Spinning, dancing, and leaping to the top, dance teams at DBHS gave Brahmas another great feat to take pride in at the USA Nationals, held from March 28 to 29. At the national competition, Small Dance placed third, Large Lyrical placed sixth, and both All Male and Small Hip Hop took first.

This is the fourth consecutive year All Male Dance Crew reigned first, and the second consecutive year for Small Hip Hop team. The team also won the Hip Hop Sweepstakes, a prestigious award that goes to the highest overall scoring performance out of all the Hip Hop divisions combined.

“As in previous years, the students worked very hard. There was amazing team dynamic this year, and all the students really sacrificed for the good of the group,” dance instructor Janna Lindenberg said.

Although challenged with incorporating many new members and pressured to defend titles from previous years, the Brahma dancers were able to taste success again this year with a unique choreography and high team cooperation.

“Choreography and music choice [are] always factors that come into play with competition. The students can be brilliant, but if a judge doesn’t like the song choice, that may show in the overall score of the routine. We had creative material this year, with a lot of input from the students as well,” Lindenberg added.

As showcased in the previous rally, AMDC this year had a choreography based on “Newsies,” a musical and film inspired by the Newsboys Strike of 1899 in New York City. The dancers also made great use of costumes and props to keep the dance authentic. Although DB’s other choreographies did not have a specific theme, the dance teams made sure to include dynamics into their routines, with one being an upbeat jazz dance, and another a sadder lyrical piece.

“It was different. Last year’s set was flashy and explosive, Orchestra from two years ago was very visual, [and] Mimes from three years ago was funky. This year’s Newsies set was complex,” junior Peter Kang, captain of AMDC, said.

Showing improvement since the beginning of the school year, the teams have enjoyed incredible success this year and brought home several titles.

“We were successful in all our competitions, taking home three first places at state championships and two at our nationals. All in all, it was on our best seasons since I joined by freshman year. We all worked hard with a common goal of doing well, and we succeeded,” senior Taylor Raymundo, Dance Team captain, said.