Dancers wrap up competition season

FAIRMONT-- While Borchardt Dance Company's annual dance recital is coming up in just a few short weeks, a number of dancers within the company have just wrapped up their competition season. This is just the second year the dance studio has branched out to participate in competitions.

"Our first year was a little experimental. We had two groups last year and five this year," said the Fairmont-based dance company's owner, Nita Borchardt.

The competitions are open to students who take classes at BDC but want to learn more routines and have the opportunity to perform more.

"In the dance world we call it recreational and competition classes. The competition kids are studying more often and performing more often throughout the year," Borchardt explained.

BDC offers classes beginning in September for those ages 3-18, along with adult classes. While the young students meet weekly for an hour, students ages 7 and up meet for 1.5 hours weekly for recreational classes. Those in competition meet once a week for an additional class to learn and clean up their competition routines.

These students learn routines for competition right away whereas the recreational students practice skills in the first semester and learn their routines for the recital in the second semester.

Competitions began in February and took place about every two weeks until mid April.

This past season 28 dancers from age 7 to 18 participated in competitions. They went to four competitions, two in Des Moines and two in the Minneapolis area.

The dancers are split into age categories and group categories where they can do solo, small or large group dances.

"We had a trio of minis who are 7 and 8 years old, a junior team made of nine girls and then two senior small groups who combined to do a large group tap number," Borchardt said.

She said they're judged by their age, level and the style of group. This past season, BDC's competition teams received a number of 1st, 2nd and 3rd place awards.

The competitions are usually two to four days long, spanning a weekend. Borchardt said the largest competition they went to had over 800 dancers from 23 studios.

While many of the studios they competed against were from bigger cities, Borchardt said they held their own.

She extended gratitude for one of BDC's instructors, Jordyn Meyer, who is heavily involved with the competition students.

"I appreciate her so much. She's awesome," Borchardt said.

Looking forward to next year, Borachrdat said they may consider attending more competitions. She will put out a year-end survey to parents whose children participated in competitions to see how they feel about the number of events they go to.

"We kind of thought four was a lot but then we got to the end and the kids were like, 'wait we're done already, we want to do more,' so it will be up for discussions as for what we do next year," Borchardt said.

She said one of the benefits of giving students the option to participate in competitions is that it allows them to set their sights higher than they normally would.

"We get a lot of exposure to different studios and different styles of dance. They're charged up to really work hard and commit to the time we have in the studio because they see those really amazing dancers from these big studios and it's motivation for them to work even harder. We've seen so much improvement just having them come another day and performing more than just one recital. It's been really cool to see," Borchardt said.

Hayley Stensland is a senior at Granada-Huntley-East Chain School who has been dancing with BDC since she was 3 years old. She shared why she opted to participate in competitions.

"Last year all my friends did it and they had so much fun and they won. I wanted to partake in it because it was a dream of mine ever since I was little to compete… I lived out a dream of mine this year," Stensland said.

Her favorite part about the competitions is the moment following the completion of a number, knowing they did well.

"It's an indescribable feeling," Stensland said.

She said she would recommend that any other dancer who is interested in performing more to consider doing competition dance.

"I love all the other dancers and our teachers are amazing in making you feel comfortable and included. I met my forever friends dancing," Stensland said.

Now that competition season is wrapped up, the annual dance recital will take place at the Performing Arts Center at Fairmont High School on May 13 and 14. Then auditions will be taking place for the next competition season at the end of May.

This summer, BDC is putting on a variety of camps, including one for beginners which is an introduction to dance camp. There will also be a dancer who was in Cirque du Soleil and "So You Think You Can Dance" who will be coming to put on a camp for advanced students.

More information can be found at borchardtdance.com.