The Amherst high school dance team qualified for state for the second year in a row, and like any sports team, weathered some ups-and-downs to get there. When the music for their hip hop routine malfunctioned, at Ashwaubenon, the dance team found a way to work through it.
Junior Hannah Austin said, “To rebound we bonded as a team to realize that mistakes happen and we needed to learn from our mess up and went back to practice to fix what we had messed up and worked on getting better.”
Hannah’s dance career has had plenty of moments to make both her, and her dance coach, Bradlyn Anderson, proud of their team. A shared moment between them was last year at state. Hannah was most proud when the team qualified. Bradlyn said, “…watching the state performance on the playback screen as a team for the first time. Just seeing them perform the routine they worked incredibly hard on, completely nailing it with confidence and energy on the state floor — I was beaming with pride.”
As a coach, Bradlyn looks for a smile, someone who pushes themselves, supports their teammates and a, “can-do-attitude” in her dancers. This may be why instead of having captains, Bradlyn wants to give everyone a chance to step up and be a leader, not just a couple of girls that she picked.
Bradlyn and Hannah are both very proud of the girls on the dance team. Bradlyn said she is proud of every dancer, because they grew in their confidence, pushed themselves farther than they thought they could, and brought leadership and positivity onto the team. Hannah said that she is most proud of Ava Krebsbach because she started three years ago with no prior dancing experience and has “grown so much” since then.
After being asked how they got into dance, Hanna replied that her mom put her into dance and she has been in dance since she was two and a half years old, now she loves dancing. Bradlyn said that watching performances when she was younger made her want to join dance.
Bradlyn has dancing experience at both Pacelli and Amherst. She said “Dancing for Pacelli was an incredible experience. My fantastic coach Tricia Cashin taught me discipline, teamwork, resilience- and is the reason I ever wanted to get into coaching.” She is also grateful for her year at Amherst with her coaches Brooke Mahoney, and Kimmy Pingle.
Overall, the dance team had a very good season and they should be proud of themselves for qualifying for state for the second year in a row.
