The Chesterton High School Dance team attended the National Dance Alliance (NDA) National Championship, which took place in Orlando, Florida. The CHS Dance team returned with National recognition and showed dedication when achieving two finishes while competing. When competing in the Small Varsity Kick division, the CHS Dance team placed in “Circle of Champions”, while earning a 90.9 score as well as a bronze medal. The team worked very hard when preparing for this routine, and was choreographed by Amity McKiddy, who is a very talented and award-winning coach and choreographer.
“We do a competition season along with a performance season. A performance team consists of going to every single football game, dancing sidelines and halftime. For competition we go to invitationals, regionals, nationals, and state,” sophomore Zoe Komp stated.
In the Team division, the team placed 7th overall and received a score of 89.022. This particular routine, which was also choreographed by Amity McKiddy, was a very impressive piece and contained multiple genres of dance. Choreographer McKiddy incorporated genres Jazz, Hip-hop, Pop, and Kick into the routine.
In addition to this, the Chesterton High School Dance team was supported and sponsored by Hardscapes, Lubeznik Family, LAN cam, Wellsand Landscape, Michelle Brown at Eclipse Performing Arts, Source Healing, Glazer Facial Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery, Wright Properties, the Adent family, Chesterton UPS Store, Trout Glass, and Third Generation Management. Dance instructors that helped the team included Kailyn Oganovich, Krystal Kaszuk, and Kristen Denakas.
After the CHS Dance team achieved National Recognition, they moved on to attend the Indiana High School Dance Association (IHSDTA) State Championship, which is a competition that features many different forms of dance categories. This competition goes throughout mid-March. The CHS students that competed in this competition include seniors Marley Mayer, Amelia Kelly, juniors Suzanne Adent, Ashley Bafia, sophomores Lana Glazer, Mackenzie Kogl, Zoe Komp, Georgia Peterson, and freshman Mallory Billings. This team was coached by Amity McKiddy. The Chesterton High School dance team won the IHSDTA State Championship, as well as placing second in the AAA kick.
“Dancing is a team sport, you have to make sure you are unified with your team and that you’re working with them through the music…we started our competition piece in July, we practiced three times a week…it was well deserved we put in so much work, and it feels amazing. We have never won state as a team before, it is a really nice recognition, we are super excited to have that,” sophomore Zoe Komp stated.
Chesterton High School is extremely proud of their dancers and congratulates them on this wonderful achievement!
