Alton High School’s dance team are key visuals at school sporting events, whether they’re on the sidelines or the center of the field.
To further expand, the dance team practices intensely to ensure the most entertaining performance they can provide to redbirds in the stadiums. For some sports,they combine practices with Alton High’s cheer team to sync their moves for the audience.
In the following weeks, the dance team will be transitioning into their competitive winter season with the guidance of Coach Amanda Garcia. Although this is Coach Garcia’s first year with Alton High School’s dance team, the team is confident in her coaching and are hoping to make it far into their competition season.
“We are about to start our competition team tryouts … starting on Oct. 27th,” said Garcia. “That’ll be our winter season. We’ll do basketball games and then we’ll compete through ISHA and IDTA and hopefully end our season competing at state.”
In addition, both senior Captain Olivia Malenic and senior Co-Captain Tiffany Zheng share equal opinions.
“We went to IDTA state for the last three years,” said Malenic. “So it will be fun to make it to IHSA, which is a little harder, but its always a good hope to have.”
“With this new coach we have, it takes a lot less time to clean it and learn it,” said Zheng. “She actually pushes even more and gives good corrections … and tells us whenever we do really well on something.”
While hoping to go to state, they are at a disadvantage with their low numbers. A good number for a dance team is ideally around 24, but there are six girls on the team currently. To counter, Coach Garcia has plans to cooperate with Alton Middle School dance team to increase their future numbers.
Furthermore, the performative and competitive part of the dance comes with hard-work and dedication, alongside a family and life-long friends. They aren’t just sideline visuals, they are a team of hard working individuals who have strong feelings towards dance.
“Its definitely like a family, we all get along really well,” said Malenic. “We’re all really close and every practice is really fun … its like we’re just hanging out with each other even though we’re dancing together.”
“Just the girlhood, like these girls support each other,” said Garcia. “They’re rooting for each other through everything, whether it’s in dance or outside of dance.”
Dance takes a lot of hard work, though these girls make it look easy. Students on the dance team work tirelessly to make sure all routines look flawless. On top of dancing, they also manage amazing grades, and a normal teenage life. Catch their performances at half time at Alton High Schools home games.
