A group of 11 dancers from Aquinas College have danced where none of their fellow students have before – into the glory of being national champions.

The Aquinas contemporary dance troupe are Year 9-10 national division champs, winning the title at the DanceNZmade Interschool Championships in Palmerston North on September 9.

Aquinas College sports director Caitlin Tarr says the talented troupe is made of Year 8s Kiana Schoeser, Georgia-Rose McFarlane, Hannah Anderson, Year 9s Willow Murie, Vivian Pham, Sophie Van den Borst, Lila Drummond, and Year 10s Krysta Stollery, Paige Eastergaard, Alana Perrett and Josie Stott.

Caitlin says there’s not many opportunities for dancers to represent their school in competitions – usually this is all done through dance studios.

“And with these dancers that use studios there’s not many opportunities for them to do other activities because they literally spend all of their time dancing. Some girls train 12-15 hours per week – which is incredible.

“In fact these kids spend more time dancing than some of our premier teams practising sports.”

So the idea popped to give the girls an avenue at school to compete in what they love most – dancing.

“We put feelers out, got a good response and hosted a trial – we selected 11 girls, who all dance at various studios after-school, for the Year 9-10 troupe.

The school contracted Space Studio’s Summer Tyson to choreograph a dance for the troupe. “She taught us a routine to polish, clean and perform.”

The Aquinas contemporary dance troupe in costume. Photo: Aquinas College.

At the July 31 regional competition, the troupe became BOP Year 9/10 division champions and was named Overall Regional champions.

The troupe was also solely awarded Excellence in Choreography, out of 29 troupes from 11 Tauranga schools.

This sent them to the DanceNZmade Interschool Championships this month, where they won the Year 9-10 division – an astounding result given they only started practising in May and beat schools with longstanding dance programmes.

Caitlin says much appreciation goes to mum Anita Stollery who sourced costumes, mum Camella Murie (Beso NZ) for the girls’ make-up and the extended mum group for fixing the girls’ hair.

“For the girls it’s been an awesome opportunity to be recognised in school for something they’re so passionate about and spend so much time practising out-of-school.

“Aquinas has been open 20 years and never have our dance groups achieved a national title before – so this is super exciting. I think we’ll get a lot more students interested in dance next year.”

Watch this space!