Dance...Dance...Dance!

L-R: Linda, Angela, Miranda, me, Patsy

One of my best friends lives in Tampa, and when we’re here in the Orlando area, Linda and I get together at least once.  As it just so happened, she and her daughter, Angela, were going to be attending a national dance competition in Orlando where the daughter of Linda’s sister would be performing, and they wanted to treat me for an birthday present.  I hadn’t seen Patsy in about 5 years and had never met her daughter, and since I love dancing, it sounded like a great idea.

Miranda is a high school senior and has competed with her school for the past few years in the National Dance Alliance National Championships (http://nda.varsity.com/Championships.aspx).  It's held at the Hard Rock Live Auditorium at Universal Orlando with prelims on Sat. and finals on Sun.  I made plans to

 meet Linda and Angela Sat. morning at Patsy’s hotel so we could drive over together.  Prelims had been going on since 8am, but Miranda’s first performance wasn’t until 3pm so we weren’t in any hurry and spent some time tooling around Universal CityWalk

    including stopping for pics on the surf board outside this shop...such silly girls!

Once inside the auditorium the sound was deafening!  Not only was the music for each performance at full blast, but the cheering and motivation from the audience was pretty loud, too.  Just wasn’t used to that much noise during a competition!  LOL  For the next couple of hours we watched school after school perform in several categories with not much break in between groups.  Scores are posted and announced fairly soon after a couple performances so folks have a pretty good idea where groups stand.

First performance for Miranda’s school was Jazz, and we thought they were pretty awesome!  I wasn’t sure if photos were allowed so only snuck this one.  Unfortunately, the judges didn’t agree with our assessment, and we soon learned that they didn’t score high enough for the finals.  We caught up with the girls outside as we were heading for a late lunch, and they were crushed as Jazz had always been their best event.

After lunch at Hard Rock Café, we went back inside to watch more dancing though their next performance wasn’t till 7pm (yes, this was going to be a long day).  I discovered that photos were ok without a flash (and no videos allowed) so I got more pics of her other routines.   They had a

smaller group for the Pom Division, and again we thought they were awesome.  This time the judges got it right, and they would be competing the next day in the finals.

Linda, Angela, and I headed back to the car to grab some stuff since the girls’ weren’t on again until almost 11pm (told you it was a long day!), and slowly made our way back taking in the sights as we went.  Next up was Hip Hop and again…awesome!  But alas once again the judges did not agree so it

looked like they’d only be performing the Pom routine in the finals.  I wasn’t returning the next day but did learn that they placed 8^th overall in that division…way to go girls!

Also competing were a couple of schools from Japan who were so locked in and tight in their routines and placed well in the International Division.  Costuming for all
performances was quite varied by each school even within the same division with the biggest difference being in Hip Hop ranging from a kind of simple glitz to army fatigues to grunge to these skeletons!  Our favorite though were the “old men”, and I’m sorry I don’t have a picture but we were all so enthralled by their routine and laughing at their antics that I totally forgot.  It was one of those performances you would just have to see, and the great news is they won a well deserved 1st place in the large group Hip Hop Division.

I  didn’t get home till a little after midnight, but it was truly a great day spent with great friends.