2021 MADT Student Convention

Date: October 9, 2021
Time: 8:45 – 2:20 PM
Location: Mound Westonka High School
Ticket Price: $55 per dancer

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN!

REGISTER HERE

We look forward to hosting an AMAZING day of dancing and learning as you gear up for your season! We are so excited to be back together (Stronger Than Ever) this year for the 2021 MADT Student Convention!

Schedule of the Day
8:45-9:00 AM: Registration
9:00-9:15 AM: Welcome
9:15-10:30 AM: Class 1
10:35-11:35 AM: Class 2
11:35-12:15 PM: Lunch
12:15-1:00 PM: Class 3
1:05-2:05 PM: Master Class
2:05-2:20 PM: Drawings/Prizes

We have some incredible instructors on board, including two NATIONAL CHAMPION college dance teams – the University of Minnesota Dance Team and the St. Cloud State University Dance Team. Along with many other amazing instructors for both our active and classroom classes, we are also VERY excited to welcome special guest and master class teacher, Trey Barber!

MASTER CLASS: Trey Barber {Bio}
This year, we are thrilled to have Trey Barber teach a master class to our convention participants! A veteran in the dance industry, Trey has choreographed and produced projects for professional music artist, Jesse McCartney, many NBA dance teams, collegiate dance squads for national showcase and competition, and many dance studios across the country. Other credits include 3X UDA National Championship choreographer with the University of St. Thomas Dance Team, NBA halftime productions with Bell Biv Devoe, BlackStreet, and choreography featured on HBO, The View, MTV’s Total Request Live, ESPN, Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, and America’s Got Talent. Trey is also the Head Coach of the NBA Jr. Dance Squad, The Minnesota Timberwolves “Pups” Dance Team.

CLASS 1 & 2 DESCRIPTIONS

Improv and Movement
We will explore improv techniques to carve out musicality, initiation of movement, and spatial awareness for ways to expand your style. Dancers will create resistance and emphasis to enhance their movement with the end goal always to build your toolkit of techniques to grow as athletes and artists. Dancers that can move to music individually can bring more to their dance teams in choreography, but also in how they add their own personality to their execution of dance.

Leaps and Jumps
Learn innovative entrances and landings of leaps, jumps and combinations of skills, as well as focus on maintaining cohesive and smooth transitions in and out of skills and choreography.

Balance, Core and Turns
Balance, core strength, and engagement are crucial to properly executing turns, whether it’s pirouettes or advanced open second combinations. This class will help you with tricks and exercises to keep you turning at your best. Spotting, releve, body alignment – hone in on these aspects of turn technique in this class. Then challenge yourself by utilizing these new tricks within turn combinations.

College Pom Technique
Thinking about trying out for a college dance team? Want to learn more about Pom for your field routines during the fall season or are you looking for ways to help work on precision for kick routines? Then, this is YOUR class! No Pom experience necessary, but we guarantee you will leave this class wishing we competed Pom in MN! Learn the different styles of Pom and some fun skill combinations that can be incorporated into any style of dance.

Intermediate High Kick Technique
Practice the importance of body awareness and alignment, smooth movement, and weight changes. Learn combinations to incorporate technical skills. This class is great for dance team members brand new or newer to kick. This is also a great class for dancers who might want a refresher on the foundations of kick technique.

Intermediate Jazz Technique
Any dance teacher or coach will tell you that technique is what makes excellent dancers stand out. This class will help those dancers who want to build upon their existing foundation of jazz technique without the intimidation of advanced level turns and leaps/jumps. Certain skills will be broken down for the dancers to help them understand better the application of executing jazz elements.

Advanced High Kick Technique
This class will focus on strength and execution of movement, flexibility, quick transitions, and challenging combinations. Learn ideas for strength training, specifically for kicks. This class will be less about repetitively executing various kick combinations and more about how to do advanced kicks and kick combos correctly.

Advanced Jazz Technique
Challenge yourself not only through technique (turns, jumps, extensions) but through breaking out of your comfort zone. This class will focus on poise, musicality, and emotion in performance. This class will be a combination of across the floor and center floor work.

Advanced Hip-Hop
This class covers challenging musicality, isolation, and various styles in choreography with a focus on movement and variation of tricks, such as kips and head springs. The content of this class is geared toward the type of hip-hop collegiate teams compete with and the importance behind the execution and performance necessary to be at the next level.

Advanced Contemporary Combo Class
Challenge yourself in the class to interpret music and express emotion. In this combo class, dancers will utilize their technique with subtle and dynamic choreography. Practice expressing emotion through movement and use this class to hone in on your own personal style and emotive quality.

CLASS 3 DESCRIPTIONS

Character and Teamwork
As Henry Ford stated, “Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success.” Team dynamics and individual accountability play a huge role in creating a season of significance. In this session, we will identify character attributes that every coach wants their players to embody. In addition, we will generate ideas through guided discussions about how to stay motivated as an individual and teammate through the ups and downs of the season.

From A Judge’s Perspective
Hear from a JAM judge on her perspective when she watches our routines! This is not a training on how to judge but rather one judge’s perspective on the score sheet, what makes an impact on a judge, and what judges sometimes wish teams knew before they walked onto the gym floor. As a former dance team member, college, and professional dancer, this judge has a great perspective on performance, execution, and overall impression of routines!

Fueling The Athlete’s Body
What we put into our bodies is as important as the time we spend in the gym at practice. Learn how to properly fuel your body before, during, and after a competition. When should we eat? What types of foods? Which foods are best for sore muscles? Are there foods that can help lower stress? What about proper hydration? Get these questions answered & more, plus bring some of your own questions to be answered by an expert in the field of nutrition!

Leadership At Every Level
Whether you are a senior looking to lead your last dance team season or a sophomore wanting to feel like you’re contributing but not overstepping, this class will help guide you to find YOUR role on the team! You will learn to identify your personal leadership strengths, and learn different ways to lead others so you can contribute to the overall success of your team. Learn strategies to approach various situations and work through adversity with your fellow teammates, seniors, and coaches. 

Planning Your Dances
The key to a great first draft of your dance team routines is having a plan before you begin. Mapping your music, coming up with your routine’s story, and drawing formations are all aspects of choreography that could be even more important than the actual steps you put together. Your choreography committee must work together and be open to new ideas to be successful during your sessions with each other. Having a plan for your routine before creating your choreography will make the entire process much smoother. This class will go through how your choreography weeks can develop in order to create the best “rough” drafts your team has seen.

Confidence In Dancers
Confidence is the belief that you can successfully perform a desired behavior. When you have confidence, you know you can handle whatever comes your way. In sports, confidence can be characterized as fitting into three categories: fundamentals/physical skill, game time decision making and resilience (the ability to come back from a set back). It can help you concentrate and maintain composure during intense situations. Confidence is ultimately determined by our thoughts, personality characteristics, and team culture. This class will teach you ways to build personal confidence in dance and support teammates to feel confident!

Stay Injury Free & Strong During The Season
How many of us leave practice without cooling down and then forget to roll out our muscles at home? With the winter dance team season, it is vital that athletes take care of their bodies, especially before and after practice. This class will teach you the best ways to stay injury-free and strong during the season. Taught by a personal trainer, learn ways to properly warm-up and cool down, exercises and stretches to do at home to help recoup and relieve sore muscles and much more! This is not an active class, but afterwards you will feel ready to tackle the season!

The Secret To Stronger Skills
Are you ready to master your turns, improve kick height, jump power and flexibility? Using simple strength training drills and exercises you’ll learn WHICH muscles you need to improve your skills like turns, kicks, toe touches and HOW to easily strengthen them in practice or at home. If you’ve tried every stretch, combo and STILL get told to kick higher and stop dropping your heel, this class is for you!

Importance Of Performance
Ever wonder how to get that X-factor you see in amazing dancers or teams? How can you get your dance team to be one of the teams that projects a unified story and performs at an elite level? We will explore how performance can change and amplify the movement through connection to lyrics, story, and emotive focus. When a group of dancers align on a story and project it, a new level of synchronization happens. One of the most important ingredients for any choreography is the way in which the dancer performs it. There needs to be as much texture and dimension to your emotive dancing as there is in the choreography. How can YOU own that as a dancer? Tell us your story!