Peachtree Ridge High School Dance Team earns State Championship

Congratulations to the Peachtree Ridge High School Dance Team for winning the Georgia High School Association (GHSA) 6A Dance State Championship. This marks the Peachtree Ridge Dance Team’s second Dance State Championship in the past three years. The team previously won the Dance State Championship in 2023 and came in third place in the following year.

“This season, we as a team were determined to win back the state title for State Champions, and we never looked back; the entire team had a goal, and we envisioned it and truly never stopped working together to reach our dream,” says Courtney Ondre, Peachtree Ridge High’s Artistic Director.

Ondre says The Ridge Dance Team made choices at the start of the season to work differently than the year before because they knew the state of Georgia's competition in dance is fierce. She notes that last year’s team comprised strong dancers, and coming in third was fabulous because the scores at the state competition were excruciatingly close. The team entered the competition knowing that all the teams were immensely talented and all they could do was perform to the very best of their ability.

Looking back on this season after the first few weeks of rehearsal, Ondre started to observe changes in how the team was maneuvering in rehearsal and learning to work with everyone's personality. Together, they discussed vision, differences in personalities, being performers, and all the things they needed to learn to be with one another day in and day out. That is where the change came into play, learning how everyone worked their own perfectionism, frustrations, disappointments, and dealing with hours of rehearsal at school and with their own outside dance companies.  

“Each rehearsal mattered, and the team rehearsed like it was a performance each day,” Ondre adds.

Ondre says the team truly embodies the spirit of what it means to share a vision and stop at nothing. She recalls that when the team lost at the competition right before the state championship, a team member asked, "What are we going to do now? What is your plan?" Ondre took that moment in as a coach, and together, the team studied film of their routine and changed sections they felt were not dynamic enough. She told her team that they could win with their energy and performance. They had team tricks, and every single member could move and dance. However, the one thing they embodied as a whole was a vision of winning and the ability to put the team first over their individualism.

“Throughout our season, this team embodied what we all dream of as a coach, teacher, and director,” Ondre says. “[This] is the true definition of what a group of hard-working people can do with a vision. I will never forget this season, ever.”