Going for Three: Lancer dancers will compete in dance nationals over spring break

After finishing third at State, the Lancer Dancers are continuing to Nationals in Orlando, Florida from March 8-10. They hope to improve on last year’s performance by placing in all three dance categories.

At state, the Lancers Dancers performed only their game day routine. However, they’ll compete in three categories — jazz, hip-hop and gameday — for the first two days and in the finals on the last day if they qualify according to Lancer Dancer Head Coach Alexis Close.

“The goal is always to try to make finals and anything beyond that is icing on the cake,” Close said.

Last year the Lancer Dancers didn’t qualify for finals in all of the categories, only for the final in two categories — jazz and hip-hop. This year, they’ve been practicing 10 hours a week on all three routines.

“Gameday has more pomp in it, so we really work on arm strengthening and strengthening our emotions,” Close said. “We’re really working on projecting their voices and having a lot of strong spirit.”

A gameday routine consists of the school fight song, a sideline chant and a timeout section. The whole dance is meant to mimic what the Lancer Dancers would do during a football game when they are on the track and facing the crowd.

Unlike gameday, their jazz routine is less sports-related.

“For jazz, we’re working on making really clean and beautiful lines but also trying to tell a story while dancing,” Close said.

The dancers also spend a lot of time perfecting their hip-hop routine because of its intricacy and detail, according to Close.

To qualify for nationals, the dancers attended the National Dance Alliance camp last May.

At NDA camp, the Lancer Dancers begin to learn their routines, and over the summer they attend band camp to learn flag choreography. Next week, they’ll meet with their jazz choreographer to go over their routine. The amount of time spent practicing is just one of the more challenging parts of dance, according to team captain and senior Liv Noble.

“I just think the mental aspect of it like continuing to push, being there for your team and showing up to practice is way more of a mental thing,” Noble said.

All of the practices and games they perform are easy for the dancers to lose sight of their goals at nationals.

“I guess it’s hard to feel like our goals are so far away,” team captain and senior Marin McElhinney said. “It’s a little bit easy to lose track of them. Like with [nationals], I always feel like it’s this thing that’s so far away at the end of the year and now that it’s coming up we really have to lock in.” 

Freshman Hannah Klumpp is one of only three freshmen on varsity for the Lancer Dancers, and even though she’s been dancing since age three and training for months, she’s still nervous about performing on such a big stage.

“I’m very scared about it,” Klumpp said. “I think it’s gonna be super fun, but it’s something I’ve never experienced before. So there’s always gonna be nervousness” 

Klumpp also hasn’t had as much experience with the Lancer Dancers’ game day routine, but is constantly improving because of the extensive practices.

“[The dance is] very strict. You have to get a certain count.” Klummpp said. “It’s a very certain thing you can do for it. It’s just very tiring, because it’s so long.”

Despite the intensity and competition they will face at Nationals, the team refuses to let hundreds of hours of hard work go to waste.

“We’re gonna have fun, but we’re not here to play,” Close said. “We’re here to put in the work.”