Strength found through hip-hop

Taking her new routine song by song, step by step, junior Josie Phillips and her team train for their upcoming competitions. Joining Peace Love Hip Hop, a local dance company, in fourth grade, Phillips has been dancing and competing since then. 

Every year, she and her teammates audition in order to make a competition team. 

“Basically tryouts happen every year and even [if] you’re on a competition team you still have to try out every year,” Phillips said. “Everybody who tries out gets placed on a team. Nobody ever doesn’t get into the studio.” 

For Phillips and her team, they begin to learn two different dances for competitions. Spending fall and winter preparing for them, in the spring they compete in either four or five competitions. 

“We try and fit as much choreography into one practice. You’re obviously not going to finish an entire competition routine that are normally three to four minutes long in one practice, but we take it song by song, section by section,” Phillips said.

With the time dwindling down before their first competition, Phililps and her team continue to practice twice a week in order to perfect their dance. 

“It stays fun the entire time… but it definitely gets a little more serious and hectic the more we graduate towards competition season,” Phillips said. “You can kind of tell everybodies trying to be on their A game and make sure they got the routines down and that they are preparing themselves mentally and physically for the competition.” 

However, Phillips has been dancing with most of these girls since she first joined. There, she’s created a special bond with them.

“I’ve known some of these girls since fourth grade and we’re all kind of like sisters because everyones known each other for so long and we fight like we are sisters,” Phillips said. “We’ve all just seen each other grow up together so I think the chemistry is just really awesome.” 

Marianne Stubbings has been dancing and competing with Peace Love Hip Hop since first grade. Originally trying out different dances, Stubbings quickly new hip hop was meant for her. 

Similar to Phillips, Stubbings practices twice a week with her competition team. 

“We start with warming up, getting our bodies going…and then we’ll move into…a little talk circle and go over…what we need to get done into practice and we’ll just jump right into,” Stubbings said. 

For Stubbings, she dances on two teams.. Even with the different age and skill levels, Stubbings still finds a sense of family with her teams. 

“I feel [the] team where it’s all girls, we are very close. We’ve all grown up together,” Stubbings said. “It’s just one big happy family and I feel that’s the way it is with the other team.” 

Despite this being the last year Stubbings can compete, she encourages those who love to dance to come out to Peace Love Hip Hop’s open and recreational practices. 

“Just to go for it because it’s really just so much fun and if you’re a person who loves dancing just in your room alone just come to a class because we really do have a class for anyone,” Stubbings said.