Dance & Drill

A couple of weeks ago I spent the weekend in Yakima with Melia at one of my favorite WIAA events.

Not my favorite to shoot,( I really need better upper body strength for this event. We sit on the main floor in beach chairs. 5 hrs straight- no getting up for any reason. Melia can testify to how much Advil I had to take as my arms started to really burn after the first few hrs.), but my favorite to watch.

  If you have never been and you love dancing and music you should give this a try sometime.

    They have your more basic dance stuff that resembles cheer. They are Pom and Military. I was really surprised the first time I saw Military.

    Sometimes the pom dancers branch out a bit with fun customes and music.

 Then there is Kick. They are fun. But, by day two it's harder to impress me.

There is Dance- think a cross between ballet and modern. They are generally slow emotional things. Good but, not my bag of tea.

There is tons of Hip Hop! It is really big.  They are generally pretty fun to watch. Lots of cool costumes and moves. Some of the music is good some .....so so.

One of the schools did a military thing. about a guy going to war and dying. it was done really well. Lots of people crying in stands. Some of the dancers had gotten into it so much emotionally that they were crying as they left the floor.

And my very favorite is prop. Some prop is flag stuff which is OK. But some are like a song from a musical. Lots of props and lots going on all over.  it's just really fun to watch.

This year they did not have as many of them as they had in the past and quality was not as good over all. I think they are expensive to produce and require a very talented leader.
 One of the one's that won the 4A was not my favorite,but was extremely well done.

They end the night with a "lights out" parade of dancers. The energy in the place is incredible. Most everyone including fans and parents comes prepared with light-up items.
After the lights come back on it's award time, then everyone heads home.

 I hope I've given you a small taste of this fun event and some of you, especially with daughters might really enjoy this. Till I started shooting it I did not know it existed.