Nodaway Valley dancing all the way to state

Members of the Nodaway Valley Dance Team have their dancing shoes ready to go for an upcoming state contest they’ll be performing at.

The Wolverines are taking their show to the Iowa State Dance Team and Solo Championships, held Dec. 4-6 at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, where they were fourth place a year ago.

As a group, Nodaway Valley has a pom routine they’ll perform at 3 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 5. At 8:09 a.m. the same day, freshman Aleyah Pilgreen will perform her dance solo for the judges that she qualified in at an event in Newton earlier this fall with a top 10 finish.

Pilgreen is the first soloist to qualify for state from Nodaway Valley since Danica Clayton and Keely Shantz did it in 2017.

Pilgreen’s two-minute lyrical solo is set to a song called “Sleep Deprivation” by Chance Pena.

While movements still need to be exact, a lyrical style of dance calls for movements that are more fluid.

Pilgreen has been very pleased with the fruit of her hard work and that of her entire team. When people see her dance, she hopes they know that better days are always ahead.

“Going into it as a freshman, I didn’t know what to expect because I was going against about 70 people,” said Pilgreen. “To be in the top 10 scoring was a huge achievement that was not really something I expected, but it was something I really hoped for, considering how much work I put in.”

Nodaway Valley’s entire team will go to state with the experience of having performed there already last year, which the Wolverines hope is a decided advantage for them. Their dance team was re-started three years ago.

The pom routine they will dance to is called “Stronger.” It is a two-minute medley of songs carrying that theme.

“I think since my freshmen year we’ve made a lot of progress,” said junior Chloe Rardin.

Junior Kiara Stevens said even the freshmen on the squad have progressed nicely, contributing well to the team.

Senior Joanna Larson said preparing for a dance routine requires an attention to detail and repetition until you get it right. As a dance team member, you have to be willing to focus on the little things and be able to be critiqued as the show develops in practices.

“Especially toward the end, we’re just tweaking every little thing we can, but it’s good because sometimes we don’t notice that when we’re dancing — even if one of our arms is higher than the other,” Larson said. “It’s the little things that really count.”

“There are just a lot of critiques that can make our dance look better overall so we’re performing at our best,” Stevens added.

As the only senior on the team, Larson said that she’s inspired by the hard work that everyone on the team has put in this year. She went out for high school dance for the first time this year at the prompting of a friend. She’s participated in gymnastics and a little bit of dance before.

The four aforementioned captions that judges will pay attention to are what drives practices, head coach Sami Harris said.

“I’m really excited to take our team to state again. Last year, finishing fourth place, we were really excited about that. That’s obviously our goal, to be able to place again this coming year,” Harris said. “I think we can really compete with the other schools.”

Harris is assisted by Peyton Froehlich.