On January 14th history was made at Walt Disney World Resort, with the Ohio State Dance team winning the UDA by half a point to the Minnesota Dance team. The Universal Dance Association (UDA) have hosted a dance competition for college dance teams every year since 1980 at Walt Disney World. Macy McQuade (10) said “I had fun watching the teams compete, but I liked Minnesota better then Ohio.”
The UDA is a competition for college “drill teams.” When at the UDA, you can compete in three different categories: poms, jazz, and hip hop. The biggest debate that happened during this competition was about the Ohio State Jazz team and Minnesota’s jazz team. Many tend to believe that Minnesota’s performance was not distinctly a jazz style, but more of a lyrical style dance with many different tricks and turns. Ohio on the other hand was thought of as dancing as a strong group and doing less tricks and turns. Vada Szechenyi (9) thought, “I really liked both of them, but I feel like they are not considered the same categories, and different types of dancing.”
On the final day when results were coming out, viewers believed that Minnesota’s jazz team was going to win. When the scores were getting announced, people were in shock that Minnesota placed second with a 98.4286. After, when Ohio State’s Jazz team got awarded first place with a 98.9206, many felt that the Minnesota team was robbed of the title. Several weeks following the competition there was talk all over social media, saying Minnesota should have won because of all their tricks and history making turns.
