The Becker Dazzlers dance team headed up north last weekend to compete against some of the finest dance teams in the area.
Detroit Lakes Invitational
The Dazzlers varsity jazz team took second place and earned their highest scores ever at last Saturday’s event in Detroit Lakes.
The team performed to "Bottom of the River" and placed well ahead of most of the eleven teams competing at this event.
To put things in perspective, the Frazee jazz team that has advanced to state year-after-year and placed fourth in Class A in the 2014 State Tournament, took first place at this mixed class event, scoring just 26 points higher than the Dazzlers. Pequot Lakes took third place, one spot behind Becker by 13 points.
“The team earned its highest scores ever in choreography, routine effectiveness and difficulty of skills,” said Head Coach Laura Anderson. “This has been our focus this season and we are right on target with our objective.”
Anderson received an email from Frazee Head Coach Theresa Fett following the competition that said, “Just had to send you a note today. I love dance. I watch a lot of dance, I go to invites in the winter, I go to studio competitions in the spring. Both my daughters are dance teachers.”
She continued...
“Your jazz routine was amazing! I just loved what you did with the music, the blue skirts, the whole routine. Sometimes in MSHSL dancing, we get so focused on skills and tricks and forget about dance! Your girls danced and they did it with incredible accuracy and feeling. I just loved it and wanted to pass that along to you and your dancers.”
She added that she had heard from a lot of Frazee fans that Becker’s dance was one of the best.
“As a team, we were very excited to hear this feedback from a coach whose team is a regular state dance team participant,” said Anderson.
Varsity kick took fifth place out of 14 teams at the event.
Aitkin, (first place in the state tournament this past season), took the first place spot followed by Frazee and Pelican Rapids.
“I was very pleased with our performance for our first competition of the season,” said Coach Julie Baloun. “We have a fast and challenging routine that our athletes handled well.”
The kick team’s highest score was in the difficulty category and they were second only to Aitkin.
“Our other high scores were in difficulty of choreography and combinations and routine effectiveness,” said Baloun. “It was nice to see the judges recognize the difficulty we have added to the routine this season. We need to focus on polishing and perfecting the routine and improving our technique in order to improve our scores even more this season.”
The Dazzlers JV jazz squad took fifth place and JV kick took seventh place.
Scores were higher than the JV team's first event last year in both events.
“I am so proud of how all of the girls performed for our first competition of the season,” said Coach Nadia Fischer-Danzeisen. “I am very enthusiastic about the rest of the season. This year's team is scoring better than last year's team so the dancers are showing great promise.”
Fischer-Danzeisen has been very impressed with the work ethic of the team and she’s very excited to watch each girl grow and develop as an athlete.
“In jazz, our overall improvement was three points from last year at this time,” she said. “The areas were in technicality of turns, visual effectiveness and practicality of content. In kick, our overall improvement was 11 points from last year. The areas were in difficulty, visual effectiveness, practicality of content, choreography and combinations, formations and transitions and routine effectiveness.”
