Photo courtesy of Heather Fitch.
The 2018-19 Mountain Brook High School Dorians Dance Team will compete in the UDA National Dance Team Championship at the beginning of this month. Coach Linsdey Hull said the team has been practicing since football season ended to ensure a spot in the top 10 in the nation.
It was an incredible victory. After months of practice, the 2017-18 Mountain Brook High School Dorians Dance Team placed 11th in the nation — less than one point away from tenth — at the 2018 UDA National Dance Team Championship.
And while the seniors on the team were thrilled with their hard work, the sophomores and juniors made it their ultimate goal to place in the top 10 in 2019.
The first step to reaching that goal was to qualify for nationals again at the Universal Dance Association Summer Camp, which the team did back in June when they received a Superior Trophy. Now, they sit halfway to achieving the goal they’ve had their hearts set on for almost a year.
The team of 29 sophomores, juniors and seniors will compete Feb. 1-3, and will strive for the best, Dorians coach Lindsey Hull said. The competition is held in Orlando and is televised on ESPN.
Hull said that because the team has qualified before in the past, they know how to prepare. However, she also said this year’s competition will look a little different than in previous years.
This year, for the first time at the high school level, the competition has added a Game Day Division. Hull said the judges want to see what each team’s game day experience looks like, including “the dance team’s role in the school and the community.”
In the fall, the Dorians performed at football games and practiced with the band consistently, Hull said, so the team was busy with those rehearsals. Once December rolled around, though, and football season had ended and basketball season had begun, Hull said the Dorians were able to really focus on practicing their competition routine.
Hull, who is in her fourth year as the coach for the Dorians, said that rehearsals have been bumped up since returning from Christmas break to make sure the girls are fully prepared.
Averaging two to three hours per day, three days per week, the team has been cleaning their routine throughout the month of January, perfecting it for the judges. And Hull has worked to make each practice enjoyable and beneficial for the girls.
“Each practice, I tell them that we have a little goal we’re going to achieve for that day, to try and get to this eight count, or this many seconds in the song,” she said.
Hull said she is viewing the month as a chance for the Dorians to really prove themselves. Especially with the new division being added, she said it’s another chance for them to become a nationally-ranked dance team. “There are several teams in our area that will compete in this, so I feel like it’s a great chance for us to represent Mountain Brook High School, just in another way,” she said.
Being less than one point away from the top 10 in the U.S. has been the driving force pushing each member of the team to where they’ll stand the first weekend of this month.
“To place in the top 10 … that is what these girls have had set in their minds since really the minute we were announced as 11th last year,” Hull said. “… Obviously those seniors were super proud of what we did, but the juniors and the sophomores, that was their goal from that minute right there.”
