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UPA 2005 |
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to see UPA pictures |
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to homepage |
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On Friday, February 25th, I walked to the Sports Center with all of my stuff for the weekend. We were only allowed to bring one bag and our dance bag since we had a great big van and stuffed 14 people into it! The van had hardly any trunk space, so we had to figure out how to pack 28 bags and 14 people in the vehicle. It was a pretty cozy ride! |
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Our captain, Katie, had control of the CD player and had a CD with hits of the 80's, so everyone was singing along with all that good stuff! After that CD, she switched to The New Kids On The Block- which I was just a little bit too young when they came out to know any of their music, but the older girls still remembered all the words to the songs. We stopped to eat lunch at a Subway along the way. |
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We arrived in Minneapolis around 4:00-ish. We pulled up in front of the Marriot and piled out of the van- we loaded our stuff onto a cart and went to check into our rooms. We were on the 28th floor- so our ears popped as we rode the elevator up to our floor. I was in a room with Amanda, Cheri, and Kait. Our room was connected to Nikki, Brodee, Jen, and Cindy's room, so that was fun. After we got settled into our rooms, we went and walked around downtown. We went into Saks Fifth Avenue, but didn't stay long after we looked at a couple price tags! Next we went to the two story Target. Afterwards we went to Panera Bread for supper. We went back to the hotel after dinner since everything was closing up already. |
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After hanging out in the hotel for a little bit, we went down to one of the ballrooms to practice. There were a couple other teams practicing there too, so it was cool to watch what they were doing. We started running through our funk piece first. We had just gotten trucker hats and had never practiced with them, so we tried them out. What we found was that they were in the way of a lot of our arm movements and also covered up our faces too much, so we decided not to use them during the competition. Next, we worked on our jazz piece. It's to the song "Who Are You?"- or better known as the CSI theme song! Everyone was kind of in a bad mood by the end of practice--stressed out and frustrated. But afterwards, we all went to our coach's room for a team meeting and that made everyone feel better. We got little gift bags from our coach and we got all pumped up for competition. After the team meeting, we went back to our own rooms and made sure we had all of our uniform pieces packed for the next day, then we went to bed. |
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We woke up the next morning at 6:15 AM- yuck! I haven't had to wake up that early for a long time! We got ready to go, then walked to Panera Bread to get some breakfast (I got a chocolate chip muffin and an apple juice, just in case you were wondering!). We walked to the Minneapolis Convention Center and were amazed at the size of the place. It's absolutely enormous! We found out what room we were assigned to and sat and ate our breakfast. Then we started getting into our jazz costumes and putting on our make-up. We practiced for a little in the room, then went into what is called "The Chute." It's a series of practice areas that you rotate through until you finally end up at the stage. |
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We performed our jazz piece around 10:30 AM. We were on a stage in the auditorium. The floor was super slippery and the stage was much smaller than we were used to dancing on, so I'm not sure how our formations looked, but we made it through the routine. The routine went by super fast for me- it seemed to only take a couple of seconds and then we were done! After performing, we changed into our funk costumes and switched eye make-up. Then we went down to a room where they presented awards for the collegiate jazz division. Out of 11 teams, we placed 7th. |
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Next, we went back into The Chute to get ready for our funk routine. We were really excited to perform this routine because it's one of our favorites. We learned it all the way back in October, so we were very confident that we would do well. It was a rush to perform this routine- altough I don't really remember performing very much- it was just a huge adrenaline rush! When we got off the stage, the parents of some of the girls said that it was the best they had ever seen us perform. I got a little nervous though when we watched the team after us. Their routine was vey cute and I liked it a lot. After that, we had some time to eat lunch and relax. Ben Spaeth, a guy that graduated with me, was walking around looking for his team and stopped to talk to Amanda and I. He's on the UW-Oshkosh Cheer & Stunt team, and they are awesome. I passed the Lincoln High School JV Cheer squad and waved at the girls. I also saw Jessie Glaza, a girl that I danced with at Pam's, with her UW-Steven's Point Cheer team. |
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At 3:30, we went back to the award room to find out how we did in the funk division. WE WON 1ST PLACE!!! It was absolutely incredible feeling- my eyes were tearing up and the first thing I did was hug Amanda. It was so awesome- like all of the practices and hard work finally paid off. We went up to the front of the room and everyone got a medal, then the team also got a huge trophey and a UPA banner. We took tons of pictures and hugged and cried and laughed- very girly- but what can you say?! Me? The flowy, graceful, ballet girl is a national funk champion!! |
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When the competition was over, we went back to our hotel. We lounged around for a while, then started getting ready for the semi-formal banquet. Everyone got all dressed up in cute dresses and shoes. That was a lot of fun, since we normally see each other when we're all sweaty and not looking our cutest! We took lots of pictures, so I will hopefully be able to put one up after I get pictures from someone. We rode a bus to the convention center and walked into this enormous room set up with tons and tons of tables. We found our seats and took in the view. Everyone was all dressed up- some people had very interesting choices of outfits! A few girls evn arrived in huge poofy prom dresses!
The evening started with a fashion show. It was set to music, so the "models" were really dancers who came out in cheer uniforms or different dance costumes to model the clothes while performing this cute dance. I really enjoyed it! We received bread and salads while the program continued. You could actually go to the competition a day earlier and compete in lots of different contests such as best kicks, leaps, turns, jumps, cheer and stunt groups, and individual dancers and cheerleaders. So there were a bunch of awards being presented to those people. For dinner, we were served chicken and pasta alfredo with green beans. It was some of the best food that I've had lately- although it's not too hard to beat school food! For dessert, we were served the most amazing chocolate cake with awesome chocolate frosting that was drizzled with caramel. It was fantastic!
After dinner, we went back to the hotel and changed out of our dress clothes. Everyone hung out in Nikki, Brodee, Jen, and Cindy's room. I spent the rest of the evening laughing. The girls just make me laugh- but most of all Brodee and Missy. They are just hilarious. We didn't go back to our own rooms until 2AM.
We slept in until almost 10:00 on Sunday which was quite lovely! Then we had to be checked out of the hotel by 11. So, we loaded up the van, then went for lunch at Applebees- all proudly wearing our 1st place medals! We wasted some time downtown, then walked to the convention center. We watched some of the high school semi-final routines, then got ready to head back to Green Bay since we heard that the weather was not looking too pleasant. So once again we loaded everyone into the van and spent a very cozy ride together. I managed to sneak in a little long nap, but it was challenging with 13 other people in the van! The ride home seemed to take forever. I felt like I had been in the van for hours and hours and hours. We finally made it back to campus around 9:00.
When I got back to my dorm room, I walked in and told my roommate, Amy, "We won first place!" I plopped all of my stuff from the trip on my bed and decided I really didn't want to unpack it! It's now Wednesday, and I am still not finished unpacking! I think that's the worst part of a trip!
So anyway, I had an awesomely good time with my Phoenix Pride Dance Team in Minneapolis!
We had team pictures professionally taken at the competition. You can look at them on the following web pages. They're from the photographer's website, so the images are copyrighted and not the highest quality, but it's something!
http://davidbankstudios.net/gallery/DanceTeams/255UWGreenbay0182
Our team dressed in our jazz uniforms
http://davidbankstudios.net/gallery/DanceTeams/297UWgreenbay0244
The team in our funk uniforms
http://davidbankstudios.net/gallery/DanceTeams/297UWgreenbay0245
The team in our funk uniforms- crazy pose |
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To see pictures from my awesome trip, click on the pom |
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