Dance Team twirls into first competition at Esperanza High School

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Photo courtesy of Florrie Ku

Rylyn Wang, Staff writer
January 23, 2023

Dance Team competed in its first competition of the year, the Esperanza Contest of Warriors, at Esperanza High School Saturday, Jan. 14 from 6:45 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

The Esperanza Contest of Warriors is a California Association of Dance/Drill Team competition with a total of around 20 schools competing. This year, soloists performed first in the morning and team performances started in the afternoon. Dance Team prepared a total of six dances: a kick routine, a small contemporary, a medium contemporary, a large jazz, a medium lyrical and a large lyrical.

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“The one I’m proudest of is the small contemporary [routine]. It was definitely one of the best times we’ve ever done it. We watched the videos back and talked about how good it felt. We ate [the routine] and couldn’t understand why we never look like that in practice.”

— Captain senior Alyssa Lopez

For the competition, the team decided to base their kick routine on the musical Legally Blonde. In addition to the song “Omigod You Guys” from the musical, they danced to “Remember (Acoustic)” by Becky Hill, “champagne problems” by Taylor Swift and “Lay All Your Love On Me” by ABBA, among others. 

“Before I went on stage, I was pretty scared,” sophomore Chloe Cheng said. “During our kick dances, which is what we’re known for, it was a little nerve wracking, but overall I think it’s pretty fun and exciting to be performing and knowing you’re doing it for everyone to watch.”

In the solos category, junior Zoey Tran won first place, junior Tiffany Peng won fourth place and Lopez won sixth place among all solo showcases. In addition to their kick routine winning first place, their small contemporary routine won second place, large jazz won third place, large and medium lyrical won fourth place and medium contemporary won fifth place.

“We’re taking the feedback we got back from the judges, using it to further our routines,” Lopez said. “If we need more showmanship, we push ourselves to perform more. If it was to point [our] toes or turn [our] knees, we’re really using that and focusing on that while we’re practicing. Our next competition is next Saturday and we’re really looking forward to that one.”