Our Dakota dance teams traveled to Orlando, Florida on February 9, 2023 to compete against some of the best teams from around the country. This competition took place at the Orange County Convention Center and was hosted by Dance Team Union, Dakota has been attending since 2018.

How the competition works

      The first day of officially competing started on Friday February 9, 2023 with all Junior Varsity, Elementary, Middle School, and All Star Junior teams competing in the semi final round. All teams get to preform in semifinals. After they compete and there division closes out a panel of judges will send out the scores and announce who has made it to finals or who will have compete in the second chance round. Those who made it straight to finals competed on Saturday, but those who had to do second chance round competed Friday night. Only about 2 teams make it from second chance to finals, if they do not make finals they were done for the duration of the competition. For all the small, medium, and large varsity teams there competition started on Saturday. All varsity teams competed in the same way as the Junior Varsity teams with beginning with semifinals then either going to Second Chance or Finals. Junior Varsity on Saturday competed in finals with a completely new set of judges from the semifinal competition. There awards were held that Saturday night but the Varsity awards were held the next night on Sunday. There were three arena located through the hotel and convention center, Arena A,B, and C. Arena B held all Jv and Varsity Finals as well as both award ceremony’s.

How the competition went

Both our Junior Varsity and Varsity teams for both Pom and Jazz made it straight through to Finals. Jv was in first place for Pom and second place for jazz going into finals. Varsity competed in the medium division coming out of semifinals with a first place in Pom and third place in the Jazz category. Going into awards for finals for JV they were selected for The Battle, where all divisions but same category go up against each other for the ultimate prize. Junior Varsity did not come out on top but our Elementary Indianettes did! Going into awards Jv placed second in both categories and finished the season second in the country. On Sunday the highly competitive Varsity awards began, Dakota Pom was again chosen for The Battle. Dakota for the first time ever won The Battle against teams they have lost to before in previous years. On to awards Dakota Varsity went on to take second place in Jazz and they took home there first ever in person National Championship in the Medium Pom Category. They competed against about 30 teams and it was such a special moment for everybody. The season has come to an, congrats to all 8 of the seniors. Information about next season will come out sometime in April.