Dancers Have Successful Weekend at Competition
March 23, 2018
Students from MgM Dance Studio performed at Believe Talent Competition the weekend of March 10 and 11.
The 15-16 age group entered five group dances: a pantomime, a lyrical, a tap, a ballet and a pointe, and came in first in their cate
gories with all five of the dances.
Two of their group dances earned platinum scores, which is the award for the highest score at their level.
Junior Ashtan Kall felt that their team worked together well and gave it their all, which helped them place well.
“I believe I did well. Group dances require everyone to put their best foot forward and give it their all. My team supported each other through each dance and that helped us do great,” said Kall.
Sophomore Nadia Mock participated in the group dance and had a solo as well.
“My solo went really well, it’s a very intense dance so there’s a lot of running, and the stage was smaller than what I was used to, so I tripped during one of the running parts, but I sort of did an awkward cartwheel out of it, and luckily it just looked like I forgot to do a cartwheel, but I still scored well,” said Mock.
Overall, the competition was a success for the entire studio, including the younger dancers.
Sophomore Emma Williams taught some of the little kids that danced in the competition.
“I think our studio overall we did really well, there were a lot of high scores, and the little kids that I teach, a lot of their solos and duos made it in the overalls, and some of them were even first overall out of all their competitors, so that was really cool to see my students score really high… overall, we all did pretty good,” said Williams.
Mock also teaches some of the younger kids at the studio, and was pleased with how they performed for the competition with a bigger atmosphere.
“All the little kids did really well, especially the really young ones because they’re not used to dancing on a stage that big, and for the most part they remembered to use the lines on the stage,” said Mock. “There’s actually two routines that I taught that competed there, and they both did really well. There’s two three year olds that I teach, and they did really well, and there’s another one who uses this big cake prop, and she was supposed to have a remote to turn on the candles, but we couldn’t find the remote, so she had to improve the part she was supposed to use the prop with, and that was really good.”
Kall felt that one of the improvements of the weekend was how everyone on the team got along despite the stress and pressure.
“Over the course of the weekend everyone was very supportive of one another, and we had a great time… everyone’s positive attitudes went a long way, as each dance was executed very nicely,” said Kall. “Personally, I think I did well with keeping a positive attitude at this competition, with the running around and high levels of stress that the competition environment brings, sometimes it is hard to stay calm and collected; however, my team and I were very focused at this competition and having little stress made performing feel even greater.”
One thing that Kall would like to personally improve on is being more confident when the routine doesn’t go as planned on stage.
“Performing in front of a crowd, especially judges, can be very nerve racking, and some people are very hard on themselves. Many dancers, including myself, struggle to be confident, especially when there are mistakes made on stage,” said Kall. “Staying confident even when things do not go perfectly as planned is something I would like to improve on.”
Williams does not get nervous in front of the crowd and judges; she feels that she dances her best under pressure.
“I think performance wise I did pretty well, normally I always do my best on stage because that’s when the pressure is on, so I normally dance my best under pressure. I think just performing for the audience and the judges motivates me,” said Williams.
Not only are competitions a chance to show off the countless hours of practice dancers put in, but they are also a fun way to connect with other dancers.
“I enjoy dance competitions because of the atmosphere. There’s so many other people there who like to dance, and spending time with all the dance parents and the little kids, watching so many other great dancers, and also just performing in general,” said Mock.
Even though competitions are fun, it can be a struggle for the dancers that go away for the entire weekend to catch up on school work.
“It’s really hard because I normally have to stay up late on Sunday night to catch up because I haven’t been able to work on it all weekend, usually teachers will be pretty flexible with it,” said Williams. “But, I normally try really hard to get my stuff done by Monday, but if it’s a really big competition that takes up a lot of my time, then I will talk to teachers. It’s really hard; I normally don’t get much sleep because I’m up doing homework.”
MgM’s next dance competition is called “Starpower Competition,” and it takes place April 6, 7, and 8 at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland.
