Flying (Fight Song Book 2)

Chapter 8: B-Troupe

Joe's PoV:

"Nationals is a much bigger competition than Regionals, as I'm going to assume most if not all of you know," Alesha says the following afternoon. "Regionals hosts more recreational dancers, whereas with Nationals you're competing against the top studios in the United Kingdom."

We all nod. Everyone knows how it goes. The further you get in the competition, the more competitive the rounds. You start with male solos, which is why I usually get given the solo, because I'm considered the best male dancer on the team. If your male soloist loses, then that's it, you're out of the whole competition and nobody else gets to compete. The second round is small groups, where you really need to bring your A-Game - in a solo, if you by some tragedy forget part of the choreography, you can improvise, but with small groups every mistake is highlighted. If you miss a step that the others in your team get, that could be it. If your timing is off as a group for even one section, you could lose. The judges at Nationals are harsh, and they have to be. Whichever studio wins Nationals goes on to represent the whole of Great Britain at Internationals - you can't have people who make mistakes going on to represent the whole nation. After this, it's duets, which this year will be my favourite round because I get to dance with Dianne. Duets are easier than small groups because although timing was still highlighted at bits in unison, you could mostly use eye contact to figure out what's best. Then it was female solo, which is usually Amy because up until this competition she was considered the top female dancer on our team. She's always bought us to the semi-finals, so all the pressure would be riding on Chloe this year. Then there's semi-finals and then finals. Apparently if there were to be a tie at Nationals, it would be decided by an improvisation round where they randomly select a dancer from each team and make them improvise a solo to music they've never heard before they step onto the stage. However, there hadn't been a tie as long as I'd been competing, so it was incredibly unlikely for such a feat to occur. 

"We're going to be working mostly with the small group for the first two hours today," Shirley continues, "So I strongly suggest the rest of you either rehearse your featured dances for Nationals if you have them or go and join a class going on right now. I've invited B-Troupe to observe any rehearsals today to try and improve their dancing. They'll be around jumping from room to room, so just try not to be distracted by them." 

A lot of us groan. It's incredibly annoying when the B-Troupe dancers observe Regionals, Nationals or Internationals rehearsals. They occasionally sit in on our dance or gymnastics classes, but when you're trying to rehearse alone they've been known to ask questions every so often, which is extremely off-putting and distracting. I hope they won't be too much of a problem with our duet. 

"Everyone stand up while Joe leads us through a warm up, and then you can move to the other rehearsal studios," Alesha says. "Studio B is free today because B-Troupe don't have rehearsals, so you may use that space if you wish. There are ballet, jazz and commercial classes starting in half an hour if you wish to go to them, but I strongly advise against it for Joe, Dianne, Chloe and Jack. We need your routines to be the best they can possibly be for Nationals." 

We all nod. It's fairly obvious not to attend a random class when you've been given valuable rehearsal time for important Nationals routines. If we don't win Nationals, it'll be the first time we haven't made it to Internationals in forever. It'll be humiliating, especially for me being dance captain. 

I lead my team through a twenty minute warm up and stretch, and then we all leave to go rehearse. 

"I hate hate hate having the B-Troupe dancers watch our competition rehearsals," I moan to Dianne as we go into Studio B and shove our bags in the corner. 

"It can't be that bad," Dianne says. Oh how naive she is. The B-Troupe dancers are a total nightmare. 

"Right, I can guarentee you now that Alfie, Sophia, Cinzia and Mikey will be in here, and they're all so loud," I groan. "Others will float in and out. Alfie will muck about and ask me about Zoe, Mikey is one of my mates and will just try and make me laugh and I'm pretty sure Sophia has a crush on me."