniors during recital time. Each graduating senior gets to perform their senior solo at recitals. They also record voiceovers that play over their solo music, these voiceovers are thank yous to everyone who has helped their Dance journey. It is very emotional because all the seniors are always missed so much.

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Last weekend was our last regional competition of the season and for the seniors our last regional competition ever. We had a very successful weekend at Showbiz Dance Competition. We blew away the judges, winning in every category, and receiving the group icon award. It was very rewarding dor all of the seniors. It was our last regional competition, but the season is coming to an end quite yet. We still have multiple things to look forward to such as our recital weekend and nationals in Las Vegas. My English class term will be over by the time nationals comes around, so I thought I would write a little bit about nationals today. Every year we spend about 11 days at nationals. For the past six years, we’ve been going to Las Vegas. At nationals we compete against the best dance Studios and dancers in the nation. We compete all of our solos, group dances, and productions. We also take classes from famous and professional dancers and choreographers. Last year we won the national title called studio of the year. It was our second time winning that title and it was very, very exciting. The first time was in 2016. After winning, you must wait four years before going for the title again. We planned to go for studio of the year again in 2020 but we couldn’t because of Covid. In 2021, we went for studio of the year but since Covid was still making things difficult, the competition only did a top five, they didn’t give it out to just one winner. We did get top five though! In 2022, we lost studio of the year. But we went back to the studio focused and determined. We worked very hard the next season and ended up winning studio of the year in 2023. This year we will be going back to Las Vegas to hand over our title to the new winners, we can’t wait to go back and compete against all of the amazing talent one more time.

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Before we go onstage, our team always huddles together and give eachother pep talks to get us ready to perform. Sometimes the captains lead the talk, and sometimes the teachers do. No matter who leads it, it always gets everyone pumped up and ready to kill it on stage. My favorite pep talk of the weekend was before we were going to perform our hip hop dance. This was the last dance we had to perform after our 9 hour day. Everyone was exhausted but after getting together and getting a great pep talk from our teachers, we are all super excited to go do our last dance of the competition. This year, our hip hop choreographer created a different type of dance for us. It was a different level. This dance was about anyone battling cancer, or anyone who had a loved one that was fighting cancer. Almost anyone can somehow relate to this so it was emotional on a new level. We all performed our hearts out and were proud to say we saw many tears in the audience after we danced. Even though we were all so tired, it felt good to come together as a team and perform our hearts out for the last time at that competition.

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Our second dance comp might have been even better than the first. The dance competition we went to was called Hall Of Fame Dance Competition and it was at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul. As a graduating senior, this competition made me start to feel emotional and sad that my time as a competition dancer is coming to an end. My studio has been going to this competition since my first year on a competition line when I was 6. I have made countless memories here whether it was dancing onstage, being backstage with my friends before we went on stage, in the balcony watching the older kids dance, or running around and getting food on my breaks. We also competed 7 new dances that we did not compete at our first competition. They were all big production number, with 20-100 dancers in them. They were so fun to perform with my studio and so fun to finally get to do on stage after so much time spent practicing. After we compete, all the dancers from every studio sit on stage for awards. During awards, and announcer comes up and he first announces the adjudications of every dance. This takes a while to get through. The judges score every dances about of 300 and depending on your score, you get an adjudication. For example getting a 293-300, you get a grand slam. Getting a 282-293 you get a platinum, and a 270-281 is a high gold. After announcing the adjudications, they announce a top 10 for each category. They do the categories by age, and by number of dancers in the piece. A small group has 4-9 dancers. A large group has 10-18 dancers. A line has 19-26 dancers. And a production has 27+. Age groups vary between competitions but typically the senior age group is 16-18, teen is 13-15, junior is 10-12, mini is 7-9, and petite is 5-6.

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This was at our awards after our first competition of the season. It was a very long day but very rewarding. This is a picture of the three oldest teams at larkin so I thought I would write about each of these teams. The tops 2 teams of the studio are senior line and junior line. Senior line is for ages 16-18. Junior line is for ages 13-15. Each year before the season begins, our studio holds auditions for these to teams. This usually takes place mid August, after auditions, we begin choreography and once school starts, our nightly dance schedule starts up. During the audition process, all of the staff, along with the graduating seniors from the year before come and judge. The audition consists of a ballet class, a tap skill portion, turns and jumps, improv, and learning a short jazz combo. This usually takes about 3 hours and after that, we get a 2 hour break to go get lunch while all of the teachers talk and choose what team everyone will make. During this break, it is a tradition to go tie Buffalo Wild Wings with all of our friends, and also to go to Cup and Cone. It’s a great bonding time for everyone. Once the break is over, we all meet back at the studio and everyone is handed an envelope. In the envelope, it will either say senior line, junior line, or performing line. Performing line is for anyone who didn’t make senior or junior line. The ages vary between 14-18. The talent at our studio is like no other so even making the performing line a big deal. After finding out which team you make, we separate into separate studios and the team captains take over. This year I was a senior like captain along with 2 other girls, so we each got to say a little bit to the team about goals and expectations for the year. The audition process may be stressful at first, but it is a great experience and easy to get the hang of.

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Today we took a tap class among many other classes at a convention. We usually go to 2-4 dance conventions every year. Dance conventions are where multiple studios go to one place and the dancers take class from professional dancers and choreographers from around the country. We get learn from hip hop, ballet, lyrical, jazz, contemporary, modern, musical theater, and jazz funk teachers/dancers. Along with taking classes, we have an audition. This is where we learn a jazz combo and a ballet combo, and we perform them in groups of 10-20. The faculty members of the convention pick a number of dancers, usually between 15-45, and they get scholarships. Within these 15-45 dancers, 4-10 of them will receive a winner scholarship and the rest will receive runner up scholarships. We also compete at conventions. At most conventions, we just compete our solos. So it is just one person on stage. But at some conventions, we also compete small group and large group dances!

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Today was our dress rehearsal for our first dance competition of the season. We always do dress rehearsals the weekend before we compete new dances for the first time on stage. Dress rehearsals are very helpful because it can make us feel more prepared for stage, and it gives the teachers and our room moms a chance to make sure all of our costumes look good and make sure the props are correct. We are always told to come with competition hair and makeup. Usually, dress rehearsal is on Sunday mornings. We get to the study at 9, and we do a warm up with all of the teams led by the senior line captains. After that we have 1-2 hours of rehearsal to make sure our dances are ready. Then we go and change into our costumes and begin dress rehearsal. We perform each dance that we are competing the following weekend and we make sure everything goes smoothly.

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Today was a choreography night at the studio. We had six and a half hours of dance tonight. Choreography days are scheduled when an outside choreographer that does not teach at our studio comes in and choreographs a new dance for us! We typically learn from 3-4 outside choreographers each year, and we also have many dances that are choreographed by teachers from our studio. Every choreography day, we are told to wear all black so that it is easier to see the piece and put it together when we are all wearing the same clothing. All of the dancers pack plenty of snacks and homework because it is a long night. If we aren’t learning new dances, we have regular rehearsals 5-6 times per week. Within this, we rehearse and perfect our dances, take ballet class, workout, work on our technique by doing across the floor, and learn combos.

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The start of my blog

Hello! For my English class we were asked to create a blog and write about a topic of our choice! For my blog, I decided I am going to focus on my life as a competitive dancer. I am a senior in high school doing competition dance on the side and it takes up a large portion of my time. Come along with me as I finish out my final season as a studio dancer!