The O’Connell Royalettes: Our School’s Dance Stars
Chrissy Salvador
Pictured: (L) Moira Jamberdino, Eileen Parks, Lyla Vazquez, Julia Sherinian, Teresa Lucchetti, Kara Rottmann, Alicja Maliszewska (R)
The Royalettes of O’Connell has numerous awards, considerable recognition, and outstanding seasonal excellence under its belt. Since the start, the team has changed captains, coaches, and dancers, yet their seasonal excellence record has never changed. What makes this team so successful? Strategies and practices can make any team great, but repeated excellence is rare. One of the novice Royalettes, Audrey, volunteered to answer these questions about team chemistry, spirit, and competitiveness.
Audrey Ferguson has been on the team for around 5 months and is a dancer for the squad. When asked about having built-in friends.” Audrey joined the club five months ago and has since forged a bond with all of her teammates. “We work well together,” she stated in the interview. Audrey also mentioned the team’s current plans, “Since football season ended, we have been working on competition routines for the spring.” As the Royalettes continue dancing in large competitions, they practice more and more frequently. Their season especially has been going, according to Audrey, “good so far, we have been working on competition routines daily.”
But what makes them different from other teams? What makes them so successful? Audrey comments, “We practice 4 hours total on the weekdays, and on the weekends our practices can vary from 2-3 hours…during this time we clean up our routines several times until we reach perfection”. These long hours of commitment are met with equally strict coaches. Audrey says, “our coaches are good…they push us hard but they do so without totally draining us.” She summarizes that because of their huge time commitment to the team, and skilled, strict coaching, their dance performances and efforts in the overall season are exceptional.
As their spring season approaches, each member of the club practices their dances with the squad after school hours. From dances at football games to pep rally dance numbers, this squad has started off their season strong and will continue to make bold moves in the winter and spring. We wish them luck as they continue into the spring.
