Studio Spotlight: Nationals Prep with Coastal Pointe Dance Company

 

I guess what they say is true; time flies when you’re having fun! We can’t believe this Sunday starts our first of 3 National Competitions this Summer. Our truck is packed, on it’s way to Long Branch, New Jersey, and shortly we will be on our way too. It is amazing to think about all that goes into preparing for a National Competition. We know everything that we at Turn It Up Dance Challenge have to do, but we were curious about how our studios prepare too. Valerie Herman, Owner of Coastal Pointe Dance Company and long time Turn It Up attendee, compares getting ready for competition to “prepping for the biggest holiday celebration or trip that you could ever imagine”.

We love our jobs at Turn It Up Dance Challenge because we get to see so many incredible performances on the Turn It Up stage, but what goes into preparation for that moment?

“There are months spent on choreography, cleaning dances, setting and customizing costumes with accents and rhinestones. We prepare our kids with checklist for hair and makeup. Our staff is always looking for new ways to clean and perfect our dances from videoing our dances, watching them with the kids and stopping to point out corrections, to taking notes and having everyone write down their corrections in their dance journals.”

Valerie and her CPDC dancers have been coming to Long Branch Nationals for 3 years now. They have their pre-Nationals traditions down and we wish we could join in on them!

“One of our other special traditions that our team talks about and looks forward to all year is our Nationals prep week before attending Turn It Up Nationals in Long Branch. All week we prep and rehearse our dances, then the day before Nationals begins we have a team breakfast and full company rehearsal. During the first run through of all the dances everyone on the team gets do everyone else’s dance. It’s an amazing experience to watch because not only did they all miraculously learn each others dances but you can see they have a greater appreciation and understanding of one another when they see that all the dances are challenging in different ways.”  Breakfast and dancing? What could be better than that?!

“Coastal Pointe Dance Company’s Competition team and staff LOVE Turn it up and we cannot wait to embark on another great Nationals with them!”

Thank you, Valerie for sharing your detailed prep work and fun traditions with us. We love getting a peek into what all of our Turn It Up studios are up to before we see everyone at our Turn It Up Dance Challenge events. We may only get to see you for a few days out of the year but the impression you leave stays with us year round. We could not ask for a better family and we have quite a big one. Did you know that this 2018 Regional season we met 12,462 dancers from 421 different studios?! To say we are grateful is an understatement!

 

Do you, your teammates, or your studio have fun pre-competition traditions? Have some fun facts or stories about your studio? We’d love to hear about them! Email joelle@tiustaging.wpengine.com for a chance to get your studio featured on our Turn It Up Dance Challenge Blog.