{"id":2455374,"date":"2020-03-04T23:10:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T06:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=322076"},"modified":"2020-03-04T23:10:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T06:10:00","slug":"aspen-high-dance-team-heads-to-national-competition-in-orlando","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-high-dance-team-heads-to-national-competition-in-orlando\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen High dance team heads to national competition in Orlando"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"swift-gallery p402_hide\" readability=\"6.4646464646465\">\n<ul id=\"imageGallery-322076-261\" class=\"gallery list-unstyled\">\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-1024x706.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times | The Aspen High School spirit and dance team runs through their jazz dance during their sendoff event on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. The team was able to learn the jazz dance in about three weeks, which is unusual when competing at a high level. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"0.97124600638978\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"12.626198083067\">\n<p><strong>The Aspen High School spirit and dance team runs through their jazz dance during their sendoff event on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. The team was able to learn the jazz dance in about three weeks, which is unusual when competing at a high level. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong><br \/>Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<br \/><a class=\"buy-link\" href=\"http:\/\/aspentimes.mycapture.com\/mycapture\/remoteimage.asp?backtext=Return+to+AspenTimes.com&amp;backurl=https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-high-dance-team-heads-to-national-competition-in-orlando\/&amp;image=https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-1024x706.jpg&amp;notes=https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1.jpg\"><i class=\"fas fa-shopping-cart\"><\/i> Buy Photo<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-1024x706.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"The Aspen High School spirit and dance team runs through their jazz dance during their sendoff event on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. The team was able to learn the jazz dance in about three weeks, which is unusual when competing at a high level. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-1-1024x682.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times | The Aspen High School spirit and dance team huddles before they perform their routines for their parents during the team\u2019s sendoff event on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"0\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"10.584033613445\">\n<p><strong>The Aspen High School spirit and dance team huddles before they perform their routines for their parents during the team\u2019s sendoff event on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong><br \/>Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<br \/><a class=\"buy-link\" href=\"http:\/\/aspentimes.mycapture.com\/mycapture\/remoteimage.asp?backtext=Return+to+AspenTimes.com&amp;backurl=https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-high-dance-team-heads-to-national-competition-in-orlando\/&amp;image=https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-1-1024x682.jpg&amp;notes=https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-1.jpg\"><i class=\"fas fa-shopping-cart\"><\/i> Buy Photo<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-1-1024x682.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"The Aspen High School spirit and dance team huddles before they perform their routines for their parents during the team\u2019s sendoff event on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-2-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-2-1024x768.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Courtesy photo | The Aspen High School dance team won the Class 3A state championship in poms in December.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-1.3805309734513\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"7.3628318584071\">\n<p><strong>The Aspen High School dance team won the Class 3A state championship in poms in December.<\/strong><br \/>Courtesy photo<br \/><a class=\"buy-link\" href=\"http:\/\/aspentimes.mycapture.com\/mycapture\/remoteimage.asp?backtext=Return+to+AspenTimes.com&amp;backurl=https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-high-dance-team-heads-to-national-competition-in-orlando\/&amp;image=https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-2-1024x768.jpg&amp;notes=https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-2.jpg\"><i class=\"fas fa-shopping-cart\"><\/i> Buy Photo<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AHSdance-atd-030520-1-2-1024x768.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"The Aspen High School dance team won the Class 3A state championship in poms in December.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"caption-toggle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-high-dance-team-heads-to-national-competition-in-orlando\/#\" class=\"show-captions\">Show Captions<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-high-dance-team-heads-to-national-competition-in-orlando\/#\" class=\"hide-captions\">Hide Captions<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The casual fan might only see these girls during halftime of a football game and call them nothing more than cheerleaders. But that\u2019s not how the Aspen High School spirit and dance team wants to be seen, as it\u2019s far from the truth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">They are highly competitive athletes coming off a state championship and put in as much work as any other AHS athlete this season. And after finally getting the attention of their peers, they now have the chance to show off to the entire country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIn the past, we\u2019ve definitely been made fun of and people never saw us as a real team, if that makes sense. They just didn\u2019t think we were this good in this sport,\u201d AHS senior co-captain Juliana Nickell said. \u201cThis year, especially winning state, we\u2019ve shown people how hard it is and how determined we are. While we are not 100 percent there, I think we have gotten a lot more respect this year and it really feels great.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">With those good vibes in tow, the AHS dancers are headed to Orlando this week for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.varsity.com\/nda\/school\/competitions\/high-school-nationals\/\">National Dance Alliance national championships<\/a>, held just down the road from Disney World.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">It\u2019s uncharted territory for the Skiers, who <a id=\"N0x2c11d10N0x2a87800:N0x2c11d10N0x2b4cc30\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/sports\/aspen-high-dance-teams-wins-first-state-championship\/\">won their first state championship<\/a> in December. AHS qualified for nationals through a regional meet held prior to the state competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Aspen has had successful competitive teams in recent years, but first-year coach Maddy Miller, an Aspen native and former Denver Nuggets dancer, has challenged the Skiers to push for more this winter and they\u2019ve responded.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cShe has changed our mindset,\u201d AHS senior co-captain Louise Lipsey said of Miller. \u201cHow other people saw us is how we see ourselves, and they only see us from what we can build ourselves to be. So she made us, every time we do the dance, think of our goals, our tasks, anything that we wanted to improve upon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Aspen won the Class 3A poms title at the Denver Coliseum in December, and will take a modified routine from that to NDA nationals. New will be their jazz routine, the second and more demanding element to the national competition that the Skiers only learned within the past few weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIt\u2019s got to have a lot more technique, so it\u2019s a harder execution of a dance,\u201d Miller said of jazz. \u201cJazz can literally be anything from a contemporary kind of song, a little bit slower and more slow movements, or it can be a hard, sassy jazz, which my girls like to be sassy so I figured they would probably do great in a sassy jazz.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">At nationals, the divisions aren\u2019t divided up by school size, like it was at the state level, but by how many dancers each team will have competing. There are small, medium and large varsity divisions, with AHS set to compete in small varsity jazz and medium varsity pom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Unlike at state, which had the Skiers competing against only five other 3A teams, the national competition will have them facing off against dozens of the top teams from across the United States. Aspen\u2019s competition includes schools from bigger cities, such as St. Louis and San Antonio, to smaller towns including Paducah, Kentucky. Although, based purely off a town\u2019s population, Aspen might be the smallest of the bunch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIt\u2019s just amazing how far they\u2019ve come, and as a coach it makes me feel so proud,\u201d Miller said. \u201cWe have grown so much as a team, this program has grown so much, that they deserve to go out there and show them everything that we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">AHS is sending 12 girls to nationals. Along with Nickell and Lipsey, the jazz lineup will include Jamison Delaney, Ariana Baumgartner, Avery Hirsch, Riley MacArthur, Abby Romero, Grace Romero and Caprice Seeman. Each of those dancers will join Olivia Zwieg, Eryn Brettmann and Bella Hoffman on the poms squad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Prelims are Friday inside the Grand Sierra Ballroom at the Caribe Royale Resort in Orlando. AHS is scheduled to compete in jazz prelims at 12:43 p.m. locally in Orlando, and pom prelims at 4:26 p.m. They\u2019ll be on the dance floor for less than two minutes each time, with hopes of making it into Saturday\u2019s finals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The team\u2019s goal entering the season was to win state, and that\u2019s been accomplished. Whatever happens at nationals is just icing on the cake, and they plan to spend Sunday at Disney World, win or lose.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The most important part of it all for the AHS dancers was to earn that respect and become the best team they could.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI\u2019ve seen how much this team has progressed over the past four years, and I know our determination and drive and strength and especially our endurance is so much stronger,\u201d Lipsey said. \u201cEverything we\u2019ve done these past seven months has been building us to this moment and every time we do the dance we make it stronger than the last. I think nationals is our time to show the city, the state, who we are, what we\u2019re made of and how we keep pushing ourselves to the furthest possible point.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\"><a href=\"mailto:acolbert@aspentimes.com\">acolbert@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-high-dance-team-heads-to-national-competition-in-orlando\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Aspen High School spirit and dance team runs through their jazz dance during their sendoff event on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. The team was able to learn the jazz dance in about three weeks, which is unusual when competing at a high level. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times Buy Photo The Aspen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 12:15:12","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}