Lake Forest High School’s Varsity Dance Team took second place at the National Dance Team Championship at Disney World on Feb. 1, losing the national title they’ve held for the past two years to a school from southern Indiana.
The 18-member Varsity Blue squad from Lake Forest High also placed third in the jazz category. That’s the highest jazz ranking the team has achieved since 2006.
“They’re really excited to be top three in the nation in both categories,” said coach Nikki Lazzaretto.
“Our goal was to be better than we were last year and to give the best performance we could give, and they did that. They make me so proud.”
Traveling to Orlando is more than a routine competition for the Lake Forest team. Camera crews follow the nation’s top dance teams into the final rounds, fueling the adrenaline both on stage and behind the scenes. The winning routines will air on ESPN in March.
The lights and cameras can be overwhelming to the new girls, Lazzaretto said. But the older girls, like senior co-captains Clara Reinkemeyer and Maddie Sheridan, know what to expect.
“It gets crazy loud, lights going everywhere,” Reinkemeyer said.
“You’re surrounded by literally the top teams in the nation,” Reinkemeyer said. “Every single team there wants to win, every team deserves to win and every team has been working just as hard as you have. So the real challenge is to stand out from the rest of the pack, to find out what makes your team different and bring that to the table.”
There was added pressure going in as the defending champion in their category for the second year in a row, dancers said.
“Backstage, it does get really intimidating — you hear the crowd and you see the lights,” said Sheridan. “But then walking on the floor, all you think about is ‘make this a perfect performance.'”
While the lights, cameras and crowds add to the excitement of the competition, there really isn’t any behind-the-scenes drama with competing squads, dancers said.
“There’s actually very little interaction with other teams,” said Sheridan. “We get to know a lot of girls individually at camp (in the summer), but at nationals, you’re mainly focused on your own team.”
About 400 teams competed in one or more categories – jazz, pom, high kick and hip hop – in the semi-finals, which were held on Jan. 31, Lazzaretto said. Finals were the following day.
Lazzaretto credits the team’s success to its members’ work ethic. The team practices generally run two hours or more, five days a week. Choreographers from the University of Minnesota and University of Cincinnati help put together the routines.
“The hardest thing is to get them to dance like one person,” she said. “Sixty percent of the score sheet is based on how much they’re together.”
In the end, Lake Forest took second place overall to Floyd Central High School in Floyds Knobs, Ind. That school’s team regained the national title for large varsity pom that it held for a decade until 2013, when Lake Forest took the top spot.
Since 2012, the Illinois High School Sports Association has recognized competitive dance as an official sport. Because of the IHSA designation, the team has to follow strict rules about when and how long they can practice, Lazzaretto said.
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That can pose a challenge when Illinois teams compete at the national level, against teams from other states that have been working on routines since summer.
“Last year, when we went to nationals, we knew our routine for eight weeks,” she said. “We’re under the gun all the time.”