Students scurry into the dance hall preparing to start practice. Everyone quickly runs to change and returns to eagerly start stretching. Dance teacher, Julianne Way, walks into the room and starts leading the dancers through a warm-up, as she does every day in dance I.

There are two dance I classes, each on separate days, one on A day and one on B day.

“In dance class, we do combos to practice but not perform. We also work on technique like ballet or jazz,” Grace Cohen said. “When we work on technique, we usually learn different terms and descriptions of the moves in the type of dance.”

Performing is a given for the dance team, but it varies for the other dance classes.

“We have performed on the football field with a jazz routine with the rest of the dance classes,” Cohen said. “We also performed a dance routine on stage with just our dance class. We did that performance in the auditorium in front of all our families. But those were the only performances we have performed.”

Other physical education classes like P.E participate in a number of different sports and activities while in the class.

“On Fridays, we do ‘fun Friday’ which we do different exercises,” Cohen said. “Some of the exercises that we do are yoga and country dancing. We usually follow a YouTube video where someone is teaching us different moves.”

Most sports and other school activities require students to have after-school practice but it’s not for dance I.

“We have only had one practice on the football stadium, practicing for our football performance,” Cohen said. “It was fun, but usually, we don’t have after school practice like the dance team does.”

In dance I class, they make sure that they are fully prepared and ready to dance.

“We usually wear a dance top and leggings or short but we don’t have a set outfit that we have to wear. Just something that we’re able to dance in,” Cohen said. “Even though our dance class can be hard sometimes, and it takes a lot of work to learn the combos, it’s worth it to have fun. I learned stuff that I would of never learned if I hadn’t been in dance class, and I really enjoy just working out but in the most fun way possible.”