Paly dance wins at nationals
DAY FOR DANCE — The Palo Alto High School Dance team poses for photos after their performance at the Palo Alto May Fete Parade after their win at Nationals in late March. “We won this thing for dance,” Paly Dance Captain Theresa Hart said. “People are now hearing more about dance which is really helpful for us.” Photo by: Ajin Jeong
Palo Alto High School’s Dance team won first place in hip hop at Nationals in Anaheim on Saturday, March 18.
The win marked both the first hip hop win and first place win at Nationals for Paly Dance since the 2015-16 season, when the team won third place in hip hop and first place in the Open X-Small division.
“We won this thing for dance,” Dance Captain Theresa Hart said. “People are now hearing more about dance which is really helpful for us.”
According to Hart, the team had been working on their competition pieces since August, and was feeling optimistic about the prospects of winning at Nationals.
“We learn all of our competition pieces in August and we work on them all year and we go to Regionals, we go to local competitions and then we go to Nationals,” Hart said. “We did a full run the day before and then the day of we just ran little things that we wanted to change.”
Dance coach Alanna Williamson said she was feeling confident about the performance after the team finished.
“They [the team] did really, really well,” Williamson said. “I don’t think we could have possibly done anything better than that and [I felt] really excited and really good about it.”
Hart described how the team felt as the names of the winners were announced.
“It was a really great way to end off the competition year,” Hart said. “It shows how much our hard work paid off.”