The Manhattan High dance team is facing some changes this school year. One of those changes involves traveling for competitions, which consist of three performances, starting over a weekend in January. 

“Last year and this year both, [competing has] been kind of the team’s goal,” head coach Kayela Holle said. “I let the team kind of decide their own goals and I [plan to] help them to achieve those goals.”

The team has been working on becoming competitive and ensuring they have the funds to compete. They raised their own funds to ensure they would be able to achieve their goal of competing. 

“They’ve done a lot of really great service work in order to get those funds raised,” Holle said.

Over the summer, the dance team also traveled to camp for the first time at Kansas Wesleyan University. The team had several achievements, such as an all-team award for their level of intensity and for performing throughout the week. The team also had a member, freshman Rachel Palmgren, attain an All-American Award, the first on the team, which requires being evaluated for the dance routine.

“You are performing, one person by yourself in front of about 200 people,” Holle said, “and you’re scored. And then if you hit a certain [score], then you…attained the award of All-American.”

According to junior Abby Gregory, the addition of competing this year creates new opportunities for the team.

“I think [competing would] be good for us because I think it would give us more opportunities as a team,” Gregory said, “and like it would make our team… grow bigger because more people would want to do it.”

To senior Larissa De Leon, becoming a competitive team on top of being a school team will provide more communication and bonding within the team.

“We just really want to put ourselves out there and gain some sort of respect for…school spirit,” De Leon said.