Washburn University’s very own Dancing Blues competed in the Dance Team Union College Classic 2022 National Championship held at the Orlando World Center Marriott hotel in Orlando, Florida April 9 and 10.

The DTU College Classic is an annual competition where colleges and universities from all over the country can apply to compete in various categories of performative dance and cheer routines specially catered towards college-level athletes.

Having worked to prepare two different dance routines for the competition, Dancing Blues coach Michaela Trobough was excited about the opportunity but unsure what it entailed going in.

“The DTU College Classic is a very new competition and with this being the first year our program has competed there. On the competition side, we weren’t sure what to expect. All dance competitions are judged differently so it was hard to know what they were looking for in terms of choreography or style,” Trobough said.

Despite this being the team’s first experience with the DTU College Classic, the Dancing Blues showed promise in the two different dance routines that they performed. After performing in the hip hop and jazz categories of the Division II school section, the Dances Blues completed the run with a fourth place finish in the hip hop category and seventh place in jazz.

Reflecting on her experiences at the competition, Jenna Smithson, captain of the team, was happy the team got the chance to experience the competition.

“I think as a team, we have definitely grown in being able to persevere through the challenges that we faced. In the middle of the competition, I think we were thrown some curveballs with things like the judges comments, so we spent some long hours reworking our routines and putting in the time to really bring our best routine to the stage,” Smithson said.

Competing in a new environment helped the team more than just on the mat.

“Learning how to do that is something we took away from the experience and it really brought us together and strengthened us as a team, Smithson said.

Even though the College Classic was the last occasion when the Dancing Blues will be performing any routines together this year, they hope to use the experience to achieve greater heights and start off next year even stronger.

Edited by: Kyle Manthe, Simran Shrestha