All Iowa is an honor dance team for girls from all over Iowa whose schools’ dance teams are a part of the ISDTA. They try out to perform at state basketball. There are 250 girls that get a spot on this team. Then, after tryouts, they are given either a kick or a pom. Then, from the end of February into March, they have practices at Grandview.
This year the practices were on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Thursday, the girls had to leave school at 2 p.m. in order to be there for registration and then had practice until 9:30 p.m. with no dinner break. Then on Friday, the girls had to get up to leave at 6:30 a.m. and be there until 3 p.m. with lunch thanks to one of the dance team moms. On Saturday, the girls went straight to Wells Fargo Arena and then there they got their jackets and tank tops for the performance and practiced until there was a basketball clinic. They also got to practice for PBS to get the correct camera angles for the halftime show.
They had a while until they performed after practice, so they just sat around and watched girls’ basketball, and then performed around 2:30 p.m. At halftime of the 4A game, the pre-show group performed before the 4A game and the night before on Friday. There are two separate groups in all Iowa: the halftime and pre-show. In the pre-show, there are only 50 girls, and there are only 50 girls. There are different routines. This year, none of the girls were on pre-show at PCM. There were nine girls originally chosen to go by their coach, but then ten later on, five of the ten, though originally tried out for the team. There were originally three alternates, chosen to go, but then they all three got put into the dance, as there were missing spots. Then another PCM girl was chosen to come, but she was not needed, because of her hard work and dedication, she was put in a small part of the halftime performance.
These girls overall had around 15 hours of dancing by the end of three days. They had early mornings and late nights, but it was worth it for the six-minute routine they got to perform. There were four different small routines in this one performance. The first one was a group performance, then it separated into pom, then kick, then into one last performance with the whole group. In this routine, they got to do the All Iowa lean back and a pinwheel, which is where they all get into a pinwheel formation, and shoot their poms up to make very good visuals for the audience, because that is what they are all about in All Iowa is the visuals in the entertainment.
The girls were told by the ladies in charge they were the best group they had seen in the long time they had been there. That the girls were supportive and fun to be around. This experience was long and took a lot of hard work, but in the end, it was worth it for the new friends the girls made and the fun.