By Liz Nodia and Anna Haney
Behind the curtain ...................... A look at dance and being part of a dance team
Table Of Contents 3........A Dancers Dictionary 4-6........Journey To Juilliard 7........ Teammates, Friends, Sisters, Family 8-9........The Final Destination 10........2015-2016 WHVP Timeline Mini newspaper and cover design by Liz and Anna
A dancers dictionary ARABESQUE: Position on one leg, with the other leg raised straight behind the body. ASSEMBLE: A jump from one to both feet, usually landing in fifth position. ATTITUDE: A pose in which one leg is raised in back or in front with the knee bent, usually with one arm raised. BALANCE: A step that moves/rocks from one foot to the other, usually in 3/4 time. BALL CHANGE: Consisting of 2 steps; rocking on the ball of one foot and stepping on the other. CAMBRE: In ballet, a bend from the waist to the side or to the back. CHASSE: A sliding step in which one foot “follows” and displaces the other. PAS DECHAT: Catlike leap in which one foot follows the other into the air, ones knees bent; the landing is in fifth position. CISEAUZ: A jump in which the legs open in second position in the air, almost like scissors. DEGAGE: In ballet, shifting weight from one foot to the other. DEVELOPPE: An unfolding of the leg in the air. FONDU: Lowering of the body by bending the knee. FOUETTE EN TOURNANT: Leg with rapid circular movements of the other leg while remaining in a fixed spot. GLISSADE: A gliding step which usually connects two steps. ENHAUT: A position of the arms above the head. ISOLATION: A movement separating one part of the body from the other parts. JETE: Leap from one leg to the other in which one leg is thrown to the side, front, or back. PARTERRE: Steps performed on the floor. It is the opposite of en l’air. PASSE: Leg is raised with a bent knee with the foot placed on the opposite leg, on the knee This may be either parallel or turned out. PENCHE: Leaning forward. PIQUE: Stepping directly onto the point of a foot. PIROUETTE: A turn performed on one foot done in place. PLIE: A bending of the knees in any of the five positions. Demi plie: a half bending of the knees, with heels on the floor. Grand plie: a full bending of the knees. POINT: A position on the tip of the toes. PORTDEBRAS: The positions of the arms. RELEVE: A rising with a spring movement to point or demi-point. ROND DEJAMBE: “Round the leg,” the moving leg draws a circular path. This may be executed on the floor or in an extended position. SPOTTING: The fixing of the eyes on one spot as long as possible during turns to avoid dizziness and to keep one’s orientation. SWITCH LEAP: Swing one leg forward then back, lifting into a split leap.
INTRO.WSSPAPER.COM MAY 2016 ENTERTAINMENT 3
Journey to
Juilliard An inside look at Matilda Mackey’s success as a dancer
Matilda Mackey ’16
Making a cut from over 600 to 12 and getting into The Juilliard School in New York City is one of the things a student here in Iowa City has done. 17-year old Matilda Mackey is a graduating senior at Iowa City West High this year. Matilda has been dancing for 15 years at Nolte Academy in Coralville, completing her 11th season this past May. “I don’t remember not dancing..my youngest memories of life were just involving school and family and being at Nolte but just as I’ve gotten older I’ve just grown fonder of it,” Mackey said. Pursuing a more serious dance career had been on Mackey’s mind since sixth grade. “I had already attended two summer intensives by then and I just realized that I really liked the atmosphere of being in a challenging environment with a whole bunch of other dancers that were also serious,” she said. Matilda realized this dream of hers was possible and it was something she definitely wanted to pursue professionally, even if getting there was one of the hardest things she would ever have to do. 4 PROFILE MAY 2016 WSSPAPER.COM
Indeed, this is exactly what Matilda set out to do and now here she is about to spend her last year in “high school” in New York City dancing with the pros. However even dancers like Matilda don’t have a perfect scenario. For many high schoolers, the transition and difficulty that comes along with high school is hard to deal with. For Matilda, it was freshmen year that she had some struggles balancing high school social life and dance. “I didn’t struggle with the transition to high school but I got distracted with boys and free time and sort of fighting the fact that [there was not]much time or the hours in the day or a lot of free time on the weekends [to dance].” Matilda’s priorities were not in line this year. Getting caught up in being involved at school and finding new friends kind had taken up her mind and distracted her. “I sort of cared more about going to football games and things like that than actually wanting to get to the studio.” Mackey claims she was still serious while she was there but the motivation to get there just was not enough. However, now she thinks she has definitely changed since then and grown out of this phase within that year. “Now I’m at the point where I don’t mind at all spending Friday nights in rehearsal and rehearsing and taking class all day on Saturday,” she said.
Yet social life wasn’t the only obstacle in Matildas “journey” to the top. Physical obstacles were also a barrier. When she was just 12 years old, Matilda had an ankle surgery. Mackey has a boen sparrow in her talus. Nonetheless this coming june she is getting another one to remove the bone sparrow in her talus. This surgery is supposed to get rid of lots of pain and range of motion impairments that Mackey is currently experiencing and she clearly cannot wait, “I have so really hope that goes well and I’m just excited to have that problem be done,” Mackey said. It’s obvious how much Mackey has learned from being at Nolte and with her being around her dance family so much and growing up with them. “Oh my goodness I love my dance family so much. This year there are 12 of us that are graduating and we’re all going to different places,” she said with melancholy look. Matilda has grown up with her dance family and known most of them for as long as she has been dancing. As a group and individually, Mackey has seen the group grow as both dancers and people individually. However Matilda’s emotions about leaving her dance family and hometown are overpowered with the excitement of the year to come for herself. Mackey also often gets emotional throughout her last few events and competitions with Nolte about leaving, this year being her last. “If I cry it’s always just tears of joy because I’m so excited for what I’m gonna be doing next year and to see what my friends do and to find out how the studio evolves.. so [the] tears are just of happiness because of all the memories that I have that I’ll never forget, being at the studio and rehearsing and also the times that were a struggle that I learned from.” Mackey knows that growing up with Nolte and everything she has done has shaped who she. “I can’t avoid feeling so happy about that and also so happy for the sort of success that I have garnered for myself.”
DANCE FAVES
Favorite dancing year; this year 2015-2016
Favorite group dance; Slip - this was a dance where a slanted wall was used as a prop that dancers used in their performance Favorite solo: Matilda choreographed her own solo this competiotion season called “Fremd” - German music inspired from a company member from L.A. Favorite dance style: Modern/Contemporary Compiled by Liz Nodia
“I can’t avoid feeling so happy... for the sort of success that I have garnered for myself.” -Matilda Mackey ‘16
INTRO.WSSPAPER.COM MAY 2016 PROFILE 5
6 COLLAGE MAY 2016 INTRO.WSSPAPER.COM Compiled by Liz Nodia
Teammates, Friends, Sisters, Family.
How team chemistry affects West High Varsity Poms Article by: Anna and Liz Design by: Liz Nodia
Chemistry: the complex emotional or psychological interaction between two or more people. It is the things that holds a team together and connects them; the number one essential to having a successful team. The progress of a close tight team soars past ones with individual talents that do not mix. Being involved in dance team has been responsible for so many friendships in our life and others. Most of our best and most loved friends are on dance team with us. All of us girls on the team are so incredibly close. We cannot imagine life without these girls. So what makes many teams like ours so close? Having to spend almost everyday with our team for 11 months of the year almost forces us to become close, but most definitely not in a bad way. Our team, since the minute we made it instantly had a connection and our coach saw this and knew that it would be the main thing that would hold us all together this season. Every minute, day, and hour we spent together our team became closer and closer and throughout the season it grew stronger and stronger. When we would go to away competitions and have to room with 2-4 other girls from anywhere from 3-7 days definitely creates a bond. For reason of having to communicate, sharing a living space, compromise on the little things like; who gets to shower first or what time you would all go to bed, where or who you would share the bed with. Little but important things like this make you have to work together and compromise for there to be a positive outcome. Being with one another for so long created so many memories, some bad but almost all good. Anna: It is safe to say that two of my best friends Liz Nodia and Addie Schroeder are on the dance team with me and the main reason to why we are so close now if because of dance team. When Liz, Addie and I all made the team we were already pretty close but as the season went on we formed a greater friendship that will last forever. The things that brought us so close were the little thing that at the time didn’t seem like they were ‘connecting’ us but looking back now I realize that they did play a great tool in our friendship. Things like getting together outside of practice and practicing with each other or going and coming from practice together, having sleepovers the night before an early morning practice and many more little things like that. If I was not on dance team with the other freshman I know for a fact that I would not be able to call them my best friends. Being the “baby freshman” and being classified with one another consistently causes us to have a connection most people do not experience am I am glad that I am able to experience that connection. Liz: Working together to achieve our goals, watching each other grow into things we couldn’t have imagined being before and helping each other get better. We do these things and push ourselves to limits and breaking points to achieve being the best version of ourselves and eventually competing at our maximum potential. We aren’t afraid to sometimes be a little hard on one of our teammates because of all the passion everyone possesses. Everyone knows that we all have the same vision at the end and we are all working towards the same TEAM destination. We have to do all we can and try our absolute best every day to even have a chance of being one of the Top Ten in the whole nation.
INTRO.WSSPAPER.COM MAY 2016 PERSONAL 7
The freshman at nationals 2016
Team photo at Walt Disney World
The Final Destination West High Varsity Poms journey By: Anna and Liz Two of the most crucial events for every nationally competitive dance team is Universal Dance Association Camp and Universal Dance Association Nationals. With no Camp there is no Nationals. Uda Camp, the beginning milestone in the world of high school dance team. The majority of dance teams around the United States attend some sort of camp. Some of them being elite the highest and hardest camp there is. UDA camp qualifies teams to go to Nationals at the end of January, early February. Camp is the first competition of the season for most high school dance teams. Camp is the kick start to the season, an idea of how hard the season will be, and the event most UDA dancers dread going to. The reasons being you stay up till one to two in the morning almost every night, having to wake up at six, dance for almost eighteen hours straight with an hour lunch break and an hour dinner break and constantly being on your feet causing tremendous pain. For our team West High Varsity Poms it was the first stop on our ‘road trip’ to Nationals. Depending on the coach’s decision they either send their team to an elite camp
Team photo at nationals or a normal camp. Our coach decided to take us to the elite camp. Camp is a four day overnight stay. At camp dancers learn routines, take technique classes and do team bonding activities. The one we attended was in Illinois at the University of Illinois dorms. While at this camp you compete your home routine, A routine, B routine and team routine. Home routine is the dance that you bring from home; this dance is typically one of the two routines you compete at nationals. Team routine is the routine you learn at the camp; every team there learns it, modifies it and then perform it for the judges. A and B routine is the routine your coach assigns you to individually and sometimes one other person on your team gets assigned it as well. You perform the routine with one or two girls from almost every team there. Once you are done performing your routine you get rewarded a ribbon. For your A, B and team routine you either get a blue ribbon being the best, a red which is the average and a white being the worst. Our team West High Varsity Poms, out of the 22 dances performed individually, we got 22 blue and 2 red. For home routine we
got a blue as well. For awarding home routine you get a trophy if you are in the top four. This year West High Varsity Poms got fourth place. The reason Camp is so important to getting to our final destination Nationals, is because it is the only way you can qualify for it. The ways you can qualify for nationals is placing first through fourth in your home routine; either earning a home routine trophy or a superior trophy. Nationals is the biggest and wildest UDA competition of the year. Held every year at Disney’s Wide World of Sports, hundreds of teams travel to compete against each other for the top 16. The reward every dance team wants is THE white jacket. The national champions for each category get white jackets for each team member and a massive trophy. Every other team in finals is rewarded a trophy based on the place they got. Nationals occurs over a single week; every year on the fifth weekend of the year. For West High Varsity Poms, Nationals is a week long adventure. Every dance team at nationals competes in preliminaries. Then there is a half cut for semi-finals and those Team photo at ccamp after awards teams compete to get into finals, which is usually about the top 12-18, depending on the size and competitivity of each category. For the 2015-2016 West High Varsity Poms our week at nationals could be described as a ride on a roller coaster. Outside of performing our routines we had to work almost 24/7 giving it our all or nothing, knowing that if we hadn’t we would of never gotten into finals. The second after we performed pom at prelims we knew that we may not be making it into semis, luckily we did. The same feelings of not knowing arose after semis as well. We were lucky enough to make it into finals in both dances, placing ninth in jazz and twelfth in pom in the entire nation.
Crazy night at camp
Coach Katie Melloy giving the team a pep talk before performing
Nationals Competititon January 28-2
Annual Kids Basketball Clinic January 14 + 15 Chicagoland Regional COMPETITION January 9
State COMPETITION December 4, 2015
Iowa Spirit Spectacular COMPETITION October 18, 2015
Learn Jazz September 19-20, 2015
Annual Guy/Girl Dance Performnce December 11 + 18, 2015 Iowa City West and City High Preview November 27, 2015
Annual Kids Football Clinic October 8+9, 2015
First football Performance September 4, 2015
Camp July 5-9, 2015
Tryouts March 30 - April 2 2015--
Started learning Pom April 21, 2015