Run by Irvington’s very own Ms. Dotseva, The Fremont Unified School District has recently approved Irvington High School to include a new 7th-period competitive dance class to next semester’s list of classes.
Ms. Dotseva currently manages two dance classes, Dance 1 and Dance 2, that do not require prior experience but does include learning choreography from Ms. Dotseva and creating your own choreography. Throughout the year, students practice these choreos for a student showcase and are graded based on how well they perform and how well they know the dance. When administration asked her to create a new class, she was inspired to create a competitive dance class. Ms. Dotseva says, “I’ve always wanted to have a competitive dance class because I feel like it gives more motivation for experienced dancers to go out there and compete with other high schools and participate in nationals or regionals. Once I was given the opportunity, I thought why not have a competitive dance team that represents Irvington?”
In the upcoming dance class, the choreography and dance categories will predominantly be influenced by the student’s preferences and choices. Ms. Dotseva explained that competitions will have a wide range of categories including solos, duets, large groups, and small groups. Students will be to enter a category of their choice and focus on different genres like jazz, lyrical, contemporary, and open. Ms. Dotseva commented, “Open is the category where we can present our Bollywood styles, our hip hop styles, or our Latin styles, and it’s so much fun”. Students will also have a wide and diverse range of dances to learn or focus on including, but not limited to, jazz, ballet, contemporary, modern, and many different cultural dances.
Once the class is organized Ms. Dotseva hopes to compete in a January regional and a national in downtown LA. By assimilating professional choreographers outside of the class, student’s will primarily be learning new choreographies and practicing for competitions throughout the whole year. Ms. Dotseva commented, “We’re going to create these dances and we’re going to practice them. It’s going to include a lot of technique, strength, flexibility, practice, working on lifts, transitions, and exploring different genres of dances”
Unlike Ms. Dotseva’s regular dance classes, this competitive one will require passing auditions that took place on January 23rd and the 24th. Emails have already been sent by the district twice to advertise and encourage students to participate in this new competitive dance class; however, student interest will determine whether this class will be included in next semester’s master schedule. Once the student roll meets the minimum requirement, Irvington can look forward to having its own multi-faceted and competitive dance team!
