The Kokomo Dance Team recently took on the state finals as they performed their hip-hop, jazz, solo and duo routines when competing in the beginning of March. The dance team was the state runner-up in jazz and 4th in hip-hop. The duo of senior Dani Gomez and junior Anna Becker earned a state runner-up finish. Becker’s solo placed 4th while Gomez earned 6th place for her solo.
Gomez is a 7 year member of the Kokomo Dance Team. She competed with KDT throughout middle school and high school and she has many memorable moments.
“My most memorable moment would be winning state runner-up in jazz my freshman and senior year,” she said. “It was so cool to see the growth in the team and how the experiences paralleled the start of my high school dance career and end.”
But being able to compete at the level KDT does is not an easy task. Practice makes perfect when it comes to a competitive activity like this so preparation is very important.
“We practice two times a week for three hours each practice. Our practices in competition season consist of stretching and running throughout dances,” she said. “This year, we had two routines, jazz and hip hop. We spend hours each week cleaning and going through each movement to make the dance as uniform as possible. This routine of cleaning is similar for solo and duo as we run through the dances several times a practice to get it as clean as possible.”
As her time with the Kokomo dance team came to an end, Gomez has enjoyed her experiences and relationships with KDT.
“My favorite dance routines have been my freshman year jazz and my senior year jazz. They were both very different styles of jazz and music,” she said. “The team also made the dances enjoyable as we all worked hard to improve throughout the season.”
