Westerville City Schools competition dance program, initiated at Westerville North High School, gives students the opportunity to learn team culture.
Beth Kidder
Westerville North seniors, Ali Kidder and Abbi Johnson began dancing at a young age at competitive dance studios. In high school, they were the only freshmen to join the Westerville dance team when it first broke off from the cheerleading squad in 2020.
Lifelong friends and now co-captains, Kidder and Johnson describe how, as freshmen, upperclassmen stepped into leadership roles helping them adjust to high school, coaching them on their dance skills and preparing the girls to become leaders themselves.
“It became something that we felt comfortable working with others to be like, 'here, welcome onto the team, let us show you what it’s all about,'” Kidder says. “All of the seniors try and work with giving the freshmen rides, including them in things and it’s just really cool because it builds a deeper connection with them.”
Leading the team to victory
Beth Kidder
As sophomores, Kidder and Johnson say the Westerville competition dance team took home a state championship title in the contemporary lyrical category.
“It was really nice to see how all of the work we’ve put into it has actually started to pay off,” Johnson says.
This past season, Kidder and Johnson made it a goal to finally attend the Universal Dance Association National Dance Team Championship. Johnson says Accomplishing this goal as seniors felt like a fever dream.
“It felt unreal, but it also felt magical,” Johnson says. “Everyone always says Disney World is the most magical place on earth, I thought Nationals was the most magical place on earth.”
The team worked hard all season, training from June through January. The team prepared three routines during those months – a contemporary jazz routine, a pom routine combining elements of cheer and dance and a gameday routine in which senior dancers perform a crowd cheer to a fight song.
Johnson says although competing at States was fun, performing at Nationals was even better because the team’s unification was so powerful. This was the moment they’d all been waiting for.
“At Nationals I felt like the team just hit a whole new level of being a team – I felt like they were more than just my team, they were my friends and family,” Johnson says.
Kidder says Westerville outscored many other teams with their routine continuing to the National semi-final round.
“You’re surrounded by so much talent and so many different backgrounds because now you’re seeing schools from Florida, you’re seeing schools from New York, from California,” Kidder says. “I think everyone was really happy with what we were able to bring to the floor, considering it was our first year.”
Keeping up
Kidder says an interesting aspect of the Westerville Competition Dance Team is the members' varying backgrounds and styles resulting from different studio experience. Kidder and Johnson, for example, grew up dancing in different studios.
“We turn differently so both of us at some point in time would have to change the way we learn certain steps to match on stage,” Kidder says. “Overall it just expanded my dancing ability a ton in the last couple years and it’s just been such a cool experience.”
With such a diverse group of dancers, Kidder says she was incentivized from the beginning to improve her skills so that the team would be synchronized on stage.
“I think what motivated me a lot was trying to be on the same level as, and be able to perform for, my team and not just for myself,” Kidder says. “I want us all to look together and precise on stage."
Westerville pride
As one of the only high school dance teams in the area competing at such a high level, the Westerville Competition Dance Team welcomes dancers from all three high schools.
Beth Kidder
“I’m so grateful,” Kidder says. “We get to show off our Westerville pride – if you will – wherever we go.”
Both Kidder and Johnson plan to continue dancing after high school.
“It truly made my high school experience so much fun,” Kidder says, “I loved getting to cheer and dance on the sidelines and just getting to do more with my dance and expand that.”
Johnson says dance will always have a special place in her life, no matter where her future takes her.
“It’s been my home, honestly, for the past fourteen years of my life and I literally cannot imagine myself without dance,” she says. “It’s very emotional for me and Aliespecially because we did it together the whole timeI hope that the team continues to grow and continues to do amazing new things, I hope Nationals is not just where we stop.”
Frances Denman is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com
