Shelby Bradley | Sports Co-Editor

This Friday, Dec. 4, the Buena Vista University (BVU) dance team will take on the stadium of Wells Fargo where they will compete in the Iowa Dance State Championships. This competition consists of both high school and collegiate teams with the collegiate teams being separated by school sizes of community colleges, NAIA, DIII and DI.

DIII schools in Iowa include the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) teams. The teams that have consistently made an appearance in this competition include BVU, Central, Simpson and Wartburg. There are three different categories for the collegiate competition including pom, jazz and hip hop.

In preparing for this competition the BVU dance team practices 4 days a week with three to four hours of additional choreography sessions where the team learns each dance. The team also performed at a pre-state show in Alta, Iowa, receiving critiques bettering their dances. The team also performed during halftime at a select few basketball games.

“I think the biggest challenge for the dance team is combining everyone’s talents and making each move precise and the same. In other athletic teams, it’s okay to have a star player, but on the dance team it’s not always a good thing if you stand out,” assistant dance coach Lindsay Martin said.

The dance team received 4th place in the jazz category last year and 2nd place in the hip hop category and are hoping to see improvements this year.

“My expectation is that we continue to work hard all week in preparation. We want to be the best we can be. Ultimately we want to score better than we did last year,” junior dancer Janice Timmerman said.

While winning is great, having fun doing something you love is something you can’t take away from these dancers.

“I hope they have fun and strive to do better than the day before,” Martin said.

Photo by Taylor Staab