New dance club performs at games

An idea quickly turned into a team of 41 dancers performing at middle-school football games.

Green River High School dance coach Debi Kovick, who has been coaching the high school team for 5 years, had the idea of beginning a dance club at the middle-school level last year.

With the help of assistant coach Christine Peterson, this idea became a reality.

"We both love dance and our vision is to plant the dance love seed within the hearts of the Lincoln Middle School students. We have a vision that the LMS dancers will begin to grow their own love for dance and for being part of a school spirit team," Peterson said. 

"We desire to grow our high school dance team and our hope is that the LMS dancers will transition into high school with a determination to be apart of the Wolf Pack dance team."

The club officially started practice Sept. 9 and 36 LMS students attended. The club has since grown to 41 after other students became aware of the opportunity.

"This is much more than we expected," Peterson said.

Due to the large turnout, the group has to be divided into three groups.

"We have three GRHS dancers that lead and instruct each group of LMS dancers," she said. "Coaches are there to supervise and support all involved."

Even though the team only practiced a few times on Mondays from 3:30-5 p.m., they have already performed at two LMS football games.

"We put these dancers on the football field very quickly to perform. This is because we wanted to give them the opportunity to perform at both a seventh and eighth-grade football game," Peterson said. "Performing in front of an audience full of parents, teachers and peers is an important part of a school dance team."

"The GRHS dancers have danced with the LMS dancers at each of their performances so that the LMS dancers would be able to follow and feel confident in their performance," she said. 

Peterson said the students are learning the basics, such as stretching and how to warm up along with complicated, choreographed dance routines, which include leaps and turns.

"They have learned a full jazz routine choreographed by GRHS dancer Rayne Welch," she said. "They will learn a hip-hop routine in the near future."

They are also learning what it take to perform and act as a team.

Peterson said the everyone in the club is going through a learning experience, from the coaches, to the high school and middle-school students. The GRHS dancers are learning skills in choreography, leadership and instruction, while the LMS students are working hard to learn the moves.

"Movement and music speaks to the heart, and these girls are learning how to develop a talent that is fun and uplifting," she said. "This is important to the coaches because we want to challenge the GRHS dancers in new ways and we want to develop dance skills and determination in our future GRHS dancers."

Even though the club is free, parents have provided money to purchase performance tops and game-day shirts for the dancers to wear.