Nattys ’23

The Waukee Varsity Dance team went to Florida for Nationals this year around the beginning of March. They got to have some fun team bonding while also competing to do their best this year. The dance team is made up of 12 members: 5 seniors, 3 juniors, 3 sophomores, and one freshman. During their time there they got to go to Universal to have an entertaining day. Junior Paige Deweerdt states, “my favorite part of nationals is getting to go to universal and spend the day there as a team.” They got to ride fun rides, eat out, and create many fun memories together! They had practices where they worked hard to do their best and feel ready to compete. Sophomore Emma Pitz states, “my favorite part of nationals is bonding more with your teammates and making stronger friendships and spending time together and growing as a team. and something I love about the team is how hard we work and never let each other down”.

On Friday they competed in Hip Hop around 1 pm, and then they competed in a pom dance at 7:30 pm for the prelims. They had awards for these two dances that day too, and they made it to the pom finals. This means they got to compete in their pom dance again to improve even more and try and get a higher placement. Next, they completed their jazz dance at 3 pm on Saturday for prelims and then competed in their pom dance again at 7 pm. By the end of that night, the dance team found out they got 7th in the nation for pom, and made it to jazz finals! So then Sunday was an early morning for the dance team. They competed in jazz finals at 10:30 am, but awards weren’t til later that night, so they had a nice and relaxing day to swim, shop, or do whatever! Once awards started later that night they moved one more place up, so they were a jazz finalist too! Senior Maddy Baummann states “my favorite part about nationals was getting to make lots of new memories and build stronger relationships with all my teammates, and I will definitely miss the feeling of walking off the nationals stage knowing you just put your all into the dance and throughout the whole season. Overall the dance team had a very fun week in Orlando Florida getting to compete with other Iowa schools, make new friends, and have a great time with the team.