The Memorial Sapphires practice every day, starting their workout an hour before school begins. They work hard to perfect their routine to honor the Memorial name and to start new traditions that future Sapphires will carry forever. The Sapphires started practicing their shows and routines at the end of July and have been working every day since then.
The Memorial Messenger sat down with coach Faith Patterson to discuss the Sapphires and their progress since the start of the school year.
Q: What are some goals you have for the Sapphires for the first year?
A: Overall is personal growth and performance growth to be comfortable and confident in who they are as a dancer and to continue to find the reason they love to dance and to let that show through their dancing.
Q: Who are some key girls in this group?
A: We have our captain senior Hannah Roseli and she’s great. She works really hard for the team and she goes above and beyond. She’s always there to answer any questions for anybody and go over anything. She’s overall a strong leader of the team.
Q: What are you most excited for this year?
A: I’m most excited for all their performances because some of them have never danced before so this is super fun to see all of their excitement and to see their growth throughout the year. I’m also really excited to take them to contest in January and February.
Q: How far have the girls progressed since you started practicing?
A: We started in June and when I met them some of our leaps were really low and we were learning the basics. Compared to where we are today, it’s a whole new team and a whole new dynamic. They’re definitely more bonded and we had to create a family dynamic which we have now. Before we weren’t ready to perform, and now they’re able to pick up choreography and it’s night and day a whole new team.
Q: How many hours do you practice a week? What are the main things you work on in practice?
A: We practice everyday from 6:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. and that’s a consistent every-day answer. We have random after-school practices, but mainly our morning practices. We work on our field jazz and their stand routines.
Q: Has it been harder than expected starting a program from scratch?
A: It’s about what I thought. I knew it was going to be a challenge and something different because dance is now a thing every district has or not something everyone knows about. So not only are we trying to build a program and get everyone super excited, we’re also trying to reach the community and reach everyone and prove that these girls are just as much athletes as anyone else.
Q: How are you trying to grow a program and get more people for the Sapphires?
A: All the performances and we had the Sapphire Spectacular where we get a bunch of young dancers throughout the district to come dance with us. But all the appearances we have will definitely get some eyes going and get our names out there will hopefully bring more people.
Q: What performances are you most looking forward to?
A: I’m really excited for the pep rallies since this is new for a lot of them, if not all of them. I can’t wait for our end-of-the-year spring show on April 26-27. It’s super fun, it’s all about the Sapphires and our theme is “Welcome to the Show” and it’s going to be super elaborate. We’re going to have a bunch of special guest performances so we hope to have a lot of people come watch.
