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Line dancing by LINDSEY ARBUTHNOT VOICE CORRESPONDENT
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SHS poms compete at nationals
Members of the Scarlet Line pose in Orlando, Fla.
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The whole thing started last summer, when the Springfield High School Scarlet Line Pom Squad competed at the Universal Dance Association's camp at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Based on our score, we became eligible for the association's national dance competition Feb 2-3 in Orlando Fla. It was something we had to consider first before accepting. The squad competed last year at the state level, but nationals are a whole different ballgame. A Springfield high school squad has never competed at such a level. Once we talked it over with our coach, Jill Hanney, and decided to go for it, we had to immediately start raising funds. The total cost for the trip was well over $15,000. The first practice started with holding the splits position for two minutes. Then we moved to all sorts of kicks, jumps, spins and strange arm movements. Our choreographer designed a difficult dance routine, and we knew we had a lot of practicing ahead of us. While the learning was slow, we had it memorized by December. Then Saturday practices were added, as well as two other weekday practices. The uniforms picked for the competition looked somewhat like aluminum foil stirrup pants and straitjackets. "It's like Sally Ride," said senior Bree Davis. During the month of January, we were at school for 8 a.m. practices, and almost every day after school you could find the squad practicing in the annex. Our biggest challenge was trying to keep perfectly straight likes while dancing. The judges at nationals can see you from all angles, so it was extremely important for us to keep our lines straight and evenly spaced. Finally, the time arrived for us to head off to Orlando. For senior squad leaders Michelle Lauchner and Holly Dallavis and sophomore Meredith Havey, it was their first plane ride. Once we were in Orlando, the reality of the competition hit us. Some of the teams we saw actually looked professional. A lot of the girls had the same body shape and hair color. The next day was the big day, and we started doing our makeup and hair at 8 a.m. There was a lot of eyeliner, blush and, of course, we had to do the whole fake eyelash thing. "The rhinestones under the eyes were a nice touch," said freshman Kristen Schramm. By 10 a.m., everyone was strapped into their space suit, and we were off to the MGM Studios. We found our way to the Indiana Jones Stage to begin warming up. "I was most nervous about my turns," said sophomore Rachel Gerson. We did the routine one last time and then we were announced to dance. But not before we did a pre-dance tradition, called Zap, where the squad gets in a large cantle and talks about what we need to do during our performance. We were the first squad to perform in our division, large varsity pom. From backstage, we could see the huge dance floor, and before anyone could get used to dancing out there, it was over. The good news was no one fell, no one dropped a pom, and the performance was without obvious faults. But in the end, we didn't advance to the semifinals. We placed 18th in our group, and only the top 12 teams continued competing. "I wasn't that disappointed, because making it to nationals is an honor in itself," said junior Traci McMurray. Even though we did not win, this trip proved to us all that if you want something bad enough, you can achieve it.
Lindsey Arbuthnot is a senior at Springfield High School.
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