The new Bowling Green Jr High Dance Team is one of a kind. This is the first year that BGJHS has ever had a dance team, so it’s a new experience for everyone. The dancers and coaches have put so much effort into making this team what it is today. This year Liz Hoyt and Tori Minteer decided to join forces and create the dance team, and so far it is going amazingly well. “My goal for the year is to establish a strong and successful program,” Tori Minteer, the assistant coach of the dance team, said. Tori is just 21 years old and already has accomplished a lot. She is a senior in college at WKU and is majoring in psychology. She has been dancing for 19 years, and her favorite dance style is pom-pom.
Coach Liz, on the other hand, has been dancing for 17 years, and her favorite style of dance is jazz. It was Liz’s idea to start the dance team, and it has come a long way in only a few months. “I started the dance team because I wanted other people to have the opportunity to not only show school spirit but to have an outlet for them. Dance allowed me to go to college, opened a lot of doors, and gave me opportunities I never thought possible. And I wanted other people to have the chance to experience that as well.” Liz is very happy that she gets to make other girls happy by making this team and also because they get opportunities early in their lives and can continue dancing as they get older, as Liz did.
The dance team practices Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 3:00 to 5:00 in the auditorium or the gym. At practices, the dancers prepare for game day by learning new routines and sideline dances. They also work on technique. The coaches do a great job of giving the dancers good feedback so that they can become better and stronger. They are also starting to prepare for the competition season, which starts in November. “I’m most excited to learn new routines and just to be able to dance in general,” Anne Michael Hensley, a 6th grader on the dance team, said.
At practice, the girls are always putting their best effort into what they are learning. If it’s a new routine they have to learn, timing in a routine, or even if it’s just technique, they always work super hard and they work together well. All of the girls on the team are super close with one another, and they all have a strong bond.“At first, we were all kind of scared to talk to each other and weren’t close, but now we are all so close, and now we can all be our real selves around each other,” said Finely Yokley, who is also a sixth grader on the dance team. The coaches have made it all this way to help these girls become better, and the girls are so happy for how far they have come.
UDA (also known as Universal Dance Association) was founded in 1980 and was originally known as Universal Dance Camps for educational dance training for drill teams. UDA also offers overnight camps all over the country, which is what the girls on the dance team attended. The girls left for camp on July 12th and returned on July 15th. The camp was held at the University of Louisville, and the team stayed in the dorms on campus. This camp made it good for their dancing skills to move up, but it was also a fun experience seeing other people dance and making new friends. “My favorite part about camp was hanging out with other teams, and it made my technique better,” Jocelyn Tooley, the eighth grader on the team, said.
At camp, there were 15 teams, and BGDT was the only middle school team that attended. In total, the girls each learned three routines. Their A and B routines and their performance routine. All of the girls on the team were split up into different groups to learn different A and B routines so that they could bring the choreography back to the whole team to learn and perform at games. The dancers also had their performance routine, which they performed in front of the whole camp, got judged on, and received a blue superior ribbon! At the end of camp, the girls received the super spirit stick and the most improved trophy. Overall, at camp, the girls were challenged, but they got through it, learned so much, and grew as dancers.
This dance team has come so far in a matter of five months! All of their hard work, dedication to dancing practices, and camp have made their performances so amazing! Coach Liz and Coach Tori are amazing at pushing the girls harder and harder so they can do their best at games and competitions.
