Once the baby goes to sleep, Daniel and I like to make the most of our evenings. Sometimes we read the Sunday paper on Wednesday. Other times, we make soup or instant Jell-O pudding. When we’re feeling really wild and crazy, we see what’s on C-SPAN or a local cable access channel whose programming consists entirely of school board meetings and middle- and high-school choral and dance performances and competitions. The cable access channel has introduced us to a dance phenomenon heretofore unknown to the family *roll: the high kick dance team. I’m not sure if this business is specific to Minnesota or to high schools or what. What I’m sure about is that we love it and it is awesome.
Behold:
This clip is from a state-wide competition performance and our local channel, sadly, limits us to regionals. However, I can say for certain (from the 3 shows they replay over and over (and that we’ve watched over and over)) the Faribault team is the best. Burnsville is OK; Apple Valley stinks and Lakeville is all right but their JV team is crap. We’ve only seen the Northfielders perform once but they were only so-so. And so, we always cheer for Faribault.
“but their JV team is crap.” Classic.
Wow! It’s even better than Riverdance. Thanks for opening my eyes to this phenomenon! It’s like cheerleading without the teams. Who needs those jocks anyway?
Holy crap — is that a happy hardcore version of an Andrea Bocelli song?!?!
Yeah, all the routines are performed to super-manic versions of popular songs.
Amazing. Minnesota does have it all! I trust in due course you’ll enroll Ellie?
oh no, it’s not just a minnesota phenomenon. this sort of dance team competition was huge in omaha, too. they would perform their routines at our pep rallies! i distinctly recall the first time our HS team did that on-their-back-splits-in-the-air move… talk about a controversy!
Holy Shit! (Excuse the language, but I don’t have any other response…) It is going to take years of intense yoga for me to be half as flexible and months of training to have the endurance! I am hooked!