North Mahaska Dance Coach Shayla Schilling was all smiles as her team walked off the floor of Hy-Vee Hall Thursday afternoon. Her team was energized and gave everything they had trying to seek the top spot at the 2024 State Dance Championships.
The Warhawks competed in Novelty and Pom. They tied for fifth in Novelty and captured fourth out of the top eight in Pom. The fourth place tied the team’s highest placing in Pom since 2013, when they also placed fourth. It capped off along day to come home with a trophies.
The team competed at 9:30 a.m. on the floor at Wells Fargo Arena in Novelty taking their barnyard motif to the enjoyment of the thousands gathered to watch 250 teams and more than 1,000 dancers. It would be five and a half hours before they would take to the floor for their final performance. It was another five-hour wait to see the results of their efforts.
The team performed their novelty routine at halftime of the boys’ basketball game Friday to another adoring crowd.
“Another year of state dance is in the books,” said coach Schilling. “As always, I am beyond proud of this team. These girls are involved in all the activities, but they come to practice on their off nights after their school practices and put in the work to clean the routines to put on the floor at state.”
Novelty is one of the team’s favorites because of the story-telling aspects.
RD Keep/NM Communications
North Mahaska’s dance team earned fourth place at the state Pom event at Hy-Vee Hall Thursday. Competing were, Maddie Van Utrecht, Kylie Van Weelden, Breckyn Schilling, Allie Veiseth, Ally Livezey, Lily Hartwig, Jocelyn Pinkerton and Riley Eischen.
“We love this category, it is just so much fun,” said Schilling. “There is a lot that goes into novelty, telling a story, correct placement of props, uniformity of movement, precision, proper dance technique, and bigger than life movements and facial expressions, and they nailed it yesterday. A number of these girls had never danced before this year, and I love that they came out and tried dance.”
Pom is an extremely challenging and high-energy event. Because of higher enrollment the team is placed in a higher division, which makes competition even more challenging.
“Pom is a super tough division at state,” said Schilling. “This is the highest place NM has received in this category and it was well-deserved. With our increased enrollment, we are competing against some tough schools in Class IV, and we were right there with them.
“Pom is all about high energy, facial expressions, precision, crisp movements and technique.
We are performing our novelty routine at the home game next Tuesday, and we are working to learn the halftime routine to perform at the Reliaquest Bowl on New Years Eve in Tampa. Our season isn’t finished and we are looking forward to performing for our home crowd and performing at the bowl game.”
The team will be hosting a soup supper prior to the high school concert on Thursday, Dec. 12 beginning at 5 p.m. to help pay expenses to the bowl game.