Saint Thomas Aquinas High School – Spirits Dance Team

Newsletter – September 23, 2013

Hello and Happy Monday!

We survived Homecoming Week 2013! :) All kidding aside, Homecoming Week at Aquinas is one of my favorite all season. So neat to watch all of the students come together for all the various competitions - which I'm sure teach very valuable lessons in team work! The hall decoration contest is always pretty amazing!

Starting with a positive:

We debuted our 2013 Top Dawg choreography on Friday at the pep rally and we have received overwhelmingly positive feedback on the performance. Without question, the team energy and performance quality was the BEST yet. There is lots of buzz surrounding the routine, which will hopefully translate to an excited, supportive crowd on Wednesday evening!

A few quick announcements:

1. Team Building: The official news has come in via email from Blue Valley North today - There will be no Cheer/Dance Ball this year. We know how much the dancers look forward to this event each year, so when we started hearing rumors a few weeks ago about the event potentially being cancelled, we started brainstorming a back up plan. We are planning an outing to a local pumpkin patch/corn maze in October. More info to come with next week's updates - just wanted to put this on your radar.We need another fun team building activity for the Fall anyway!

2. Top Dawg: Game time is 7:00pm this Wednesday at the BV Sports Complex on 135th and Switzer (same place as always). If my memory serves, they will charge parents for entry (essentially, your B/G pass won't work for this event). I can triple check on that and let you know if I'm wrong.

Dancers will report in full uniform (this will also get them into the game without paying admission) at 6:00pm with their DT jacket as a cover up. We will warm up and run formations as a team until the game starts (usually on the open field behind the stadium). We sit as a team during the game and perform at halftime. We will have a very brief post-game wrap up meeting as a team and then the girls will be released.

Finally, an unfortunate reality of this game/performance is the nature of the opposing student section. They have been known to be unkind in the past, however, the girls' performance always outshines any yelling or negativity. We take time to prepare the girls for this so it isn't a shock, so I didn't want it to be surprising to any of you either. Let me know if you have any questions. Otherwise, this is nothing more than a perfect opportunity to serve up kindness no matter the situation and show everyone what being an Aquinas Saint is all about.

3. Poster Picture: The fabulous Momma Gress will be taking our poster picture on Friday during our regularly scheduled practice time. The seniors decided on an 'America' theme for this poster and the girls have already brought their outfits in to be approved by the coaches. The requires no action on your part - simply including it as an FYI.

4. Performance Opportunity: We have been invited to perform at a JCCC home basketball game in January, which will be GREAT for us right before KSPEC. We're looking at 1/15/2014, with Varsity performing at the 7:30pm men's game. Report time would be 6:30pm at the JCCC main gym.

Entry to this game is free for the girls and each dancer gets 2 people in for free as well(you'll need to RSVP with me by the Monday before the performance so I can put your name(s) on a pass list). Other guests can be admitted at $5 for adults or $3 for school-aged kids (I'm guessing that means 18 and under). Those with JCCC IDs or Military IDs are admitted free.

If you could please let me know if this poses a major conflict for your dancer in the next week, that would be great. If this date is a major conflict for the majority of the team, we'll look at alternate dates.

And, to end on a positive:

We announced a new STADT tradition at practice last week: Dance Team Families! In an effort to further promote mentoring and resources for our younger dancers, we've established families that include dancers from different grades and from both JV and Varsity. Each family has a special name: Sparkle, Star, Sunshine, Sweetheart, Sequin or Sapphire. As each new dance year starts, the families will grow as rookies will be added. We are very excited about this new tradition and hope it will positively add to the experience and development of your dancers.

If I haven't responded to your emails from the weekend yet, I will be getting to them next. :)

If you have any questions, please let me know!

Dancingly,

Tara