In February Taylor Frame just wanted the opportunity to see her teammates in person and maybe dance together again in practice.

 

By early April, the 2018 Bridgeport High School graduate and current junior on the West Virginia University dance team was a national champion.

 

WVU competed in the National Cheer Alliance and National Dance Alliance Collegiate Cheer and Dance National Championship. The event took place April 7-11 and there was an in-person competition at Daytona Beach. However, the NDA offered schools a different option for 2021, a virtual competition, and that is where the Mountaineers made their mark, winning not one but two national championships.

 

“Because of COVID our team has had a travel ban all year pretty much,” Frame said. “Since we couldn’t travel, UDA gave us the option of a virtual competition which was judged as its own entity. They did an in-person competition that was judged differently so we weren’t competing against the in-person people.

 

“With the virtual performance, we had to film a performance of our dances and submit it. We had two categories we had to film, the jazz category and the team performance which is one dance that is a combination of three styles – pom, jazz and hip-hop. So we filmed those on a Tuesday night, submitted by Wednesday and we all got together and watched the live results. Both dances won in their category so we have two virtual national titles which is really crazy.”

 

Frame said there were two huge differences between the virtual and in-person national competitions. First, they weren’t able to see the other schools’ performances until after all the videos had been submitted. At an in-person competition, you can see what your competitors are doing as the event progresses. Second, there is pretty much no audience to perform in front of.

 

“Down at nationals in Daytona there are 100s of teams there and they have a cheerleading competition at the same time,” she said. “Every hotel down the strip by the beach is just dancers running around. Each team has their parents and friends there and they can go into the pit and cheer for you and there is spectators behind them.

 

“We did have a zoom for our close friends and family to watch us but nobody was cheering while we were performing so definitely part of our training was being able to project our performance quality and stay motivated and energetic throughout the routine without the crowd there supporting us.”

 

The dual titles are also a nice feather in the cap for a WVU dance team that has had very little normalcy this past year because of the pandemic.

 

“We had two dances prepared last year for nationals this same time in April and obviously everything pretty much shut down this time last year,” Frame said. We found out that we weren’t able to compete like three weeks before we were supposed to leave for Daytona.

“We had routines that we had paid choreographers and had worked on for months and then everything stopped. We weren’t allowed to meet on campus and do in-person practices until September. Even then we had to practice in groups of 10 and had to have masks on the whole time.

 

“We were fortunate we got to do two football game this year but then November came along, we went home after Thanksgiving break and when we came back for the second semester we kept waiting and waiting and waiting for the OK to practice. We hadn’t even thought about nationals, we just wanted to practice in person and be able to dance together.

 

“Then we were told we could start practice February 1. Then that didn’t happen, the date kept getting pushed back. Finally, toward the end of February our coaches had a zoom with us and told us they thought our team should compete virtually for nationals.”

 

There would still be some restrictions Frame and her teammates had to adjust for. There could be only 10 girls on the floor for each dance and no girl could be in both dances because of cross contamination purposes. Normally, the Mountaineers would put up to 20 girls on the floor for a routine.

 

Practice resumed in March and the dance time had a limited time frame to get their preliminary round video filmed and submitted.

 

“We were going to have 10 practices before the prelims so we were all definitely freaked out,” Frame said. “We weren’t sure if we were going to be able to pull it off, then March 1 was the first day we were allowed to practice, practiced 10 days submitted our prelim videos then four practices after that and submitted our finals video. March was a whirlwind.”

 

Frame was one of the 10 on the floor for the team performance but feels strongly that all of her teammates deserve to be called national champions for both dances.

 

“We continued the whole season reminding each other that we are a team,” she said. “We were at practice cheering on and motivating the jazz routine and they were cheering on the team dance routine. So when we say we are national champions, the whole team is in both dances because it was a team effort.

 

“I was supposed to do both last year, so I knew the jazz routine, but they ended up picking who they thought would be best on the floor for each category. We all knew both routines.”

 

The team dance performance that won the national championship can be viewed HERE

 

The jazz dance performance that won the national championship can be viewed HERE

 

Even if Frame and her teammates missed out on the nationals in 2020 and would go months at a time without even be allowed to practice in person as a team, being involved in dance did provide a positive distraction while dealing with the pandemic.

 

“Once quarantine started, I started to get into regular exercise more than just dance exercise to keep up my strength and stamina,” she said. “A national routine is only two minutes but it is definitely the hardest two minutes of your life. I found myself exercising a lot and stretching to keep my flexibility.

 

“We actually met some over the summer, we had some required workouts and we had zoom practices. So I was doing ballet at home in my living room in Bridgeport. We still got to work on our dancing. It was difficult but we still did what we could.”

 

Frame, who is majoring in Fashion Merchandising, said the day after the team won the national championships, they were back at practice. They have been invited to perform at the annual Gold-Blue Spring Football game on April 24. They are just awaiting word as to how many girls will be allowed to be there and where they will be on the field.

 

After that, a couple of dance clinics are scheduled then auditions for next season will be May 8-9 and it will be time to start focusing on the next school year and hopefully a lot less COVID restrictions.

 

“It would be fantastic to have one final normal season,” Frame said. “Next year, our senior class will be the only class that has physically been to nationals. That’s another reason we did the virtual, so everybody got to experience working on a routine and being judged.”

 

Editor's Note: Submitted photos