Beaming bright with the stage lights gilding their bold costumes, the Warrior Pride dance team performed for the first time on stage this year at the district-wide annual ensemble team performance, Merge, on Friday, March 1st. Encompassing a compilation of vibrant and distinctly unique performances, the evening featured the McNeil Sapphires, Cedar Ridge Nobility, Round Rock Dragon Pride Dance Company, and Stony Point Golden Dancers in addition to Westwood’s own JV team. 

Starting strong with a catchy opener, all the teams weaved together to showcase their skillful movements and to celebrate the diversity and collaboration that flowed amongst the teams on stage. United by a shared passion for dance, dancers found the annual performance a unique to its kind event, providing one of the only opportunities for all schools to come and perform together in a non-competitive setting. By eliminating the pressure and stress of competition, dancers were able to enjoy the performance more and simply focus on dancing with their peers and teammates.

“[Dancing together without the pressure of competition] was a lot more fun, I have to say,” Pride member Maya Spindler ‘25 said. “To not think of [other schools] as competition, and think ‘oh we have to beat you, we want to beat you’, means now you can understand them as dancers and they can also inspire you a bit more in how you dance.”

Presenting pieces they’d prepared for during the majority of the fall semester, Warrior Pride performed their jazz, hip-hop, and contemporary pieces. In order to focus their efforts on fully honing pieces to the best of their ability, Pride learned and cleaned a total of three full-length competition pieces throughout the year which they perform at the Central Austin Challenge, Escapade, and Merge. Due to this repeated nature of performance, the dancers were able to divert their priorities from those of memory and remembering forms to those of performance facials, technique, and celebrating the dance in order to help it reach the hearts of the audience.

“I’ve been working on adding more personality to my dances,” Pride member Annika Anumalla ’25 said. “Especially for hip-hop because you can add a lot of sass for that one.”

As one of the conclusory performances for this school year, a recurring theme featured throughout the night was celebrating seniors. From ending the beginning opener with all the seniors dancing together to the ending finale, where each and every senior was honored by name and flower, the evening was a final goodbye from the district’s senior dancers to the community and their teammates. Reflecting back on the performance, many Pride members believe it was a distinct experience to truly watch and admire their fellow teams.  

“Yeah, it was really nice to just appreciate every team for being unique,” Pride member Claire Braun ’25 said. “Every team is different and we bring different dances, like some teams did pom, and I think it was nice just to appreciate each team for what they bring to the stage.”