People walked through the open gym doors and settled on the bleachers. Students, parents, teachers, and more, took a seat and waited for the action to begin. There was lots of commotion, some people were talking with one another, and others were scrolling through their phones. The anticipation was heavy and excitement filled the room. The dancers were spread across the gym floor, preparing to open up their show. Music started to play, booming through the speakers and shaking the room. Two teams of dancers walked out to the middle of the gym. The audience fell quiet; except for students shouting for their friends on the dancefloor. Then, the first-ever Wolfgang Dance Battle at CHS commenced.

On April 22, 2022, Wolfgang, the CHS hip-hop dance team, held its very first dance battle on campus in the East gym of CHS. Members from Wolfgang were divided into two teams: the Howlers and the Smoke. The Howlers consisted of Kianna King, Zion Asemota, Melody Fang, and Michelle Nguyen; they were dressed in black and white with baseball caps on their heads. Students Alyssa Pliego, Sofia Hixson, Tabitha Soto, and Matthew Viramontes were on Team Smoke, this team featured baseball jerseys with the dancers’ last names printed on the back. Co-captain of Wolfgang Zion Asemota explained the need for the dance battle.

“Wolfgang is a super hype group of people and we just want to make sure we get that representation that I feel like we deserve,” Asemota said. “I feel like the dance battle was one way to kind of hype everyone up and get everyone in the mood that we’ve been in.”

Wolfgang opened up the act together as a whole and performed a routine from previous rallies, making the crowd cheer with excitement. After a couple of announcements and an explanation of what would happen, the real battle began. Each team performed routines that gradually got faster and more impressive in each round. The dancers were coordinated and moved together along to the beat; their moves were smooth and had the audience screaming in the stands. Both Team Smoke and Team Howlers had such passionate fan bases that it is possible judges could not even hear themselves deliberate.

After the routines, the dance battle moved into a freestyle round where dancers from both teams would face each other one-on-one in the middle of the dance floor. Each dancer had one minute to show off their moves and get the crowd as hyped as they could. Dancers met the beat and brought their energy to the table with lots of isolations and pops that got the audience cheering loudly. In one of the final rounds of the battle, Matthew Viramontes and Zion Asemota faced off against each other a second time after the judges couldn’t decide a winner. Asemota threw her hat down towards Viramontes in what looked like a battle winning move, but then he responded by dropping into the splits on the beat drop that made the crowd go wild. The roaring for both sides rang throughout the gym as Asemota and Viramontes brought the heat with their impressive freestyle routine.

At the end of all the routines and freestyle rounds, the judges gave feedback and announced the winners. After careful deliberation, Team Smoke was the winner for the night. Both teams entertained the entire gym and impressed everyone sitting in the stands. Ms. Demher even joined the freestyle circle at the end and showed off her moves. Then following her, Wolfgang’s coach, as well as the two judges joined in and wowed the audience as the event came to an end.

“My favorite thing about Wolfgang is the community because I feel like dance is nothing without its people,” Asemota said. “You need the people there to hype you up. You want to hype up the people that are dancing too. The community is what inspires me to keep on going with dance.”

Wolfgang will continue to perform at events and rallies, but in order to get full coverage and updates from the dance group, make sure to follow @chswolfgang on Instagram to stay updated. Asemota would also like to shout out everybody in Wolfgang.

“You guys are the reason why I feel like I’m becoming a better dancer.” Asemota said. “You’re the reason why I keep on going when it comes to dance, just feeling your energy and just being able to hype you up and see you guys grow. And you guys help me with my growth. I love you guys.”