Instead of more than 16,000 people filling Target Center on Friday and Saturday to watch and cheer at the dance team state tournament, the next two days will look something like this:
On Friday morning, jazz teams from Lakeville South, Anoka, Centennial and Blaine will pull up to Edina High School. They will enter the gym, along with about 55 ticketed fans for each school.
The teams, adhering to 25-person pod limits owing to COVID-19, will each perform to their chosen music, in meticulously choreographed routines. As they perform, mask-wearing dancers, unable to impress judges with facial expressions, will seek projection and poise points through body presence and eye contact.
When all four teams are done, they will leave the school and, basically, go home to wait to find out how they did.
Two more foursomes of teams will complete the Class 3A tournament later in the morning, also with their select fans in attendance, before judges collect all of the team scores. Results will be announced via livestream coverage.
No grand assembly of the six finalist teams, lined up nervously on the arena floor after a day with two rounds of performances. No explosions of cheering and joy from teams and fans during the dramatic announcement of the third-, second- and finally first-place winners.
Then it's on to the Class 1A teams competing in the afternoon, followed by Class 2A in the evening.
On Saturday, the high kick competition will follow with 36 more teams across the three classes. Executing routines with fewer kicks required than in past years, many will showcase dancers doing more individual kicks than arm-in-arm connected ones, in yet another modification mindful of the pandemic.
