“And the second place winners of the X-Small Lyrical Dance category is …” the announcer over the loudspeaker began. The eight girls huddled together with their coach Kaitlyn Landeza, clasping their hands together in anticipation.
“The Saratoga High School Dance Team!” the announcer finished.
The overjoyed girls cheered, hugged each other and ran up to the stage to receive their trophies. All of their hard work since August had led them to this moment.
On March 19-21, the dance team competed at USA Nationals in Anaheim, which brought together approximately 60 teams from all over California. The girls competed in X-Small Dance (lyrical) and Small Dance (jazz) in the Open Division after scoring an average of 84.9 or lower at regional competitions, and X-Small Hip-Hop in the Championship Division after scoring an average of 85 or above. Senior co-captains Madison Seagraves and Joy Tang also performed solos.
At the end of the competition, the dancers placed second out of six teams in their lyrical category, eighth out of 16 in the jazz category and 11th out of 12 for their Hip Hop performance.
“I am so proud of them; nothing will ever replace this feeling,” Landeza said. “[It was so rewarding to] see their dances come to life when they walked out onto the dance floor.”
According to Tang, the girls were nervous coming into their first Nationals. While competitions in Northern California were already tough, many of the competing teams were from performing arts high schools or dance crews solely focused on hip hop and had connections within the dance industry. Despite this, the girls were determined to make their first Nationals memorable.
“I felt like we performed each dance at Nationals better than we’ve ever done them before,” Tang said. “We felt good [after our performances] since we did our best and left it all out on the dance floor.”
Every week leading up to Nationals, the girls changed and improved parts of their routines after considering the judges’ feedback from regional competitions. Tang was most worried about their lyrical routine because Landeza changed the entire dance from when the team performed it at the girls’ first competition at Homestead High School.
“Placing second with our lyrical dance was probably the most rewarding considering how hard we worked on it,” Tang said.
After all of their hard work, the dance team went to Disneyland to celebrate the end of their successful second season. Landeza and the girls hope even more success next year.
“I was pretty tough on them, and they had some really hard practices, but they pushed through,” Landeza said. “This year has been nothing but rewarding in so many ways. They have so much to be proud of individually and as a team.”
