Hickory High School dance team prepares for competition

Know this about the Hickory High School dance team. They don’t dance someone else’s dance. They dance their dance.

Every three-minute routine is original, 100 percent choreographed by a handful of Hawks with years of experience in the biz.

“I’ve been dancing since I was 3,” said senior Julia Lahowetz, selected to perform in this past Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. “I know a lot of the girls get their ideas from the Internet. I just work in front of a mirror and see what works. Some moves I take from past dances, but they’re moves I did years and years ago.”

Elizabeth Mann-Lorenz is the coach, but she turns over practices to whichever dancer choreographed the routine.

On this day, the floor belongs to Lahowetz. The Hilites go through the tedious process of perfecting the moves in her intricate hip-hop routine to Ludicrous’ “My Chick Bad.”

“Notice my arms aren’t flailing in the air!”

“Foot flexed. No pointing for hip-hop!”

“Nice, ladies!”

But the words Lahowetz repeats the most? “Let’s try that again.”

Hilites practices are at least three times a week, three hours apiece, and Mann-Lorenz adds days when the team is headed for competition.

The nine dancers – Lahowetz, Caitlyn Starnes, Taylor Chivers, Laurel Anne Darden, Marina Mele, Kristen Collins, Ally Bruske, Ashley Berry and Valeria Graziani – have no dance studio to practice in, and because dance is not sanctioned under the Virginia High School League, their only access to the gym is on Sundays.

That leaves an open school lobby as the lone option for learning routines that range from kickline to jazz to hip hop. The dancers maintain their focus despite frequent passersby. On this day, players from the football team, undergoing winter conditioning, steal a glance in the girls’ direction.

The dance season extends from fall through winter. Mann-Lorenz requires the team to participate in two community-service projects and one school beautification project.

The Hilites performed during the city’s holiday parade, and the team is a regular at school events, on occasion with the cheerleaders. Starnes used to be a cheerleader but said dance suits her better.

“They do stunts in cheering, and I was a base, so if a girl falls, it’s your fault,” she said. “... In dance it’s all you. I can put my own style into it and not have to keep a girl up in the air.”

Starnes is the one up in the air – at least her feet are – during Lahowetz’s hip-hop routine. She is the lone dancer able to do a handstand that has her pump herself up and down, alternating her feet while moving.

“It’s kind of like climbing stairs backward,” she said, noting the strength required. “I’ve been doing a lot of pushups.”

Starnes and Lahowetz are the most advanced dancers in the group and both are extremely sensitive to the degree of difficulty their routines require. Lahowetz said she has become much more proficient in the proper way to critique her teammates to avoid hurt feelings.

“You have to learn to work with people,” Starnes said. “We get with girls on the weekend to help them. Julia takes more time than anyone. We all stay after, come in early. Whatever it takes.”

Graziani, a newcomer to dance last year, has been a quick study. The kickline routine she choreographed for Hilites was to be performed at a competition this weekend at the University of Virginia.

The routine, which incorporates side kicks, front kicks, low kicks, splits and flamenco, is performed to a pair of songs Graziani heard while visiting Puerto Rico.

“You hear all these songs from cars; everybody’s got their window down,” she said. “I took my phone and used the song ID thing and worked from there.”

She beams when she talks about the high-energy dance her teammates embraced immediately.

“It’s like my baby, basically,” she said. “In the beginning it was hard to get it from paper to person, but now I feel so good about what I created.” More so, dance, makes her feel good about herself.

“When I tried out for the team, I didn’t think I could make it,” she said. “It was my first try doing anything like this. ...

“It’s more than dancing. It teaches you as a person.”

Vick L. Friedman, (757) 222-5218, vicki.friedman@pilotonline.com