CSUF Dance Team Wins National Jazz Championship – Orange County Register

The cliché makes you never forget your first sentence. Given what Jennie Volkert has endured this season, let’s get rid of those clichés. Use the line she told about her charge whenever she sees something in need of fixing in a routine – try again.

Because here, you never forget your 17th.

There’s no way Volkert, Cal State Fullerton’s dance coach, could ever forget the Titans’ 17th national championship in jazz. As Volkert looks back on the 2021-22 season from now on, a content smile will spread across her face. She would look at photos of her dancers and slowly nod her head, a gesture that says everything and nothing at once.

“I have special feelings when I look back on this,” Volkert said. “A lot of people ask me, ‘You’ve been coaching for 25 years. You have won 17 national titles. Which year do you like best? ‘ I always say, ‘Every year is my favorite year.’ But this special year will always – hands down – hold a special place in my heart. I’ve never seen a team rally as much as mine did this year. They were resilient, they were positive, they never gave up, and there were a lot of tears along the way. ”

What Volkert and the Titans have accomplished this year goes beyond winning their 17th national title at the UDA College Dance and Cheer Team National Championships January 15-16 in Orlando. , Fla. And yes, we’ve ventured into cliché once again when it comes to the sheer number of obstacles a dance team has had to overcome multiple times this season.

The hurdles started last July when the Titans met face-to-face for the first time in 16 months, or since the pandemic shut down the world in March 2020. Due to the pandemic, the UDA championships last transferred from Martin Luther King Jr. their tradition. weekend to april. But Volkert said the Titans still couldn’t answer that bell. Their first time together since the pandemic was at a dance camp in Las Vegas. It is divided into fall auditions to strengthen the 16-man team.

That’s when Volkert and his assistants Kenndra Hofstetter and Krysten Dorado realized they needed a new choreographer. Hofstetter and Dorado did the yeoman’s job choreographing the Titans’ processes, but the trio understood that, with their last national title in five years past the rearview mirror, they needed a new set of eyes.

“We sat down and, as I have always loved my coach’s choreography, we all thought it was time to bring in someone new with creative ideas,” Volkert said. . “We had a choreographer booked and was about to come, but she canceled at the last minute. That’s pretty stressful, because this happens in late August and early September. All the choreographers were booked and arranged their work at that time. My coach may have choreographed it, but their mindset is gone. Kenndra said we needed someone different.”

That left Volkert on the hunt for a choreographer he couldn’t find anywhere else. She contacted more than 10 people around the country, but to no avail. However, one person suggested Kiana Gachett, who teaches at the Cut Edge Dance Center in Rowland Heights. Gachett is not only willing but eager, flexible and ready to take on a new challenge of his own.

With that question answered, Volkert and her staff now have to deal with the pandemic. Any dancer with symptoms may not participate in the practice. Any dancers who test positive will not be able to practice. Any dancers who test positive who have not been vaccinated – and there are some unvaccinated team members – cannot come to practice for 10 days. And everyone goes through the test three times a week.

Volkert said that from the start of the season in September through the January rollout, a costume rehearsal where the Titans revealed their process before setting off for Orlando, at least one dancer a week had to take time off due to COVID -19: either by exposure, showing symptoms or actually having the virus.

This is an ongoing problem, but by no means unique. To prepare for the national team, the dancers practice every day from December 26 until they leave for Orlando in mid-January. Two days after Christmas, a dancer quit her job. This forces Volkert, Gachett, Hofstetter and Dorado to readjust their habits. The process took several hours to not only design the routines but also teach them to the dancers.

“It’s hard, but one thing I will say about this team is that they are very dynamic. They are all very positive and resilient,” said Volkert. “It really doesn’t matter what we threw at them all season. They encourage each other and always say, ‘Okay, we’ll do this. We get it.’ Our motto for this season is ‘positive vibes.’ We carried that throughout the season.”

That’s a good motto to have, because the Titans’ woes aren’t over yet. Two days before the showcase and a week before the Titans arrived in Orlando, dancer Natalie Garcia injured her ankle. So Gachett had to reinstate the routine from 15 to 14. Remember, Volkert picked a team of 16 dancers in the fall. The routine is for 16, then 15. Now, 14.

Volkert and her team came up with an APB for experienced dancers to fill in. There was interest, but none at the skill level that Volkert asked for.

“Dance is very different from other sports,” says Volkert. “You can’t pull someone from the bench to play the game. That is difficult. Very challenging. With all the obstacles we faced, I said this to my girls, “You guys were champions before you even stepped foot on that stage.”

However, that is not a guarantee. First, the constant flow, combined with the fact that the Titans can’t perform at basketball games – a pre-built practice venue – means that their performances aren’t as clean as they should be. normal. After that, Volkert doesn’t know if she took 14 dancers on a plane to Florida. Each dancer and coach must take one final test before hitting the road.

Everyone passed.

“I said, ‘Wow. We are boarding the plane. We’re going to Florida. ‘ Honestly, I don’t know what we would do if all these girls couldn’t travel,” Volkert said. “It will cause havoc for this team.”

Instead, 14 Titan dancers took the stage in Orlando. And even then, Volkert isn’t sure her smaller team will impress the judges. Not against the larger teams that have filled the stage and have alternate battalions ready in case someone goes down.

But no one came down. Instead, the Titans stepped up. The buzz of their showcase has vanished in a brilliant routine of, quite literally, discarding the blu music of the past five months.

“I always feel like I’m coming to them with bad news,” says Volkert. “They will shed tears and we will pump them up. When I chose this team, I knew their level of talent was one of the best I’ve had in years. I know going into this season, with the skills they can do and the technique they have, I’ll be able to challenge them a lot. … This team has worked hard and I know they can achieve anything we set our eyes on.

“This team will always be special to me because of everything they have faced. … I am extremely grateful that we had the opportunity to compete. The icing on the cake won a national title. ”

Do you know…? Along with that national title in Jazz, the Dance Titans took second place at Pom at the UDA College Dance and Cheer Team National Championships.

She said that… Volkert as co-captains McKenna Duffy and Bailey Vogel played in a youth team: “McKenna is back for a fifth year because she didn’t get to jump last year. I knew with her and Bailey as captains, I knew they would make the perfect pair to take this team to the national championship. Another fun fact about this team is that I only have 5 out of 15 girls who have ever entered this competition. Even though I have sophomore dancers on my team, I basically have 10 freshmen on my team who haven’t been through this competition. I knew I had to have two strong leaders to carry this team, to teach them our expectations. ”