Winning one state high school dance title apparently wasn’t enough.
So Highlands took two.
The Bluebirds grabbed two Kentucky High School Athletic Association trophies – in the Pom and Hip-Hop at the state championships Dec. 15 at George Rogers Clark High School in Winchester. The titles were Highlands’ fourth in school history. (The large-school Pom in 2018 and 2019 were the others.)
Junior dancer Meredith Kleier said the Pom title was nicer.
“We were competing against more high-caliber teams, and we’ve competed against these people for the same couple of years,” Kleier said.
Senior Shelby Shields has been a varsity dancer for three years, but she’s took up the sport when she was 4. She said nice to receive some of the same recognition around town as the Bluebirds’ football and basketball teams.
“We’re definitely a newer sport, so we’re not like a football team or a basketball team, where you’re known in the community,” Shields said, “But I think ever since winning our two state championships, we’ve been recognized a bit more. We’ve been announced on our school announcements at school, which has been super-awesome, and we’ve definitely been getting some love on social media as well, which has been really nice.”
The KHSAA lists Dance as a “Sport-Activity,” a separate category from the more familiar football, basketball, softball and volleyball. Teams can be co-ed, but Highlands is all-girls.
“We practice three times a week for about three hours each,” Highlands coach Ashley Wrobleski said. “So you’re looking at about ten hours of practice a week, but when my dancers aren’t at school practice, they are at dance studios. They dance all the time.”
There are four categories – Pom, Hip-Hop, Game Day and Jazz; Wrobleski said teams typically compete in only one or two. Competitive dance is different from cheerleading – most of Highlands’ 16 girls belong to three local studios, Belladance and The Dance Realm in Fort Thomas and Just Off Broadway in Clermont County’s Union Township. (Kleier trains privately with former Just Off Broadway coach Amy Reik.)
“I would say cheer is a lot less subjective; it includes tumbling skills and a lot of pyramid work and stunt work,” Wrobleski said. “Dance is going to be more of an entertainment. It’s a form of expression; it kind of brings in a little bit more of that artistic route as well.”
Kleier and junior Saryn Klass Stepner said team turns is the toughest skill set to master.
“We have to be synchronized, and we all have to be turning at the same speed and watching each other … so we can be on time with everyone,” Kleier said.
Shields, meanwhile, said the “needle” is hardest.
“It’s basically used to kick your leg up behind your head and then grab it and until it becomes straight,” she said.
Wrobleski said Pom is technical and ballet-focused – toe touches and other skills dancers learn long before they join the team.
“Hip-Hop is going to be a lot more creative,” Wrobleski said. “It’s kind of a range of a street style type of dancing … The music is a lot more fun to listen to; the dancers really like it because they can dance to the music they listen to every day.”
Jazz incorporates fluid movement and slow songs, and Gameday features chanting and fight songs you’d hear at football and basketball games.
Highlands heads south for its next competition – the National Dance Alliance Championship Feb. 14-16 in Orlando. Wrobleski said the dancers are “drilling their routines.”
“We want to be as clean as possible,” Wrobleski said. So we want to look exactly the same as each other. So we’re just going to be having a lot of repetitiveness at practice, but that’s what makes perfection.”