Onstage, dancers showcase their beautiful and detail oriented routines. The lights illuminate each individual’s passion and talent. Competition allows dancers to raise these stakes and intensify their career as young artists.
Absolute Dance, an evolving studio in Grand Junction ventures to Denver every two years to compete and show off their acquired skills. On April 5th, the comp season kicked off with a bang at the Embody Dance Conference. Each dancer took convention classes and master classes, some out of their realm like ballroom. This excited the dancers for their most recent competition, Sheer Elite on April 19th-21st.
Junior Morgan Montgomery competed at Sheer in 2022. She recalled good memories. This weekend did not let her hopes up.
“We started with all the solos in the older divisions on Friday night. My solo is to Love on the Brain by Rihanna. It allows me to portray a sense of yearning.” After a full day of driving, Montgomery was set to perform around 7pm. Nonetheless, “It was pretty good. I got 3rd overall,” says Montgomery.
On Saturday, Absolute attended a variety of classes. The convention rooms are small and packed with hundreds of dancers. Montgomery reflects, “A local studio, Dance Works was there which was cool to dance with familiar faces and also big Denver studios. There was lots of exposure and made us more well rounded. I think it allows us to realize the different opportunities instead of just what’s in the valley.”
To wrap up the weekend, awards were distributed for the group dances. ‘Higher Ground’, a small jazz group placed first and achieved the Judges’ Fierce award. Another small group, ‘Who Are You’ placed second. In the large group, ‘Don’t Save Me’ got first. Montgomery gushes, “Absolute Dance won the ADCC award which recognizes studio excellence. This holds a lot of value.”
Senior Joss Baskin is an amazing hip hop dancer and got second overall for his solo. His skill also was highlighted in the large group category where they placed the highest scoring group of Sheer.
