Dancing Through The Distance: Riley Riecker and Sydney Beck competitively dance at their homes due to COVID-19

Even after rearranging the furniture, junior Riley Riecker’s dining room couldn’t compare to her dance studio, especially after bumping her head on the chandelier while attempting a leap. But she could make due while her dance studio was closed for the time being through online video classes due to COVID-19 concerns.

Riecker and sophomore Sydney Beck dance at Westside Dance Company. Typically, they spend more than 10 hours a week at the dance studio, but after stay-at-home orders were announced, that number was reduced to zero. 

Both Riecker and Beck began dancing as toddlers, eventually making their way to Westside about two years ago. Through the past two years, the competition team has bonded over countless hours at the studio and McDonald’s runs after practice. It’s strange for the girls to see each other through a screen when they FaceTime, but it’s not too different from seeing each other in the mirrored walls of their studio.

“[These videos] give her the opportunity to [be] making sure that she stays fresh and everything,” Riley’s mother, Melissa Riecker said.

When gatherings of more than 10 people were banned, studio owner and coach Shelby West planned on having practices for the advanced girls — as there are only six of them.

But after the landlord prohibited more than one person in the building at a time, West was forced to close her studio. In place of practices, she records herself going through the stretches and combos, edits the video, then sends it out to the girls to watch and go through. The girls are required to send West a snippet of them doing the dance so she can make sure the girls are still maintaining technique, like pointing their toes or keeping good posture.

The changes have made it difficult for the girls to get through practice — especially with the lack of in-person encouragement from teammates, according to Beck. 

“When you’re in the studio, you’re with your teammates and your friends and we’re all encouraging each other, but at home, you just have to struggle through it by yourself,” Beck said.

Though the videos have been a change, they also give the girls an opportunity to focus on perfecting their technique. According to Beck, at the studio, their team often has to move on to the next exercise, leaving little time for an individual dancer to work on perfecting personal skill. But now, the dancers can take as much time as they need. 

“For example — turning,” Beck sad. “If you’re struggling [and] you’re having a bad turning day, you can’t do the turns over and over again because you have to move on to the [other] people, but when you’re doing it by yourself, you can take as much time as you need to work on yourself.”

West has noticed the girls have been more conscious of how they are moving their body. Typically during practice, West is there to provide feedback to the dancers. Now that they are practicing by themselves, they are more aware of what they are doing correctly.

“[Doing online videos] have been really difficult because we’re going on three weeks now and [for] people like Riley and Sydney, who are on the competition team, it’s really important that they all train together and get the same correction so that when they do their competition dances, everybody looks the same,” West said.

Perfecting their routines would’ve been even more important in the upcoming weeks than ever before, as competition season was approaching. But now that the competitions have been postponed, without future dates set, Riecker and Beck are disappointed they are missing out on the additional rehearsals competition season would bring.

“Obviously [dancing is] rewarding, but competitions are the end game and to not get to do those would be really upsetting,” Beck said. 

For now though, you’ll be able to find Beck and Riecker at their houses learning combos to “Love Game” and working on their turns. They aren’t quite sure when they’ll be back in the studio, or when they’ll be the Overland Park Convention Center for the competition, but they do know that they’ll keep dancing, regardless of their circumstances.