By Audrey Lovell, Staff Writer
Competition day has arrived. Nerves race through your body. Butterflies sit eerily in your stomach. Your routine seems to play like a broken record in your mind. As you nervously await your performance backstage, you take a look around and see many familiar faces.
Atlantic Dance, Island School of Dance and Outer Banks Dance Academy all attended a competition at the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia Beach over the weekend of Feb. 4. For many, this was the first “normal” competition since COVID-19.
With scores ranging from high gold to platinum, each dance school brought home many impressive titles for each of its routines. Scoring for this competition involved an adjudication award of gold, high gold, platinum or platinum plus, and several specialty awards.
“My sister and I got platinum for our duet,” sophomore Ava Nultemeier said. “Our group (Island School of Dance) got a judges award that was (called) ‘squad goals.’ ”
Freshman McKenna Kelly, a dancer at Outer Banks Dance Academy, received a choreography award for the ballet piece she created for dancers on her team. Kelly is an Elevated Artist at her studio, meaning she choreographs a routine for fellow team members as well as teaches and cleans up this routine throughout the year.
“It’s such a great opportunity,” Kelly said. “I feel like I’ve benefited a lot from it.”
Although each school is striving to be the best, the competition between the local studios remains friendly.
“We (Atlantic Dance) shared a dressing room with Island that weekend,” Atlantic Dance teacher Ellery Sigler said. “We almost didn’t feel like different schools.”
With upcoming competitions, each school is looking forward to going back on the stage with improvements to their routines.
“There is room to grow, so no matter how high our scores or placement is we always come back looking to improve,” Sabrina Hassell, Director of Outer Banks Dance Academy, said.
Teachers are able to look over their score sheets and videos to address improvements until their next competition. This gives dancers the critique they need to perfect their individual parts in the routine.
“We’ve got plenty of time to rehearse and go over all the corrections and hopefully bring home better awards,” Island School of Dance director Sarah Woodley said.
Teachers and dancers alike feel the time in between competitions is crucial. The first performance nerves are gone and you know what needs to be fixed.
“I think we’ll definitely do better when we get the judges’ notes back with the feedback,” said junior Emma Gibbons, a dancer with Atlantic Dance.
No matter the results, the Outer Banks dance studios are always thrilled to have opportunities to improve not only as individual dancers, but as a team.
“I think we all learned things about ourselves that day, which is the most important part,” Sigler said. “Whether it be improvements or things you’re proud of, I felt a lot of pride and there were a lot of smiles.”
Junior Audrey Lovell can be reached at [email protected].
