Fleetwood Dancers Leap Their Way Through the End of the Season

thetigertimes

May 31

Students at Fleetwood Area High School finished off their dance and twirl season for Emerge Dance and Twirl.

McKenna Bucks, Ashley Hughes, Anya Flicker, Ella Youse, and Leiana Corpora have competed in a variety of competitions and ranked highly from the benefit of hard work and practice.

The team has competed in two different types of competitions, TIA--dance, twirl, color guard, and percussion--and stage competitions. Each year, they compete in around five to six competitive events that are scored on a variety of categories, such as equipment and design.

The dancers practice their competition material all year, with three sessions of two week classes in the summer and nine choreography classes. Afterwards, their regular classes go from the end of August until the end of April.

Ella Youse, one of the dancers, performed a solo, a trio with McKenna Bucks and Anya Flicker, two large groups, two small groups, and a production.

"Stage competitions can be very stressful, but personally I love them. Dancing on stage is actually my favorite thing to do, which is why I want to continue dancing in college," Youse says.

For the competitions, the performance is scored on a 100-point scale. In the first weekend of May, the team headed down to Wildwood for their Nationals qualifiers event with a 92.8 score for Twirl.

McKenna Buck's, along with other dancers', favorite part about the team is the bond between each of the dancers.

"Competitions are always fun because you're sharing something you worked hard on. The part I love about competitions is after the dancing. The euphoria created when you know you've done a great job and are proud of your work is non-replicable," Bucks says.

"My favorite part about competitions is just getting to perform. Dance is actually my favorite thing ever. Being on stage whenever, by myself or with my team, makes me so happy," Youse says.