[ad_1]
Rochester — Playing in front of about 16,000 people at the Target Center can be nerve-wracking for most people.
But Kat Dworschak isn’t most people.
Especially when her two-year-old son, Beau, is in the crowd.
“He was at a[Timberwolves]game the other day. “He was howling. When the other team throws a free throw, they howl. I was like “Wow” inside. my boyfriend got a video of it. Literally the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
“My favorite part about this game is he’s looking at me in the crowd.”
Dwolshack, a Rochester resident and Winona native, tried out for the Timberwolves hip-hop team for the first time this season. After she returned to Minnesota in 2020, the 27-year-old hoped to find an opportunity to perform in front of large audiences.
When live shows resumed after the COVID-19 pandemic, she saw an opportunity to audition for the Timberwolves hip-hop team. For her Dworschak, an alumnus of her school at Parpich Arts High in Golden Valley, Grade 11 and her Grade 12 were a great opportunity to learn through the arts.
Hip-hop is her favorite style of dance and has been since she started dancing almost 20 years ago. Dworschak has also trained in ballet, jazz, tap and contemporary, but hip-hop was the most natural thing for her.
She learns that the hip-hop team’s choreographer is Herb Johnson, a Perpich alumnus.
“He’s a phenomenal choreographer here in Minnesota,” said Dvorshak. “I really wanted the opportunity to train under him.”
Auditions were held at the Target Center at the end of July. After Johnson taught him one song within 45 minutes, groups of three or his four dancers were called in to perform on the court. The people who made the team found out about a week after the audition.
Dworschak was in Los Angeles that week, lounging on the beach and trying to stay present, but she was constantly thinking about auditions.
“After the audition, I check my email every five minutes,” she said. “One of the times I checked it finally showed up there, but I couldn’t… I was jumping for joy. I felt like I could shine in front of a lot of people.”
Dworschak never gets nervous when acting. Because she “feels like she’s really who she is and the world can see her most authentically,” she said.
“My confidence grows as opposed to being scared or nervous or shy,” she continued. Most of them aren’t professional dancers, so everything we do they say, ‘This is amazing.'”
Hip-hop crews don’t perform in every match, but the team puts everything into every performance. Johnson teaches a new routine before each game, and the team takes about four to five hours to rehearse and perfect it.
“Because they don’t get a lot of rehearsals, they needed dancers who could understand them quickly,” said Dworschak. “A rehearsal he can master in one go, but he has to look good the next rehearsal, and then we go out on the court.”
The experience is unlike any other performance. As Dworschak says, air has a certain special and indescribable feeling.
Giving back to the community that raised her
Two summers ago, Dworschak was walking around Winona with Beau. Her daily walks passed under the bridge, a newly rebuilt and paved area next to the Mississippi River. As she walked down the street, she thought a few times — Why don’t we get dancers here?
“This was the perfect area to dance with friends,” said Dvorshak. “It was the very beginning of the pandemic, so nobody had a dance class in the studio. I texted some friends, ‘Hey, would you like to dance with me?'”
That text turned into a weekly summer dance class aptly named Under the Bridge.
“One thing led to another and we ended up having the biggest dance class in Winona,” she said. “There were 30 adults dancing with me.”
Under the Bridge is now a weekly summer meetup starting in May and ending in August. A gathering place for dancers to learn new moves from Winona’s renowned dance teachers. It’s also where Dworschak started his dance career.
“It’s a really special place,” she said. “I wanted to create an environment where people could experience camaraderie. I also wanted to show people how to express themselves in ways they’ve probably never done before.”
[ad_2]
Source link
