Slideshow 3 extra notes
slide 1: Fort Zumwalt West
The day before UDA camp in St. Louis, we dropped by Fort Zumwalt West (in suburban STL) to check out their camp send-off. Fans of their elite varsity and JV dance teams packed the gym to watch their polished jazz routines on July 11th. I couldn’t resist getting a shot of their Missouri and nationals accomplishments (the school hadn’t yet added their 2018 successes).
slide 2: Geneva
One of the things that all teams have in common, no matter what awards they get or don’t get at the end of the year, is the summertime carwash. I loved chatting with the legendary Coach VanWagenen as her team raised funds on the morning of August 25th.
slide 3: Oswego
I stopped by Oswego’s practice on the chilly evening of November 12th as the team split time between barre exercises and putting the finishing touches on one of their 2 comp routines. These ladies do their work in a classy dance room and later made the most of their limited gym time.
slide 4: Woodstock
The new KRC was the last conference to have their comp back on January 16th, just a couple days before sectionals! Here’s Woodstock dancing their way to a 2nd-place finish behind conference champs Burlington Central.
slide 5: Prairie Ridge
It was a good comeback season for this program led by new Coach Bri Delisi and assisted by Coach Christy Sosnowski (who had led the team for a few years). I visited the team on a Saturday football game back on October 27th and the team couldn’t have been any nicer to us!
slide 6: St. Charles East JV
Friday night comps are such a novelty! The last dance before the break belonged to STCE JV (their 2nd of the night), back on December 14th. Their pretty contemporary/lyrical dance signals a good future for the East dance program.
slide 7: Cary-Grove
The CG dancers enjoy plenty of popularity in the dance community, and rightfully so. They’ve got one of the most unique dance rooms I’ve seen. I got to sit on a choreo sesh on July 27th. I’ll always remember seeing their show choir plaques on the wall and asking about them. Turns out that a lot of these dancers are musically talented and love being on stage year-round!
slide 8: Vernon Hills
I love this shot from the LZ comp (on a rainy, windy December 1st) because if we still had categories, this’d be a great example of the old pom-dance category (you’ll still find this style in IDTA). The talented VH dancers brought a lot of energy and skill to an entertaining pom routine!
slide 9: Triad
When I visited this suburban St. Louis team over the summer, Coach Zawada gave me the heads up that she had a talented group of dancers, something the whole state got to see when Triad performed on Day 1 of IHSA state.
slide 10: Stevenson
The dance and cheer programs at Stevenson have a solid history of collaboration, and so it was fitting that the two programs would team up for the senior night halftime show back on February 8th.
slide 11: Deerfield
The Warrior Dance Team gets together for a photo opp after home routines at NIU on June 14th. About 7 months later, they’d be celebrating a 2nd place finish in 2A at IHSA state!
slide 12: Hinsdale South
Coach Gillette cheers on her dancers as they rock their pom routine at the Rolling Meadows comp on January 12th. In about 4 weeks these dancers would take this routine to IDTA state and come home with a 2nd place state trophy in the Pom/Dance category.
slide 13: new staff logo
We slightly tweaked the 8CA logo for this season, and I also wanted our amazing staff members to have a special squad badge for their Twitter accounts!
slide 14: Oswego East
This program is overlooked way too often. This clip has them shining on the comp floor at Naperville North on the morning of December 2nd.