Eleven smiling and energetic girls, dressed in red-and-black tanks and dark leggings, took the floor during the first rally on Sept. 11.
Front and center stood senior Jenna Chen. Once Fifth Harmony’s “Worth It” turned on, Chen unleashed her inner exuberant self, fiercely exaggerating each body roll and thrust, never missing a single beat. In response, students wildly cheered the girls on, their yells and roars blending into one frenzied blur.
“Dancing [with the team] at the rally was such an exhilarating experience,” Chen said. “The school year has just begun to unravel, but I’m enjoying every second of it.”
After taking time off from dancing during her junior year, Chen joined the team again this season. As one of the four dance team officers, Chen “cleans,” or makes tweaks or adjustments to the team’s routines and acts as another set of eyes for coach Kaitlyn Landeza.
Even though Chen has to help lead the other girls, perfect six routines throughout the season and commit to at least 13 hours of practice per week, she sees dance as worth the commitment and stress.
“I obviously do not get as much down time as I did before because of homework and college applications,” Chen said. “But the things we get to do and the places and people we get to perform for make it all the more exciting.”
Chen’s dance career began at the age of 4 when her mother placed Chen in a ballet class at Spark, a dance studio in Pleasanton.
“At first, dance felt like any other class I had to get through,” Chen said. “I wasn’t particularly interested in dancing, but after a while, I learned to like the classes and continued.”
After taking ballet and technique classes, Chen began to learn hip hop and lyrical as a freshman. Having danced for nearly 13 years, Chen is familiar with “routines in all the dance genres down the spectrum.”
To further pursue her passion for dancing, Chen joined the school dance team as a sophomore. The team was brought back by Class of 2015 alumni Madison Seagraves and Joy Tang after a five-year hiatus. But as the season progressed, then-coach Dinisha Nichols left the team before Homecoming week due to personal issues.
A second coach, Brittani Sua, stepped in and helped the team throughout their first competition season, but she left after the girls placed fourth in the small hip-hop division at the NorCal State Dance Championships last February.
After Sua quit, only Seagraves and Tang were left to lead the team.
“It was a rough experience for me,” Chen said. “Adjusting to the different coaches and not having someone that would continue to stay with us was difficult to deal with.”
Due to the team’s shaky first season and her busy schedule, Chen took a break from dancing during her junior year to focus more on academics. Even though she quit dancing at her studio because of the time commitment, she participated in several Homecoming dances and choreographed the finale dance routine for their “Nickelodeon”-themed Quad Day.
Throughout junior year, however, Chen started to miss dancing. Whenever she solved ACT practice tests or created works of art, she would “genuinely have times when [she] wished that [she] was at a dance studio.” Consequently, she tried out for the team again for her senior year.
Aside from college applications and art, Chen devotes most of her time to the dance team. Since dance is one of the few activities on her schedule, Chen wants to make sure that she and the rest of the team do their best at during competition season in January and at USA Nationals in Anaheim in March.
In the future, Chen wants to major in graphic design, but still plans to be involved in a college dance team or competitive dance club, such as the USC Trojan Dance Force.
“Dance is and will always be something that is important in my life,” Chen said. “I don’t want to give it up again, and I plan to do my very best on the team this year before I graduate.”