Dance team overcomes challenges to have success at nationals
The Pascack Valley Regional Dance Team prior to performing at the Boy’s Basketball Senior Night Feb. 15. The team competed at a national competition in Florida and placed first and second in their two routines.
Dena Noone, Pascack Valley Regional Dance Team coach, created the team her senior year of high school in 1988 and she took over coaching in 1993 after returning from college.
“It was all trial and error [my senior year] because it was a first-year team,” Noone said. “Then coming back [from college], I just knew more of how it should be done from seeing colleges, and I knew what I wanted to do with it. It’s evolved and grown ever since.”
When the team started, the scores were based on precision, according to Noone. The scoring has evolved to rely on skills, and Noone says most of the athletes have a background in dance.
“It’s pretty intense, but we also like to make it fun,” Noone said. “So I always say yes, we’re competitive, yes, we want to win, but you got to love it. And if you’re not loving it, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it.”
The dancers participate in intense training and it is a time commitment which refutes the claims that dance is not a sport.
The dancers start taking classes in April or May to get ready for tryouts during the first week of June. They then train throughout the summer a couple of times a week by improving skills and conditioning. The team starts working on their routines in August or September, and by November, they are rehearsing and preparing for competitions and perform at nationals in February.
“They do strength training, cardio, and actual dance practice four or five days a week,” Noone said. “It’s a very involved sport and takes a lot of hard work and dedication.”
The team has to prepare for two routines, team performance, and pom routine; sometimes they compete with a hip hop routine. The team performance needs to include four disciplines.
“You [need] at least 20 seconds of jazz, hip hop, and kick; we do traditional kick line in it, and we do hip hop in it,” Noone said. “It’s fun because it’s challenging. You have to hit all four different genres of dance.”
The team’s strength is in the pom routine. The routine is focused on creating visuals while incorporating difficult skills. This year, 11 girls performed in the pom routine.
“This year [who performed], really came down to skills,” Noone said. “You really need a full team of [girls with the necessary skills] and only the girls who could do the skills that we needed could make that team. I wanted to be in the small division [which is under 15 dancers].”
However, they did not have a full team until a month before they had to perform at the Dance Team Union National Championship due to members being unable to practice because they had COVID-19, were contact traced, or were injured.
“In dance, [each dancer has] a specific spot, and they’ve got to learn that whole routine,” Noone said. “So I couldn’t just bring anyone into a spot, so it was tricky trying to teach choreography and clean it up when I was missing girls.”
They were able to improve through judges’ comments at competitions. The team received judges’ comments at three local competitions prior to nationals, at Lakeland, Ramapo, and PV.
“Every time you get judges’ critiques, you’re always working off those critiques,” Noone said. “We did not do great in our first competition. We had a lot of work to do and three weeks later, we went to nationals, and we looked like a totally different team.”
As well as these challenges, 10 dancers out of the 17 on the team had never performed at nationals for the PVRDT. Despite this, the team placed first in Small Varsity Pom out of 31 teams and second in Large Varsity Team Performance at nationals where teams from 30 states were represented.
“I will definitely say the seniors and juniors were confident and they were kind with [the underclassmen],” Noone said. “They help a lot with showing how a motion is supposed to be; and if they were in the wrong place, they corrected it.”
Noone also said the upperclassmen lead by example and try to get the new members to be the best they can be.
“We’re family at the beginning, but by the end, we’ve really become a tight-knit group,” Noone said.
Veteran members helping underclassmen exemplifies the team’s motto, “Never me always we.” The team used to have a different motto every season, but Noone said this one shows what the team is about, and they have not changed it.
“We don’t want it to be about one girl,” Noone said. “Not one girl makes or breaks the team, not one girl makes or breaks a performance. We’re a team and we’re always a team; we win and we lose as a team.”
Although students do not attend dance competitions like they do football games, Noone says the support from the athletic department and administration is appreciated.
“It’s nice when [students] come to our dress rehearsal because it’s free,” Noone said. “They’re just coming to support the girls and I think [the girls] appreciate any support. We also have very supportive parents who support the girls in all that they do. That along with the support of the school and their friends keeps us going.”
