The Becker Bulldogs’ competitive dance team, the Dazzlers, made a great come back from their last competition, with the varsity jazz team placing in the top seven out of 15 at last Saturday’s varsity invitational at Waconia High School, their first placement of the year.

 

Like the previous weekend, the competition was filled with consistent heavy hitters, including many of the same teams.

 

“I was happy to see that we ended up scoring higher than a team [Delano], that beat us by 23 points the weekend before in the varsity jazz category,” said Coach Nadia Fischer-Danzeisen.

 

With all three routines, varsity jazz, kick and JV jazz having better showings than the week before, Dazzlers’ coaches were feeling positive as the team goes into their first conference meet of the season. Editor’s note: The conference meet, which was held Dec. 20, will be covered in next week’s edition of the Citizen-Tribune.

 

“Last week we made several changes to all the routines,” said Danzeisen. “Including rearranging formations, redoing choreography and dancing different dancers in different spots. With all of that, we still had better performances!”

 

The team was looking forward to a week of cleaning and perfecting parts of their routine to prepare for conference.

 

“Our scores once again reflected that our choreography, creativity and difficulty are our strengths right now,” said Danzeisen. “Our lowest scores are in degree of accuracy. I’m really hoping to see that improve this week before we leave for winter break.”

 

Degree of accuracy involves things such as memory of routine, precision of moves, timing and spacing. 

 

The Dazzlers’ scores from the Waconia Invitational left them trailing behind St. Cloud Cathedral’s jazz team by only 12 points, the closest they’ve been to the state-entrant team.

 

“Since GRC was created, St. Cloud Cathedral has won every single conference meet,” said Danzeisen. “It’s our goal to change that up this year.”

 

The Dazzler’s competed at the varsity conference meet at Albany High School Dec. 20; their first competition after winter break will be the varsity invitational at Alexandria High School Jan. 5.