8 Things About Minnesota Dance Sections (For Illinois Fans)
by Norm Ramil, 8CA main person and dance team fan
2/5/22 4:50pm
It’s sections, not sectionals! But true, it’s roughly similar to Illinois’ sectionals system. Teams around Minnesota are trying to get into the top 3 of their category (there’s kick and jazz) at their section. Then they move on to the nationally-famous state competition in Minneapolis on February 18th and 19th.
These are the dancers and coaches that feed into the illustrious U of M program, along with elite smaller college teams like the University of St. Thomas. Teams can dance at up to 15 contests in a season that stretches into February, the traditional dance team endpoint for many states around the country. So it’s no secret that when I’m not obsessing over Illinois dance, I’m watching the fascinating and unfailingly impressive Minnesota high school dance scene!
1: It’s a 2-weekend thing
After a busy season of regular invitationals and a unique conference title system, the regular season wrapped up last weekend to make way for the next 2 weekends of state-qualifying sections events. It’s not a 2-round system. My guess: 2 weekends of sections is just a practical way to accommodate judge distribution and winter travel in a super wintry state. So each team that wants to qualify for state faces one big Saturday—either 2/5 or 2/12.
2: There are 2 categories
Minnesota’s “JAZZ” category is your all-purpose, all-encompassing home for lyrical, contemporary, traditional jazz, and every shade or mashup in between. There’s plenty of room for teary breakup songs, fierce movie trailer pieces, empowerment anthems, quirky indie vibes, and sassy bursts of attitude.
Their kick category (officially “HIGH KICK”) is a spectacle. Are there jazz-kick hybrids? Yes. Traditional kick? For sure. But I’ll always remember when I stumbled on their dazzling themed kick concepts that take what would normally be a pom theme, go way over the top, and pump the crowd to an unreal frenzy. It’s worth a search!
3: Divided into 3 classes
Enrollment divides the field of teams into 3 classes: A (“one-A”), AA (“two-A”), and AAA (“three-A”). The state athletics organization (MSHSL) reviews a school’s classification every 2 years. The quick shorthand version is that you’ll find “A” schools in small towns and “AAA” schools in the Minneapolis area, but those are just broad generalizations.
4: The 4 sections
For the postseason each class (A, AA, AAA) is divided into 4 sections—loosely based on geography but heavily tweaked for balance. The MSHSL reviews a school’s placement in a given section every 2 years.
Their website has a pretty sweet interactive map showing each dance team’s class and section designation. I like it because you can click on any icon and see a school’s enrollment, and of course, the geographic spread of Minnesota’s dance teams is pretty fascinating to look at when you zoom out. Any web designers at IHSA reading this?
For both kick and jazz, each of the 4 sections sends its top 3 teams to state. So at the Target Center in Minneapolis on February 18, you’ll have 12 AAA teams, 12 AA teams, and 12 A teams competing for Jazz state titles. The next day, the 36 Kick qualifiers battle in the same format.
5: Placements are decided by rank score
Qualifying for state depends on your rank score, a system that’s intriguingly different from what you’re familiar with in IHSA dance. The exact details depend on how many judges are present, which can vary from 4 to 7 or more. But the basic idea is that each judge scores the routines as usual, and at the end of the day, ranks those scores. Then for each team in that category, they add all of the judges’ ranks, which gives each team a rank score. The lowest rank score wins.
It’s a little bit like our 8CA sectional Z-Scores, where the focus is on where a routine fits on a curve when looking at one judge’s idea of the routines as a group.
For the visual learners out there, here’s an example from our friends at MADT (the Minnesota Association of Dance Team Coaches):
As you can see, that 32 wasn’t what the other judges had in mind, but it didn’t end up affecting that judge’s ranking of all the teams. And in this case with 5 judges, each team gets 1 low and 1 high ranking dropped before their rank scores are added up. So already right there, you can see 2 layers of padding in case any one score might skew the outcome if they only relied on average points.
6: “AAA” teams fill the floor
One thing you’ll notice about Minnesota dance is that these teams are huge programs that create amazing visuals on the floor. When a nationally elite team like Eastview gets into a height line in their kick routine, it can stretch from basket to basket on the NBA court they use at state. Eastview also happens to run the jazz side of things (check around YouTube and the other socials). When we interviewed Edina’s Coach Biwan during Thrive Week last August, she was super casual when I asked about the quintuple pirouettes that came early in last season’s jazz routine (while I was still in disbelief from what I’d seen on tape). Wayzata, Chaska, Brainerd, Eden Prairie, Lakeville North, and Maple Grove all are teams you should check out.
7: Mid-sized magic: “AA” teams
A lot like 2A here in Illinois, Minnesota’s AA division is full of personality, style ranges, and private-public diversity. From urban Catholic schools to mid-sized towns nowhere near Minneapolis, these AA teams are the interesting heart of Minnesota dance (again–a strong parallel to 2A in Illinois). You’re going to want to search for jazz gems by Sartell-St. Stephen, Benilde-St. Margaret, Orono, Mound Westonka, and St. Cloud Cathedral. Many of those teams are annual kick contenders, too, alongside Faribault and Austin among others.
8: Small but mighty “A” teams
I always try to convey to Illinois fans that dance is a THING in Minnesota: seemingly every small town is nuts about its dance program, a bit like basketball in Indiana or football in Texas. You can often spot a small school on the schedule by the hyphens in their name, due to tiny schools being consolidated half a century ago (much like in Illinois…I see ya, Paxton-Buckley-Loda and Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley!). My class A faves in Minnesota also happen to have the coolest name anywhere: The Shadows Dance Team from Lac Qui Parle Valley-Dawson-Boyd. LQPV-D-B is now on their 3rd consecutive jazz championship; other top jazz and kick teams are the awesomely-named Yellow Medicine East, Holy Family Catholic, Zumbrota-Mazeppa, Cannon Falls, and Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton. For little schools, you’ll be astounded at how many dancers are on these teams.
By late Saturday night 2/12, Minnesota will have a full slate of jazz and kick routines that’ll compete at their state competition on February 18th and 19th–easily the most famous high school dance state event in the country. It’s usually streamed online and we’ll let you know where to watch both days live! So the next time your jaw drops at a University of Minnesota routine, know that many of those dancers as high schoolers battled through sections weekend (not sectionals!) on the way to state.