The Mountaineers placed first in two divisions at the virtual championships,
and did it in style!
The WVU Dance Team took home the championship title at the 2021 NDA D1A Virtual National
Championships last week, winning their first title in over a decade! Despite CDC
restrictions, an all-virtual competition, and choreography that has been put on
hold for over a year, these dancers were able to pour their hearts into their performance
and come out on top.
The team consists of 28 dancers, each with years of dance experience under their belt. With 16 veterans and 12 rookies, this well-balanced team was more than capable of pulling off a win. The choreography for the dances performed at Nationals was crafted during the Fall 2019 semester. With the sudden occurrence of lockdown in Spring 2020 and further restrictions to be put into place from that point on, the dances were put on hold. It wasn’t until March 1st of this year that the team was allowed to meet in person, and even then the looming threat of the pandemic made its way onto the dance floor. The two dances, on top of needing to be taught to rookies and re-learned by veterans, could now only consist of ten socially distanced dancers. These restrictions prevented the team from performing as they typically would, forcing them to make many adjustments in a short amount of time. But despite these challenges, the girls were more committed than ever. Practicing for 2-3 hours on multiple days a week, the team worked hard to make their dances competition ready. Fourth-year veteran Gillian Wanosky spoke highly of the team’s efforts, saying “each dancer gave 100% commitment at practices to make up for lost time, and our coaching staff put in countless hours outside of practice so that we could be productive when fixing the dance.”