by Norm Ramil / 8ca.music.person & dance.fan

Rewind to the Huntley 2A sectionals, January 2017. We had a rough idea of who’d qualify for state, with a handful of other teams on the borderline. Maine East’s outstanding, hard-hitting jazz had the gym buzzing, and I had to convince other coaches and fans that this forced us to re-estimate who was in and out.

The announcer, inch by inch, revealed which teams were headed downstate from that 2A field. Prairie Ridge. Crystal Lake Central. DeKalb. Cary-Grove. Crystal Lake South. At that point, we knew that a huge upset was likely about to go down. In the next half hour I handled more than a couple texts that went something like, “Who’s Maine East?”

In the dance world, it’s not easy having “Maine” in your name without the “South.” Maine East (one of three Maines) is a beautiful, 1920s school with an impressive list of alumni. Harrison Ford, Hillary Clinton (she started here but shifted to Maine South when that building opened), and the guy who recorded “Go, Cubs, Go.” All of that is cool, but if you’re a dance fan, it’s hard not to think of Maine South before East and West.

But the other reason their 2017 sectional win caught everyone off guard is that the Maine East dance team focuses their season on IDTA, the original Illinois competitive dance organization. Like many teams (mostly in the southern half of the state), Maine East concentrates on IDTA comps and adds in IHSA’s sectionals and state to their schedule before heading to IDTA state in February. In other words, IHSA-centric teams and fans don’t get to regularly check out the talents of Maine East’s Demon Squad.

Talk about flying below the radar…and winning. It wasn’t a fluke, either. I was happy to report to coaches in the summer of ’17 that Maine East still looked great at UDA camp. They followed that up with an impressive Day 2 performance this past January at IHSA state, coupled with a AAA Jazz championship at IDTA state. We’re definitely way past the point where they shouldn’t catch you off guard. A veteran coach, super dedicated dancers, and smart and visually stunning choreography are the ingredients that have established them as downstate regulars. For a smaller program in the shadow of a legendary team across town, they do big things!

Official Team Name:

Maine East Demon Squad (though you might find them in “East Poms” t-shirts) (school mascot: Blue Demons)

Class:

IHSA 2A, IDTA AAA

Conference:

Central Suburban League

Coach:

Sue Kawecki

Team Breakdown:

Much appreciation to Coach Kawecki for helping us find out about her team! Here’s our email interview:

Does your team have any technical specialties or stuff you’re really good at?

In general, we have a very flexible team and we make use of a wide variety of split holds. We have dancers with different strengths and we tend to choreograph to those.

Anything you’re excited to improve upon this year?

Always working on different fouette sequences and we have three with crazy back flexibility so that will be worked into the choreography for sure.

What categories or styles of dance will you compete in?

Jazz

What skills do dancers need to try out for this team?

We don’t have many people try out for our team (last year only ten people came out of 2200 students) so basically we are looking for dancers with potential and a great work ethic. We look for the ability to quickly pick up choreo and make improvements.

Do a lot of your dancers have a technical or studio background?

No. Often our kids were cheerleaders in junior high. Some of them have taken classes at park district.

Tell me about what Maine East dance does with its summer and fall.

We start our season with the Memorial Day Parade followed by a performance for MDA, UDA Workday and then summer camp late summer. In the fall we kick off the school year with the First Week assembly and head into preseason with performances for IDTA’s Start the Beat and the Power of Purple charity competition for pancreatic cancer.

How do you guys handle team-building?

As far as team-building goes, we pair our older dancers with the younger ones as sisters/brothers. This gives them the opportunity to build not only friendships, but also mentor-mentee relationships. The dancers plan their own activities with each other so it is not purely coach-led.

Can you tell us more about your performance and competition schedule throughout the year?

We do several preseason performances/competitions so that we can see who fits the persona and has the ability to do what I envision will go into our competition routine for the year.  We take solos, small groups and team performances to Start the Beat and Power of Purple. This gives them the opportunity to work out the kinks and quell nerves.

How often do you practice?

During the summer we spend a lot of time in the dance room and the gymnastics gym. This is the most crucial part of the season as we work on the technique and tricks that I would like to incorporate into the choreo for the upcoming competitive season. We have ballet several times a week and condition on a daily basis.

Once school starts, we are running routines for football, pep rallies, the talent show, etc. After our competititve tryouts, we dive right into competition choreo.

Summer is all ballet and technique. We also run summer practices like UDA camp—we rate dancers on a daily basis and dole out stars (vs. ribbons). We learn weekly choreography and evaluate them on them so they are ready for camp.

Once we start the school year, ballet is minimized to a daily 15 minute session. It gets crazy, as it does for every other team, with football performances and homecoming events. Once the football season ends, it’s all about competition!

Do you guys have a dedicated practice space?

We are fortunate enough to have several spaces made available to us! We have a dance room and we utilize the cafeteria so we have a large enough space to rehearse our competition routines in their entirety—spacing and all.

Also, during competition season, we are put on the gym rotation so we have the same lines available on the competition floor.

Anything about the coaches’ backgrounds and your coaching philosophy?

I have been coaching the Demon Squad for twenty years. Prior to coaching, I wrote for various dance and cheer publications. After writing an article about Barbara Bobrich, the renowned coach from back in the day from Maine South, I was asked to coach at Maine East and haven’t looked back since!

All my assistant coaches for the past two decades have been past dancers on my team. Amanda Loerzel was on my very first team and has coached with me for the past 15 years. Angela has coached with us for four seasons but will be going to graduate school full-time in the fall.

We each have our own specialty as coaches—I do most of the choreography for competition; Amanda is my cleaner; and Angela works heavily on ballet over the summer with both teams.  Once the school year hits, Angela was in charge of training the JV team.

My daughter, a high school freshman, is a dancer as well. She dances pre-professionally for Visceral Studio Company. Although she is not officially a coach, her expertise throughout the season has been of great assistance.

Our philosophy has evolved over the years. I would say that our success can mostly be attributed to two things:

The dancers buy into the vision. They see what I see; they hear what I hear. Amanda, my assistant coach, is great at translating that with the dancers. She takes the time to make sure they hear what I hear (all those back beats and which ones we are focusing on at any given time.)

We choreograph to their strengths. I don’t choreograph and say, “I want you to do this.” We spend the summer learning and perfecting skills and we see who does it the best. Then we incorporate those skills and choreograph around it.

Any favorite memories from last season?

Making the second day of IHSA finals—we thought all hope was lost and then Stephanie Raciak announced us as the 12th team to make it! We lost our minds.

Winning IDTA State. We have placed second soooooo many times!

Our head captain doing so well with IDTA Solo Finals.

What are you looking forward to this season?

A smooth season!  Last year was fraught with lots of obstacles and adversity.  Although it was immensely successful, it was the most stressful of my twenty years coaching the Demon Squad.

What’s it like to compete mainly in IDTA, and also to have done so well in limited IHSA appearances? Was the 2017 IHSA sectional title something you’d been building towards?

I love to compete for IDTA—I competed for IDTA WAY back WHEN, when I was in high school and the Bobrich coaches of Maine South and GBS reigned supreme😊  We love the different categories and the energy. I love their invitationals in that their feedback has really helped us with the IHSA circuit. IDTA has gotten so big again and I am so excited that it has survived and thrived all these years.

We have always had our own style and once we stepped out of the POM category, our style evolved. So we weren’t intentionally gunning for the IHSA sectional title (we just wanted to make state); moreso we were focusing on who we were as a competitive team and what worked for us.

Now that we have done well with IHSA for two years straight, we think we have figured out what works for us and what translates well on the floor. We are hoping we can keep going with the success!

Anything about the program’s history, including achievements over the years or any alums that have danced at the college level?

We have always done well with IDTA—our success didn’t just start with IHSA! Our dancers have always been great—it’s more that we figured out what choreography best reflects their abilities!

I have had a number of dancers dance at the college level and for professional sports teams, and an even greater number of dancers become coaches!

Other teams you guys are fans of?

Maine South, Geneva, Lake Zurich, Stevenson

Fun / quirky facts about the team and its members, or any extra things you’d like to add

Fun—We are hoping to have two boys on the dance floor this year!!!

Quirky—we have a tendency to name our signature moves after aquatic animals!  We have the seal, the dolphin, the swordfish, the beached whale…

Maine East Demon Squad at State

IDTA 2011: 3rd in AAA Pom/Dance

IDTA 2012: 3rd in AAA Pom/Dance

IHSA 2013: 25th in 2A

IDTA 2013: 4th in AAA Pom/Dance; 2nd in AAA Kick

IDTA 2015: 2nd in AAA Pom Dance

IDTA 2016: 3rd in AA Jazz

IHSA 2017: 17th in 2A (and sectional champions)

IDTA 2017: 2nd in AA Jazz

IHSA 2018: 11th (Day 2)

IDTA 2018: Champions in AAA Jazz