To begin the season, all 45 the Diamond Bar High School Dance Company dancers competed against schools throughout Southern California in the West Coast Elite Dance Championships held at Esperanza High School on Feb. 13.

“It was a very tough competition because a lot of the teams … are teams that we won’t see again until nationals. Knowing that we did so well on our first week out is a great accomplishment,” dance choreographer and coach Kari Simonson said.

All Male took first place, earning the highest point total of of the day for both showmanship and choreography with 94 points. Large Lyrical and Medium Co-Ed Hip Hop each placed second in their categories , and Small Dance took sixth place.

“There are a lot of things we learned looking back at recordings and what we hear from our peers and coaches,” senior co-captain of Dance Company Justin Kang said.

The dancers competed the following week at USA Regionals, a qualifying competition for nationals at Arroyo Valley High School. Both All-Male and Large Lyrical placed first. Small Jazz, Duet, and Co-ed placed fifth.

Meanwhile, the varsity, junior varsity, and freshman Color Guard teams are looking forward to improving their performances after beginning their competition season with an evaluation last month at Riverside Community College.

“This is our first time in Open Class, which is a new division for us, since we moved up from last year,” junior varsity captain Harjas Dhillon said.

During the evaluation, the team received input from coaches and judges outside of school on how to improve its performance.

Varsity Color Guard had its first officially judged competition on Feb. 13 at Riverside’s Martin Luther King Jr. High School against five other schools. The team performed both a preliminary and final performance, scoring 61.5 and 63.5 respectively, coming in last.

At its next competition the following week at Bakersfield, Varsity Colorguard scored 72.0 during the preliminary round, putting them in first place. However, the team scored a mere 72.3 points in the final round, losing to the first place team Stockdale High School.

“There are definitely things we need to improve on, but even though our performance wasn’t technically correct we performed and had a lot of energy, which the audience really liked,” Dhillon said.

DB Dance Company will compete on Saturday at Woodbridge High School. Frosh and Junior Varsity Color Guard will compete the same day at Del Norte High School.