On Jan. 31, Marlborough students gathered in the gym for the highly anticipated annual Spirit Week dance-off, where each grade performed the five minute dance routines they had been perfecting throughout the week. Although practice sessions were limited, each grades’ choreographers spent months planning, thinking and mixing songs to prepare for the occasion.
The dances are scored on five criteria: community and collaboration, choreography, performance quality performance, overall enthusiasm and adherence to contest rules. For the third year in a row, the Class of 2025 won first place in the dance aspect of the competition. Although the rest of the grade learned the dance in four days, choreographers Zoë ’25, Sasha ’25 and Taryn ’25 spent the entire year thinking about it. The team begins to brainstorm future themes right when Spirit Week ends, adding to a running list of ideas they have had since ninth grade.
“There’s not a week that goes by when we don’t think about it,” Zoë said.
After the grade voted on a theme in December, the team began planning choreography and crafting the mixtape. To them, the most critical aspect of designing a successful dance is telling a story and making the dance cohesive and engaging. Sasha emphasized the importance of original formations and creating unique choreography.
“It takes us maybe an hour to get through each 15 seconds,” Sasha said.
Not only does the choreography take hours, but the team has to work to find a balance between advanced and accessible dance moves.
“We have a test because I’m not a good dancer and Zoë is,” Sasha said. “She’d do a dance move, and then I try it out, and we see if it looks good. If it doesn’t, then we change it.”
On the first day of Spirit Week, the choreographers began teaching the grade, kicking off the three hours and 45 minutes of official practice. This year, Zoë and Sasha made a schedule of what to teach each day and invested in megaphones.
A critical aspect of their leadership is flexibility and compromise, both with each other and the larger grade.
“Sometimes it can be difficult, like having too many cooks in the kitchen,” Zoë said. “But in the end, it has helped us. You don’t want one sole leader. Spirit Week is about the community and having all these different ideas makes a dance very successful.”
Sasha and Zoë stressed the camaraderie and trust within the Class of 2025 in their dancing success.
“Everyone’s so close and so passionate about winning,” Sasha said. “If we put the fifth row in the front, they would still be just as dedicated and committed, and that’s what makes our grade super special.”
Following their unprecedented 10th grade victory, the past two years have generated increasingly high pressure for all three choreographers. In 2024, they wanted to know if 2023 was a fluke. In 2025, they wanted to top 2024 and continue to raise the bar.
“[Winning] was a really bittersweet moment,” Zoë said. “We take Spirit Week very seriously, so there was obviously a weight lifted off our shoulders. I’m so proud of everyone and how hard they worked and how they’ve trusted us. It’s great to make history.”
