This has been a year of firsts for the Xavier Dance Team: the first year under Coach Jess Novotny, the first year as the Xavier Dance Team, and the first year where they will hold a dance competition at their own school.

On Saturday November 11, the Xavier Dance Team will hold their first ever competition, Xavier Dance Jam, at Xavier High School. There will be 108 routines performed at the competition. The team will perform their pom and jazz dances. However, they will not be competing. Instead, their performances will be exhibitions. This is done to prevent bias from the judges. There will be a Dance Team Mini performance as well. The Dance Team Mini is a group of young girls from the Xavier feeder schools who will be dancing at various events with the Xavier Dance Team. In the morning, there will be performances from dance studios, and in the afternoon there will be performances from schools. There will be solo performances all day long.

The Dance Team has been working hard to prepare for the competition under the direction of Novotny. They have been organizing trophies and prizes for the awards program and setting up rooms for the teams, coaches, and judges. Some judges include the University of Iowa and University of Northern Iowa dance team coaches and LD Kidd, a national choreographer from Cedar Rapids.

“I’m very proud of this team and how hard we have been working,” sophomore Kess Brown said. “Although we have much more work to do, I know that we are going to do great things!”

It has not just been the members of the dance team working hard; there has been another group of people working, perhaps even more so than the students themselves, to make their goal become a reality.

“The Xavier Dance Team parents have been doing all of the work for us,” senior Erin Smith said. “They have contacted all the schools and studios in and around town, have organized judges and the gym set up, and will be volunteering their time on the day of the competition for concessions and keeping things running on time.”

The competition will start at eight a.m. on November 11 and the cost is five dollars to attend. The Dance Team also performed at the state solo competition on November 4, and  will compete at the state competition from November 30 to December 1 in Des Moines.

Kathleen Kenney

A&E Writer