On Tuesday, the University of Denver’s club dance team journeyed twelve of their members to Orlando, Florida to compete in Dance Team Union’s national dance competition, “The College Classic”. However, the girls had one major struggle: They were doing this for the first time, and they had to do it alone.
Easily recognizable from many of DU’s hockey, basketball and lacrosse games as well as many campus events, the club dance team has made a name for themselves by showing their support and school spirit. The biggest goal that the DU dance team had for this season was to begin taking their talents to compete on bigger stages and prove themselves as formidable competitors to the school.
“This year, our goal was to foster a team environment where girls were excited to come to practice, wanted to work extremely hard, and become a family,” said junior captain Maia Adler. “We wanted to push ourselves to compete at a national level, and worked for 8 months to achieve that goal.”
With permission from club sports directors, the dance team was allowed to take on this task, but they had to do so without a coach, as their coach left the team last year. The captains, Adler, senior Segren Rollin, junior Darby Anson, and sophomore Olivia Daugherty became the acting coaches.
The captains did all of the work together to host auditions, gather a team, bring in choreographers, practice, compete at regionals and earn a bid to travel to Florida for nationals, a trip the captains also planned themselves.
Rollin, Adler and Daughterty brought their team to Florida with a big dream and very few resources. Since DU is a division one school, the team had to compete at a division one level, even though the team is technically at the club level.
The Denver Dancers competed in two out of three of the competition’s categories, Pom and Jazz. Despite all odds, the girls proved to be tough opponents against teams with twice as many dancers and double the resources.
“We always set out to compete and we have accomplished so much more than we thought we could all on our own merit. This team is a perfect example of concurring all the obstacles put before us. I’m proud of every member of the team for showing up, staying committed to our goals, and accomplishing so many great things that this groups of girls were the first to ever do on the DUDT,” said Daugherty.
On Friday, the team woke up at 5 a.m. Eastern time. They spent all day competing, hoping to earn their place in the finals of the competition, held on Saturday. After a grueling few days of extra practice and non-stop competition, they got the exciting news that the team would be advancing to the final round.
That night, the captains called for an extra rehearsal, going through every correction that the judges gave the dancers to perfect their pieces. On Saturday, the girls did it all over again and performed their two pieces, the changes newly implemented in both routines, a hard process for any dancer to follow.
At the awards ceremony at 9 p.m. on Saturday, it was announced that the dancers placed in both categories, earning fifth in Pom, and tenth in Jazz. Denver Dancers were ecstatic as they congratulated each other and the other teams. They made it farther than anyone could have imagined, but next year they plan to strive for even greater results, along with their newly hired coach, Maddie Patterson, DU alumni and former DU dance team member.
“Being a club team with no coach and competing in the D1 category not only was one of the biggest accomplishments of our team to date, but it also was an example of the resilience, determination, and dedication of all twelve members of the team,” shared Rollin. “5th in the country is a high honor, and in the future seasons, the team has no place to go but up.”
