Boogie Knights: St. Mary’s dance team stepping it up

Since the new St. Mary’s College opened in 2015, the school’s dance team has won several top group awards at annual provincial competitions.

“We’ve achieved some great results,” said Tara Calvano, who along with Tina Thibeault and Madison Greco, serves as a teacher moderator with the SMC dance team.

“We usually attend a dance competition in southern Ontario every single year, usually in March or April. We’re usually the only school dance team competing against dance studios.”

The school’s team has participated in Kick It Up dance competitions in Toronto, winning awards for Studio High Score, Overall Group Winners, Session Best Choreo, Best in Style and numerous tap, hip hop and contemporary style awards. 

“We’ve had some high scoring dances. We’ve had special awards given to us in different categories. We’ve done very well competing against actual dance studios. We have lots of trophies in our trophy case at the school,” Calvano said in a recent interview.

During school hours, SMC students from Grades 9 through 11 can take dance as an arts credit towards their high school diploma, but the dance team is an extracurricular club for students from Grades 9 through 12.

Though students have to audition to be on the dance team, Calvano said “we have a wide range of abilities, from students who might have danced when they were younger, stopped dancing and now want to reintroduce dance in their lives, students who do gymnastics and students who are members of local dance studios.” 

Typically the team consists of 20 to 25 students but in the current school year it is a larger group of approximately 35 dancers.

The team has a student captain, co-captain and student choreographers.

This year’s captain and co-captain are SMC Grade 11 students Sophie Flammia and Alexis Guzzo.

“I started when I was three years old at Studio Dance Arts and I’ve been a competitive dancer since I was six. I like all types of dance but I like lyrical and contemporary the best because you can really express yourself and use your emotions in those ones,” Flammia told SooToday at a recent dance team practice.

Guzzo started dancing at the same early age with Flammia, the two SMC students being lifelong friends.

“I like lyrical dancing and jazz dancing. With jazz you can hit the sharp movements,” Guzzo said.

“For me dancing helps me open up a lot. Sometimes I don’t know how to express myself through words so I like to use dance to express how I feel. If I’m having a bad day at school I go to dance and I just let everything escape from my head and it makes me feel a lot better,” Flammia said.

“Dance makes me feel like there’s something bigger to myself than I feel there is,” Guzzo said.

The team practices hip hop, jazz, lyrical and contemporary dancing at the school for 20 to 25 minutes Monday through Friday.

“We actually have some girls, other students, that choreograph the dances with us. They each have a dance, teach the girls the steps and go over everything. We have lots of help,” Flammia said.

“I’m really honoured to be captain because I’m in Grade 11 and normally the captain position goes to a Grade 12 student. I’m really honoured to have that role and have my teachers put that trust in me that I can take on the team. I’m very happy and excited about it.”

“It feels good to be by Sophie’s side. It’s nice because we’re really close friends so it's really easy for us to learn and practice together,” Guzzo said.

Both students said they would like to join a post-secondary dance team when their university days come.

“I’ve definitely thought about dancing professionally. One of the teachers at my dance school is a professional dancer in Toronto. That’s so cool, but I feel like I might take business at school — Windsor maybe — but I might join the dance team wherever I go to school,” Flammia said.

“I feel it would be really cool to go down that path but even if I don’t go into dance I’ll still use the lessons dance has taught me, like time management and working as a team,” said Guzzo, who is considering studying kinesiology at Queen’s, Western or Laurier. 

“I think they do have a lot of potential. They’ve been working really hard and they’re coming together,” Flammia said of the current SMC dance team.

The team is planning to attend the Shine dance competition in North Bay from April 12-14, 2024.

The students are fundraising to help offset the costs of costumes, competition fees, hotel stay and bus transportation, currently selling poinsettias and, after Christmas, will be selling big box cards.  

“We’re really excited about it. The girls work very hard. Sometimes we have to practice on weekends. Everyone’s committed,” Guzzo said.