Photo by Emily Featherston.
Rebelettes
The varsity Rebelettes work on their team routine to prepare for nationals in early March.
Some students at Vestavia Hills High School don’t even know their school has a dance studio, much less that their Rebelette team placed third in a 2016 national competition and will be returning this year to seek a title.
Senior members of the team said they think that may be because the competitive team spends so much time working on their national routine, that they don’t get a chance often to show the school their skills.
“We put a lot more work in than we show,” said four-year Rebelette veteran Mary Frances Garner.
Early this month, the varsity Rebelettes will travel to Orlando to participate in the 2017 National Dance Association National Championship, as they have done for the last 12 to 13 years.
The team, made up of juniors and seniors, begins practice for the annual competition almost as soon as they return from the previous year’s event.
“Anything we do is going toward nationals,” Garner said.
Fellow senior Ally Cross said in the last few weeks of practicing, the hard work and reality of the approaching competition really came into focus.
“It just keeps getting more real,” she said, adding that though it can be stressful, the team is also excited.
Coach Faith Lenhart, who is the VHHS dance director and chairwoman of performing arts, said the rigor of the competition is unlike anything most of the dancers have experienced, but that the intensity is something she thinks is beneficial to the team as well as the individual girls.
“They have to have the endurance to finish the dance and not look exhausted,” she said.
“They all walk away stronger dancers,” Lenhart added.
Garner said she thinks they come away stronger people, too.
For this year’s competition, the Rebelettes will perform two numbers. The first, a jazz-based piece, is more of what Lenhart said people might expect from a dance class, in that it’s a “pretty dance,” with a lot of emotion. The second or “team” dance, which is much more high energy, is comprised of 25 percent each of jazz, kick elements, hip hop and pom pom elements.
Both routines require extreme precision, Lenhart said, down to every fingertip looking exactly alike.
“The precision part of it is very much a learned skill,” she said.
The team will leave March 2 and will go through two days of preliminary competition before the finals. Lenhart said that even though the competition is held at Universal Orlando, the trip is almost entirely a hard-work experience.
“It’s not a vacation at all until the awards ceremony is over,” she said.
Garner and Cross said they have really enjoyed their four years on the team, despite their friends and family not quite understanding why being a Rebelette is such hard work.
“You kind of have to be an athlete and an artist at the same time,” Garner said.
The NDA High School Nationals is March 3-5 at the Hard Rock Live at Universal Orlando Resort. Results will be available after the competition at varsity.com/NDAnationals.
