Dance team prepares for national competition
One of the many teams that practice in the DakotaDome will be flying across the country in a few short weeks to compete at a national level.
The USD Dance Team will be heading to Daytona Beach, F.L. to compete in the National Cheerleading Association (NCA) and National Dance Association (NDA) Collegiate Cheer and Dance Championship from April 6 to April 10. The dance team has been practicing for the national competition since the start of this academic year.
“It’s also really cool because there’s also some very big schools down there. For example, BYU was there and they were amazing so it’s really neat to watch all of the talent,” said Kiley Weier, the senior captain of the team.
Weier has been on the team all four years of her college career and started dancing when she was 3 years old. She said dancing has been a creative outlet for her.
While at Nationals, the 10-person dance team will compete in the competition’s jazz division. Teams are divided into whether or not the schools they represent have football teams, as well as if those football teams compete in bowl games.
“There’s about 20-ish or so (teams) that start off and they pick about half to go into finals,” said junior dance team member Cassie Luetje.
Luetje, like Weier, has been involved with dance since she was 3 years old and has been on the USD Dance Team for two years. She said there’ll also be other teams from the region competing, including South Dakota State University.
“There’s always rivalry between (us and) SDSU, but when we compete against each other we’ll still go and cheer each other on because we are representing South Dakota together,” Luetje said. “It’s always nice because we know some of their dancers so it’s people we can communicate with.”
To prepare for the competition, the team practices three times a week, sometimes starting practice as early as 6 a.m. The team has never had a true dance coach and has traditionally choreographed their own dance routines, but this year they’ve hired a choreographer with financial assistance from the university.
Lindsay Sparks, the person who oversaw both the dance and cheer teams at USD, left her role at USD last semester for a position at the University of Miami at Ohio. Since then, Weier said she’s been in charge of filing paperwork for the competition, as well as booking hotels and flights.
“We have to apply for lodging, book tickets and all of that stuff,” she said.
Since dance isn’t designated as a sport at USD, the team doesn’t receive much funding, Weier said. Members of the team have to pay for their costumes and will have to pay the university back for flights to and from Daytona.
Luetje and Weier said they believe that dance should be considered a sport at USD and wish the team received more financial assistance from the university.
“The university is getting better at helping where we need help and they’re good supporters,” Luetje said. “They support us a lot in everything we do, so you can’t really complain there. It is hard with financials, being a college student and not getting scholarships (and) also paying for a dance team.”
Weier said the dance team works hard to perform at games every week.
“I believe we put in just as much time and effort as every other sport here. We compete, every other team competes.
buy zoloft online https://www.parkviewortho.com/wp-content/languages/new/prescription/zoloft.html no prescription
We may not have a game every single week, but we’re there supporting those teams,” she said.
Both women said they enjoy dancing for USD and have met lifelong friends by dancing. Both hope to stay involved with dance after graduation.
“There aren’t many people that can say they’ve been to every single home football and basketball game,” Weier said.
