Kathryn Croco ’27 is a dancer at Nolte Academy and is the only freshman on the dance team at West High. Read more to learn about how she started dancing, and how she manages dance and school.
West side story: How long have you been dancing and how did you start?
Kathryn Croco: I’ve been dancing since I was three. So 11 years. My mom just put me in little kid dance classes. My sister and I both did it, my parents just kind of put us in all sports. So I just stuck with dance.
WSS: What’s your favorite part about dance?
KC: I really like going to competitions with my competition team. Competing is really stressful and I don’t really like doing that part. It’s just like hanging out with your friends. It’s really fun. It’s mostly just the people.
WSS: What’s it like being the only freshman on the dance team at West?
KC: When we first started practice everyone else went to West and I had to have my mom pick me up and take me to Northwest, it was really hard.
WSS: Were you nervous to try out?
KC: Yeah. When I first walked into tryouts, the first day of the clinic I was like “Oh my gosh what am I doing here?” And then we were warming up and one of the people who were seniors, now freshman in college, was leading the warm up and I was like “I can’t do this.” During tryouts I was fully convinced I was not gonna make it.
WSS: Do you think it’s hard to balance studio dance and dance team?
KC: Not that much because I get to pick all my classes and when I take them and how many I take, but it’s still just kind of a lot.
WSS: Did you have to change anything in your schedule because of the dance team?
KC: I just made it so on the days I had morning practice [for dance team] I had chill days of [studio] dance in the evening.
WSS: Do you have a favorite memory from dance?
KC: I don’t have a specific memory but just hanging out with friends and there’s some dances that my studio has done that are just really cool and everyone wants to watch it. Some of them have been like five minutes long, but they’re really cool.
WSS: What’s the hardest part about the dance team?
KC: The workouts in the summer were really hard. Plus it was like an hour. I like the lifting days; those are chill but the cardio days were really hard. And probably just how you get up and you have a 2 hour practice and 7 hours of school after. That’s probably the hardest part.
WSS: What’s the hardest part of dance overall?
KC: I’d say just always comparing yourself because there’s always giant mirrors in front of you. So just always thinking “Oh I’m not good enough to be here some people are better than me”
WSS: What’s your favorite style of dance?
KC: I like contemporary because it’s more about you just dancing versus the sharpness.
WSS: What’s your least favorite style of dance?
KC: Modern, especially at Nolte because modern is taken very seriously. It’s like sometimes you’re crawling around on the floor. And I’m like what in the world?
