By Brittany Weaver – Collinsville High School senior
The Kahok Dance Team made great strides this season, culminating with a 2nd-place finish in pom and 3rd place in kick at the Team Dance Illinois competition.
After losing seniors and strong leaders from last year’s team, KDT Head Coach Toni Geisen replaced them with four freshmen. The inexperienced group improved over time.
“They struggled in the beginning in terms of learning new routines,” Geisen said. “I think they really progressed, developed, and became a little more solid.”
Seeing the new girls, who never had experience at the varsity level, grow together with the team was a big accomplishment, along with their second and third place finishes at state, Geisen said.
KDT’s competitive dance season runs from the beginning of November to the beginning of March, but practice starts in June – nearly nine months of the year are spent working and reworking their routines, two to three days per week.
The team competes in two state competitions: Team Dance Illinois and the Illinois High School Association. The IHSA is in only its second year of hosting a competitive dance state championship. The competition pits different styles of dance against each other.
“We had to compete against all these different types of dance, and it doesn’t make sense to some people,” Geisen said. “Their reasoning is that dance is dance– except that they don’t offer categories, they don’t offer pom, they don’t offer kick. So that’s frustrating for coaches, because I don’t think my pom routine should be compared to a jazz routine, and then judged the exact same way. They’re two completely different things.”
Geisen said that Team Dance Illinois is a more “thorough organization” when it comes to judging, judge training and categories.
“We just think they have a better knowledge and understanding of dance than IHSA does right now. It’s more credible,” Geisen said.
Senior captain, Tori McCluskey was pleased with the team’s performance in her final competition as a Kahok. “We did really well at state, and it was some of our best routines we’ve ever had,” McCluskey said.
McCluskey said her experience on the KDT was satisfying. “You gained a lot of friends,” McCluskey said. “It helped you a lot through school, if you ever needed somebody, or they always gave you good advice.
The captain said the best moment in her four-year career came early. “The first game, as a freshman, was the best because it was such a big deal to me, and everything was so new.”
Fellow senior Lauren Hostetter, who will continue her dance career at McKendree University in the fall, saw things differently than McCluskey. For Hostetter, the best part of being on the dance team all four years was “the end.”
Members of the 2013-2014 Kahok Dance team included: seniors Sydney Bertelsmann, Claudia Garland, Lauren Hostetter, Emily Lymberopolous and Tori McCluskey (captain); Juniors Mercedes Clark, Mariah Danford (captain), Olivia Howard (captain), Rashell Jones, Brianna Scott, Gabby Suria and Courtney Zamarione; sophomores Adrien Dammer and Carsyn Vesper; freshmen Mackenzie Frey, Sydney Lerch, Savannah McCluskey and Olivia Wojcik.
Robin Smith is the KDT assistant coach.
