Halftime Hoofers Captivate Crowd

WAITSBURG - The February 15 WP boys' basket­ball game against Lind/Ritzville/Sprague featured some extra-special halftime entertainment. As part of her senior project, Enedina Fuentes, held a three-week dance camp for four elementary girls who performed at Friday's game.

Fuentes started out in dance by attending classes in Walla Walla when she was three. She also participated in a school dance program in fourth and fifth grades. She most enjoys modern, jazz and hip-hop.

"I hope to get back into dance sometime after school while living in Seattle. It's always been a hobby and passion of mine," said Fuen­tes. Fuentes' senior project focuses on five different styles of dance: jazz, hip- hop, modern, ballet and tap.

Senior Advisor Rose­ann Groom suggested that Fuentes offer a dance camp for elementary girls and Feuntes thought it would be fun to have them perform at halftime during a basketball game. Feuntes met with the fifth and sixth grade girls and explained her project.

"Only four girls chose to participate because the others were too shy about perform­ing at the basketball game in front of a big crowd," said Fuentes. Avery VanBlaricom, Teagen Larsen, Makenzie Smith and Veronika Grace signed up for the camp.

"Three of the four girls - Avery, Teagen and Veronika - had experience with dance before. They were all able to pick up everything pretty quickly which made it a little easier because they knew the counts well and could move to the beat," said Fuentes.

Feuntes researched per­formances on YouTube and came up with half of the routine on her own. Darleen Dozier, her project men­tor, helped with the rest. The group had a short three weeks to prepare for the performance and practiced for an hour after school each day in the elementary music room. Dozier supervised and provided any necessary as­sistance.

"I learned that it's not as easy as it looks coming up with a dance routine, espe­cially being out of dance for so long and having so little time," said Fuentes. "It takes a lot of time, patience and dedication. It was a bit dif­ficult at times because there were so many times when Darleen and I would change something around and the girls would have to learn to adjust quickly because we were on a time schedule and only has so long until the performance. Overall, I had a ton of fun creating the routine and teaching them, but most of all it was fun to see them having fun with it -- getting all excited about the dance and the wardrobe that they were going to wear the night of the performance."