Nicolette Stern, captain of the Poms team at Lake Forest High School, started dancing at age two.
“A little baby ballet class,” said Stern, a senior. “Ever since then I’ve been dancing.”
She joined the company at Jenny’s Dance Center in Libertyville in fifth grade and competed throughout the Midwest until she joined the Poms team at Lake Forest High School her freshman year.
Stern’s dedication appears typical of the 18 members of the Poms team, also known as the dance squad, who won the Universal Dance Association national championship in 2013 and 2014 and took second in 2015. They practice two and a half hours each weekday, and during the competition season from October to February, team members also participate in weekend practices.
“On Christmas break, we’re not allowed to go away because we’re practicing,” Stern said. “If you want to go on a family vacation, it’s like, ‘Sorry, you can’t.'”
“We dedicate the whole summer,” said Abby Bertram, a junior who started dancing in first grade. “June and July is nonstop practice every day. During the school year I go to school, then practice, then do homework and repeat.”
Bertram adds, “The workouts are super intensive. I had a pulled hamstring, bad knees and a stress fracture in my back.”
“The girls know at every practice what we want to accomplish at what time,” said Nikki Lazzaretto, a master dance teacher who coaches the team along with Jennifer Van Skyock. “There is never, ‘Oh, not today.’ This isn’t just for the fun of it.”
And that’s just the physical preparation.
“They really live it and breathe it,” said Lazzaretto. “They journal about their growth, what’s holding them back.”
“We have to be in sync for every single move,” Stern said. “We have to be able to feel each other on the dance floor, who is it and what are they doing. To have that connection to every person on the floor, you have to have it outside as well. We try to get as close to each other as possible. We have to be just as close as friends as dancers.”
The team also keeps busy at home, performing before and during halftime at home football games and during halftime at home basketball games. Their own season kicks into high gear this year at the end of January, when the 2016 National Dance Team Championship takes place in Orlando, Fla.
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As the team has become a national contender, word appears to have spread throughout the community. Lazzaretto said she recently got a call from a mother with a daughter in third grade.
“She called to ask me what dance classes her daughter should take [to prepare for poms team],” Lazzaretto said.
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