The Dancing with Victoria Performing Arts Centre teams pose for a photo at their banquet at the Crystal Ballroom in Jamestown. P-J photo by Christian Storms

The Dancing with Victoria Performing Arts Centre dance studio is located in a small town, but that doesn’t stop it from putting on big time performances.

The Jamestown based studio had all five of its teams, the Mini Hip-Hop, Junior Hip-Hop, Senior Hip-Hop, Teen Lyrical and Senior Lyrical all qualify for the Starbound National Dance competition in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The competition begins today and the small town studio had to go through a lot of big time talent to get to the competition today.

“We have recently done three dance competitions in Buffalo,” Studio Director Jaclyn Haskell-Ferraro stated. “We have gone against people in major cities and they’ve won. Not only have they done well, but they have won first place and they have been top scoring teams.”

At nationals there will be more talent from all around the country, but that has not intimidated the dancers this season.

“Jamestown is a small area and a small town,” added Dance Mom Jen Goshgarian. “We’re going to a big city and going up against big studios. But they already showed they can win against these big studios and we’re excited to see what they do on the national stage.”

Dancing with Victoria has been in business for six years and has improved every year. The proof of the improvement is the success every team has had in qualifying for nationals.

Of the five teams, three of them are hip-hop based and each team has a different unique routine. The Mini Hip-Hop team has had some of the best reception all season long performing Cruella.

“Our Mini is really highly loved,” added Haskell-Ferraro. “The lead is Cruella and everyone else is dressed as dalmations. They have qualified for nationals at every single dance competition that we have gone to, so the Mini team has done extremely well.”

The Junior Hip-Hop is doing a race car driver theme and the Senior Hip-Hop group is doing Hocus Pocus, which Haskell-Ferraro said the judges have loved all season.

Each year the groups do a new theme and have to perfect it over the course of the season. The five teams have worked hard listening to the critiques throughout the season to have their full talent on display in Atlantic City.

“There is so much attention that is brought to the studio and how much talent there is here,” Haskell-Ferraro added about the studio’s success. “I hear people amazed we’re from Jamestown and they say we seem like we’re from a big city. These kids work so hard and they take their judge’s critiques seriously in order to better themselves in order to go to nationals. You have to have tough skin to be a competitive dancer.”

While some people might see being a small town team as a problem, the Dancing with Victoria studio sees the benefits of it.

“I think that these young girls and young men think of each other as family,” Goshgarian stated. “That’s something that’s brought from their studio and their teachers. They’re excited to be together, they’re happy about it. It just shows that the environment their teacher’s foster creates that family environment which makes them want to do well for each other.”

Once nationals end, competition for the season is over, but that doesn’t mean Dancing with Victoria stops dancing. Last year they performed at Pride Fest and this year they’ll be performing for the Comedy Center.

“We’re doing a performance at the Comedy Center for Christmas in July,” Haskell-Ferraro added. “Our three hip-hop teams will be performing. It’s very exciting that the community can see what they performed at nationals. We also performed at the Jackals games this year which is great for girls in their first year to give them the chance to perform in front of people. Last year we did Pride Fest which we absolutely love doing, but because we were preparing for nationals it was too hard to schedule that.”

If it seems like the dancers don’t get a break, it’s because they don’t want to stop dancing.

“They don’t want to stop,” Haskell-Ferraro said about the dancers. “I say to them ‘let’s take two weeks off’ and they yell ‘no, we’re good with one week.’ After nationals we’ll have dance camps over the summer. With dance you can easily lose technique quickly if you’re not kept in shape.”

With all the success Dancing with Victoria has achieved, Haskell-Ferraro credits the success to the athletes and their parents.

“I’m extremely proud of the dancers and the parents,” stated Haskell-Ferraro. “As much hard work as the children put into this, we have excellent parents that get them to and from practice. We have kids that are very well-rounded and involved in other activities — which we encourage — and parents are able to get them to and from those activities. The kids never complain, they just want to be here and it shows because they truly shine on stage.”

Starting today and wrapping up on Saturday, the five teams from the Dancing with Victoria Performing Arts Centre will compete at the Starbound National Dance competition in Atlantic City, New Jersey. All of the dancers hard work from the season will culminate at the biggest competition of the season and they got there from their hard work, the coaches at the studio, their parents and community support.

“We give a big thank you to the community,” Goshgarian added. “A lot of our dancers have been fundraising to get to nationals and have done well with that. So thank you to our community for helping them.”