Redwood Dance Force Gets Their Shimmy On

Redwood Dance Force takes on the USA Central Cal. Spirit Competition and the JAMZ Cheer & Dance Competition on the same weekend.

By Natalie Enriquez

On Saturday, November 5, 2023, the USA Central Cal. Spirit Competition took place in Clovis, and on Sunday, November 6, 2023, the JAMZ Cheer & Dance Competition took place at the Visalia Convention Center.

USA Dance Nationals began in 1986. The event takes place in Anaheim, CA, and draws teams from throughout the western United States, and farther. 

Over this fun-filled and exciting weekend, nearly 2,000 competitors and nearly 4,000 spectators are expected, competing for the Champion title in one of over 30 different divisions. 

It is the premier event of its type in the Western U.S. for the variety of styles that take the floor and the caliber of performances that are presented. Redwood Dance Force had performed their pom routine at this competition.

JAMZ is a cheer and dance competition and Dance Force performed their pom and hip-hop dances.

Sadie Hemphill, ‘25, says “We’ve been practicing a lot in class. It was kind of rough because we had just finished Cowhide, so we pretty much just had one week, but we had some after-school practice and just worked really hard during class to clean our dances and get them ready.”

Matthew Bartolo, ‘24, says that he was put in at the last second because one of the girls had dislocated their knee. “I spent the whole next day just watching a video and she [Mrs. Lapp, Dance Force teacher] gave me a bunch of lists of stuff to learn. So that’s how I prepared myself.”

“We really just got in the mindset of how we can achieve our goals” Sara Sozinho, ‘26, says.

Between the two competitions, the USA Central Cal. Spirit Competition seemed to be the more difficult one for the dancers to do. 

Kahlen Novelo, ‘24, says, “I’d say the USA was a lot more difficult because we had a lot more competitive schools up in Clovis. And JAMZ was more of a practice time for us.”

The USA competition was a lot tougher for Dance Force since there were a lot of really good schools that they were going against that had competed before. Hemphill says, “I would say was tougher competition, because it was a lot of really good schools that have competed a lot before because that was the day we did our pom dance, which is our first time ever competing pom and a lot of those schools have like done it forever, so they know it really well.”

The only difficulty these dancers had at the JAMZ competition was that they were dancing on cheer mats, so doing the turns in their dance was pretty difficult.

For Bartolo, being put in at the last second was stressful and nerve-racking. “I knew the dance but I didn’t know her part, so there was like learning an entirely new part and it’s like everybody kind of has a high expectation for you.”

There was not very much time for these Dance Force dancers to prepare for the two competitions since Cowhide had just finished, along with all the other football games and the football season altogether.

The dancers had only about two weeks to prepare and practice as much as they could, so practices would be held during class and after school.

Hemphill says, “I think we all just knew we had to like work really hard and focus since we didn’t have that much time, so I think we’re all really proud of ourselves and got closer as a team through it.”

“I wish I would have went, for hip hop at JAMZ, I kind of wish that I went more full out. I think I felt like I was but sometimes I don’t want to go too full out so it doesn’t get messy but I could have definitely gone more full out overall” Bartolo says.

Redwood Dance Force won Varsity Pom and Varsity Hip Hop at the JAMZ Cheer & Dance Competition, while they placed third in Varsity Pom at the USA Central Cal. Spirit Competition.

Tags: competition, dance, dance competition, dance force, rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, redwood rangers, rhs, USA, visalia ca