Kyle Stacher
Com 361
Article 4
“Our team is something extraordinary, that’s the best part of all of this, it feels like an entire family.” That’s how junior captain, Julia Robare described what it means to be a member of the Danceworks team at SUNY Cortland.
Danceworks is a competition dance team offered by the school, that is treated as a club team as it is student-led. The team performs at live events such as football games in the fall during halftime and competes against other schools nationally in the spring. The team even had the opportunity to perform in front of 40,000 people at the 2022 Cortaca Jug in Yankee Stadium this fall in what was described as a “once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
During the 2022 spring, Danceworks won Nationals in Daytona Beach Florida and is looking to capitalize and improve on what was an over-the-top season.
After graduating a large portion of the 2022 national championship team, Cortland Danceworks had new faces in leadership roles for the 2023 season. With the highest possible expectations for this coming season, the revamped Danceworks squad is hoping to continue their trend of success this spring. The Cortland Danceworks season starts on March 25th with a meet against Suny Brockport.
A weekly schedule for the Danceworks team consists of practices to 5-6 practices a week even ending as 11pm some nights. The commitment is just as time-consuming as being on a varsity college sport. Even with the 6 day a week commitment to practice, as well as being full time students, a large portion of the team has other outside commitments.
“We go to school, we’re full time dancers basically, but we also maintain a great social life,” said Julia Robare. “We do it all and it think it not only brings us together but makes us even closer.”
For many members of the team, the Cortland Danceworks program was a large factor in their college choice.
“When I first started visiting colleges I knew I wanted to continue dancing,” said junior Haley Forbes. “In each college I visited, I took a good look at their dance program, and none compared to Cortland’s Danceworks team. Before even committing I looked at their YouTube and knew instantly that that’s (Cortland) where I wanted to be. The dynamic was amazing and I knew I wanted to be a part of it. By far the best decision I’ve ever made.”