A decade of work in the studio, countless competitions and one more year competing on the Powell High School dance team paid off for senior Kinsley Braten, who signed to continue her dance and academic career at Hastings College in the fall.

Braten first started dancing when she was 7 years old. She has been competing around Powell and Cody for a decade and continues to dance at UpStage Dance Academy in Powell today.

Alongside dance, she started to cheer before a knee injury her junior year saw her shift towards a different path and compete with the PHS dance team this past season.

“I was worried I was going to injure my knees more while doing cheer because it’s a lot of squatting,” Braten said. “I decided to give the dance team a try and coach (Kelsi) Koritnik being our coach was really cool … We would go to her classroom and watch videos, that’s how we chose our state songs. I’ve loved dance for a really long time so doing dance my senior year was really cool.”

Braten said that the dance and cheer teams were hoping to perform a routine this year, but the two schedules never aligned with the teams practicing at different times and venues.

“I hope that next year they will be able to do that,” she said.

Along with dancing at the studio, Braten has participated in drama at PHS throughout her high school career, something which she said has helped her continue to be active and improve with each activity.

“Everything is very similar because no matter what part of the day it is I’m constantly dancing. I think being active is very good for me,” Braten said.

She said there were plenty of similarities between dancing in a studio competition and performing for the dance team at the state spirit competition this year.

She said each routine lasted around three minutes and her prior experience at the state cheer competition helped with state dance this year.

“I think everything in my brain was very similar, each routine is about three minutes long and at dance competitions everything is three minutes long,” Braten said. “It’s very repetitive and easy for me to know everything going on.”

This year the Panther dance team placed fifth in the 3A hip-hop competition and second in the 3A jazz competition at state spirit in Casper in January.

Moving onto Hastings, Braten said she was able to visit the campus and meet with the coach, helping contribute to her final decision to sign to continue her career there after having already been accepted academically.

Hastings is an NAIA school located in south-central Nebraska, competing in the Great Plains Athletic Conference Championships.

The dance team finished seventh at the conference championships this past season, while also earning three All-American honors, one first team and two third team, with the first team recipient being a senior and the two third team recipients being freshmen.

“Their dance routine is a bit harder because there are more tricks applied to it and it’s much more intricate,” she said. “Their judging system is a lot harder than high school.”

Braten said that she had sent in videos as part of her audition process, as an in-person audition is difficult to schedule.

Academically, Braten heard that Hastings had a strong program for elementary education, helping her lean towards the institution.

“In your first week of the semester you are being put into the classroom to observe and see how everything is working. I think you can choose what grade level you want to go to, they put you into that classroom your first day so you can see and understand how everything works,” Braten said. “I like that because I learn better by observing than I do sitting in a classroom and learning about it.”