I have been dancing with DTTB for 10 years. There have been many memorable dances over these years. Here are my top ten favorite dances at my studio of all time. Not just the best or most impressive, but also entertaining and touching.
10: “Unraveling” – This was an emotional lyrical duet performed by Cadence Miller and Karleigh Moon. The dance was so beautiful and impressive, but filled my eyes with tears every time I watched it on stage. The song is about the battle of having a loved one with Alzheimer’s. All of the hardships and struggles when they are essentially “unraveling.” They performed with purple ribbon costumes to bring awareness to the sickness, with a rocking chair as their prop.
9: “Sway With Me” – This is a jazz dance that was performed in the age division under me when I was a sophomore. I love all of the girls that took part in this dance and danced with them in a large group “Via Dolorosa,” so I had a close relationship with them all. The dance was full of attitude and entertainment, I always loved getting hype for it and cheering them on so loud.
8: “Instruction” – This is a sassy jazz trio I did with my two other current seniors, Izzy Kellogg and Willow Bowen. This was the first super sassy dance we did and it was during our freshman year. This dance started with eight people in it, but COVID happened, people graduated and people quit, which ultimately left the dance with the three of us. The costumes were pink and glittery with feathers, but pretty itchy. It was a fun routine.
7: “Emergency” – This is a large group mini jazz dance. This means the dancers range from the age 5-8 years old. As you can imagine, it is so adorable to watch. All of these little dancers perform with the biggest facial expressions that are impossible not to love! They do group leg extensions, floor scorpions, needle splits, and other impressive tricks at such a young age. I have taught preschool/acro dance classes to every single one of these dancers, so I have a history with them and love them all, especially my sweet cousin Sterling. They dance in the cutest nurse costumes.
6: “Broken Prayers”- This is a solo currently competing, which is performed by my talented cousin, Audrey Baker. The message behind the song and dance is so inspirational and meaningful. The song is also stuck in my head due to how beautiful it is. Audrey does such an amazing job with this dance, hitting every move flawlessly, captivating the audience, and looking so pretty while doing so. She has such great technique, and I always look forward to cheering her on, but specifically with this lyrical routine.
5: “Cringe”- This is a large group contemporary dance that I am not even a part of. The song is so touching, emotional, and catchy. The singer’s voice sounds amazing and all of the dancers do a great job dancing to it. The choreography is so clever and includes many turns, tricks, etc. It is a captivating dance that I love to cheer for in the audience.
4: “Spin Me Round”- This was a unique and spunky jazz dance I was a part of during my junior year. It was different and not something judges saw often. We also had impressive group turn sequences, acro tricks, flips, extensions, and more. This dance was advanced and was fun to perform for all of the dancers. The thing about this dance was that it was insanely tiring due to the fast pace and difficulty, that when we exited the stage we could barely breathe and had to take a minute to lie on the floor.
3: “Via Dolorosa” – This dance was during my sophomore year and it was a large group. This was so amazing. The song was so powerful, which meant we had to dance to match the song. The choreography was brilliant and the dance included many challenging and technical tricks. We had a crazily long turn sequence that constantly blew judges away resulted in us always placing highly. Ask any of the dance parents about this dance and they will reassure how amazing and memorable this routine was.
2: “Knock on Wood” – This is the jazz dance I am currently competing with. It is so advanced, fun, and entertaining. We all are really talented dancers and the judges have complimented our impressive skills we do in this dance. We also all perform amazingly with huge facial expressions that won us the “Most Entertaining Award” at our first competition. To add onto this, our costumes are hot pink and covered in rhinestones.
1: “Spine” – This was a beautiful, emotional lyrical dance I performed in my junior year. It was a challenging dance with turns, leaps, extensions, and other tricks. Everything we did was very precise and the judges complimented our timing and how well we cleaned the dance. We won almost every competition with this routine, and even won National Champions, which is why it is number one on the list. The costumes were pretty white and mesh with diamond rhinestones.
