Lea Doroba has been dancing for the WHS Dance Team since her freshman year, and she’s currently the only senior on the dance team. Not only that, but Lea has always put so much effort into her dancing and helping out her teammates during their highs and lows. She has always been charismatic and a wonderful person to be around. To her teammate, Madi Pickens, Lea is “someone who is always going to be there for you no matter what. If you need help with anything, she can do it.”
When interviewing Lea, I did my best to mention her dance journey and how it’s made her who she is today. She’s been dancing for a really long time, and when asked if she was going to continue dancing in college, she said that she wanted to end her dance journey here at Wauconda. Lea explains that she “suffers from a chronic knee condition, so it was very hard for her to dance sometimes,” but still makes it clear that she loves dance with all of her heart and might decide that she “wants to dance again at a later time,” so her journey may not be coming close to closing yet.
There have been so many different choreographies throughout Lea’s last few years at WHS. They were all filled with a ton of energy and definitely caught the eye of everyone who was watching, whether it was at an assembly or during halftime on a Friday night. Each routine was to a different combination of songs; this year’s homecoming dance was a mashup of songs from Teen Beach Movie, but Lea’s favorite dance wasn’t one that she was just a part of. She told me that if she really had to pick a dance, her favorite was the “senior night dance because she got to choose the songs and the choreography, and they [the team] all just had such a fun time with that dance.”
Throughout any sports season, there are always many things that need to be done. A team must set goals, practice hard almost every day, and stick to that rhythm. Each team member’s goals will be different in one way or another, but Lea’s goals for this year were pretty straightforward. “I just want to have fun and take everything in one by one. The season went by really quickly, and it’s hard to believe it’s over.” When I asked about her team and what she’s going to miss about them, she said she would miss “never getting to experience being on such a great team again,” and clearly, these girls mean a lot to her.
Obviously, if you do a sport, you clearly have to love it enough to continue doing it. I asked Lea a similar question. Why did you like to dance? Instead of answering like, “It’s just so fun,” Lea went into detail on her love for dance. She likes dance because it “showed her true emotion in situations. Dance was a place to clear her mind and just have peace within herself. Dance made her feel like she had a purpose.” When you watch Lea dance, it’s clear to everyone that she loves this sport more than anything and that she is always willing to give it a hundred percent. Lea also mentioned how, growing up, “she always loved to watch people and to see their emotions through dance,” which is what made her want to try dancing in the first place.
There’s a huge difference between senior year and freshman year. During your senior year, it’s the year of lasts: last first day, last homecoming, last prom. For freshmen, though, it’s a whole new chapter of their lives. As a dancer, Lea has changed a lot from her freshman year (when she was just 14) to her senior year (as an almost 18-year-old). I asked Lea where “freshman year Lea” thought her dance career would be now, and she was completely honest. “I thought I would quit,” she told me. “Freshman year was a scary time, but I powered through the season and started to enjoy what I was doing and wanted to make a positive impact on my team.” Lea also mentions how she “has a few bumps in the road,” but in the end, all she wanted was “to get better and do what I love.”
For anyone who wants to join the dance team in the future, Lea is definitely the person to listen to. She’s danced through her issues with her knee and grown into a great dancer throughout her years here. I asked her to give any advice she has for future dancers, and all she has to say is, “Give it your all. Show people who you are through dance, become friends with the girls around you because they will become your family, and lastly, just have fun.”