Cottonwood girl to take on international competition

BIG TIME
Alyssa Banwarth of Cottonwood will perform her dance routine against international competition after winning U.S. finals. Alyssa was lip-syncing to music as she held this pose.

Cottonwood resident Alyssa Banwarth,11, performed a dance routine June 26 that won her a place on a United States Dance Team that would allow her to compete for a world title in Germany Nov. 23 against 41 other countries, said her mother Cindee Spurgeon.

She has spent the last year honing her show dance routine to the music, "Show Off." To win her place, she was nominated regionally in Sacramento before winning one of the top three places in the U.S. finals that were juried by the International Dance Organization.

Having trained regularly since she was five years old, the 11-year-old said she practices four hours every day after school. She also practices gymnastics through Athletics Unlimited.

Alyssa first took a dance class when she was about 3 years old.

"I didn't like it very much. I just wasn't into it as I am now," Alyssa said, adding that she was six-years-old when she started dancing competitively.

"She trains so hard," said Alyssa's dance coach Sonya Kennedy, owner of California Dance Company on Marx Way in Anderson. With the studio, Alyssa competes in various cities in the Bay Area.

"A lot of people don't realize we have so much talent," Kennedy said.

Alyssa fell just short of making the U.S. team last year, and worked extra hours on her routine this year.

"Alyssa really, really wanted it," Kennedy said.

The most difficult aspect of Alyssa's routine, she said, was a series of moves she called a leg extension and turn. To demonstrate, she stood up, and stretched one leg straight up until her foot was over her head.

"Now, while I'm doing this I have to turn around twice and then again three more times," Alyssa said.

While never seriously injuring her self, Alyssa said she was bruised all over her knees when she went to New Jersey for the U.S. finals competition. One of her moves she practices, she said, involves landing on her knees.

Aside from the dancing, leaping and stretching involved in her routine, Alyssa must also lip-synch to the music - while smiling added her father Ron Spurgeon.

Before she goes to Germany, the eleven-year-old will leave homeroom behind her and start sixth grade at West Cottonwood Jr. High this fall. Alyssa said she was looking forward to learning Greek mythology.

Alyssa said she hopes to join a ballet school or dance academy when she gets older.