Thea Cosgrove with dance award and invitation.
Thea Cosgrove is an impressive young woman. She is poised, articulate, and focused. A junior at Suffield High School, with a strong program there, she has an even stronger demand on her time and energy outside of school. Every afternoon she leaves SHS and goes to a local dance studio, where she trains until 10:00 or even later. She spends her time there practicing various routines, in both a group format and individually, in preparation for a major dance competition taking place in Belgium in late November. And this is not her first international dance competition; last year she represented the U.S. in Poland. She also travels to New York on weekends from September to November to practice for Team USA.
Thea attends classes at the “Dazzle” Studio in Feeding Hills. The competition is sponsored by United States Tournament of Dance, which also runs Team USA; the six-day event itself is organized by the International Dance Organization, with 90 countries represented and 70,000 dancers competing. There are many categories for a dancer to choose from; Thea reports that the three most popular are jazz, contemporary, and hip-hop. There are both group and solo routines, and several age tiers, ranging from preschoolers to adults.
Thea began dancing lessons at the age of three and was competing at five. She does ballet, tap, jazz, hip-hop, lyrical, contemporary, and musical theater. At the international competition, awards are given at each age level and in each category. The event functions much like the Olympics, with elaborate preparations and accompanying music for each presentation. It’s a BIG deal! It’s a big deal for reasons other than the dancing: the participants make new friends, establish networks, develop enormous self-discipline,
learn to balance the various parts of their lives, and Thea does all of this without any signs of stress.
As she looks toward her college choices, Thea, like all college-bound juniors, is investigating her opportunities. She would like some day to be a physical therapist, specializing in dance therapy. But wisely, she realizes that there’s plenty of time to explore many
avenues before she makes a final decision. With the impressive skills she has already acquired, as well as the important habits that go along with those skills, she is certainly bound for a happy future. And she deserves it!