Competition Team Changes for 2020

Soar has a phenomenal dance competition team. These students train in ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical, and contemporary. They take additional classes in progressions (leap, turns, and jumps) and stretch and strength. They are required to train two days per week, but many of them choose to take additional tumbling and hip hops classes. Our families are able to make this program work for each of them individually.

 The program has always been divided into divisions: mini, junior, and teen/senior. As the team has grown, I’ve found it difficult to decide which division each student should be in. For instance, if they come in with a strong ballet background, but have never taken a tap class, it is hard to make ALL of their classes fit into just one division. It is also hard to make a new competition dancer fit with girls who have been training for years simply because they are the same age. For these reasons, next year, we will not use the different divisions. Instead the dancers will be given an individualized schedule based on where their technique is in each genre. They will also be cast in two group dances that the staff feels best suits them. This will also help transition years where a student is getting old enough to dance with the next level of dancers, but still may need a few more basic classes to refine their technique.

 It may be a little different for our returning competition students next year because they won’t attend every class with the same group. However, in the long run, I think this individualized plan will benefit the dancer. Auditions will be a little longer as we will also have a ballet section to help determine the correct classes for them.

 Another change that is happening is we are bumping the audition age down by one year. Students can now audition if they are 5 years old at the day of the audition (July 11th).

 We are also excited to announce that we will be forming a Hip Hop crew. This group will attend dance competitions with us and compete one hip hop dance. The members of this group will have to take one recreational hip hop class and attend another hip hop choreography class. This will have a separate audition time. It will be broken up into two age groups. Students will need to be between ages 8-18 to audition for the hip hop crew in July.

 I realize this is a lot of information to take in. A parent informational meeting to discuss all of this will take place at Soar on Tuesday, March 3rd at 6:45 p.m. Information such as time and financial commitments will also be given. We hope you will join us!