South’s annual dance show, “Feel the Beat,” took place on Friday, Dec. 7 at 7:30 pm in the Norman E. Watson Auditorium.  The show consisted of 27 dances from De La Cru, Orchesis, and the Titan Poms and had a runtime of an hour and a half.

According to senior Melanie McNulty, De La Cru captain, the team practiced almost every day for one-and-a-half to two hours for the dance show since the pep rally had ended.  De La Cru performed two dances on their own and one dance with De La Cru Club.

Some of the dances in the show had specific meaning. According to McNulty, their dance with De La Cru Club is a story of someone falling into a nightmare.  The dance’s name is “Dream Sequence.”

For senior Georgene Acquaah, this collaborative dance with De La Cru Club was her favorite.

“My favorite part was dancing with [De La Cru Club],” Acquaah said. “I liked getting to know [the club members] more and joining as one big whole team to put on a great show.”

Despite the long hours invested into practice for the show, junior Emma Bigelow felt rewarded after the performance.

“Our hard work did pay off because a lot of people showed up, and it was a lot of fun,” Bigelow said.

According to McNulty, she hopes audience members were able to appreciate the style of hip hop and its unique qualities while watching De La Cru perform.

“In dance show we really bring out a side of hip hop that can be more calm and speak stories to the audience,” McNulty said. “So I really hope the viewers can experience the emotions we pour into the choreography.”

According to junior Bridget Nelson,  Orchesis co-captain, the team put in four to six hours every week since the beginning of September. Orchesis had a total of 20 dances with the team split up into different groups based on various styles and one dance with the whole team.

Their group dance, “Waka Waka,” was a favorite of senior Brittany Balzano, Orchesis co-captain. According to Balzano, it was something everyone looked forward to because it was the grand, opening number.

“It just shows so much hard work,” Balzano said. “We’ve been working on this since August.”

According to Balzano, Orchesis has come a long way since previous years.

“In my freshman year, there [were] 20 girls and now there are 65,” Balzano said. “I feel like [dancing] doesn’t have any limitations. You can almost be free on [the stage]; you can completely be who you are.  You can take the dance and make it your own and put your emotions into it.  When you do that, you can be free.”

Freshman Caroline Bickel attended the dance show to support her friend, freshman Teres Taju, and her other friend’s sister, junior Dina O’Connell.

“It had such a variety of moves and styles of music,” Bickel said. “I liked all of them; they were choreographed perfectly.”

Junior Rosalie Mahler positively reflected on the outcome of the dance show as well.

“Overall, I feel like the dance show was very successful this year,” Mahler said. “It showcased a variety of techniques and styles.”

The Titan Poms had practiced for two to two-and-a-half hours a day for five to six days a week since June for performances for the school year including the dance show, according to senior Katie Vanderveen, Varsity Poms co-captain. Junior Varsity and Varsity Poms each performed one dance.

“The dance show is just incorporated into our season,” Vanderveen said. “Our main goal in the end is Nationals, which is in Orlando, Florida. Dance show is another performance that we do throughout the school [year], and it’s a really fun one.”

Senior Chelsea Jerominski,Varsity Poms co-captain, expressed her hopes of amazing the audience with the team’s performance despite the chance to perform only once.

“I would have definitely wanted to perform more than one dance but with the basketball game at the same time it would [have been] hard,” Jerominski said. “We perform[ed] our competition dance, so there [were] a lot of cool tricks and stunts we [did]. We want people to be excited and think ‘Hey, that was really cool’ when we’re done dancing.”

According to junior Laura Leinbach, the jazz number the team plans on competing at Nationals with was the highlight of the show.

“The best part of it was performing our jazz routine,” Leinbach said. “We compete with our jazz dance, so it was really cool to perform it at a school event to be recognized on what we work the hardest on.”