She rubbed a deodorantlike stick (affectionately referred to as “butt glue”) on her upper thighs to make the one-piece stay in place. In Prestige’s dressing room, a classroom off a back hallway, Angelina donned her first costume of the day, a green one-piece with a choker neckline. At the dancewear booths ringing the lobby, the dance tops for sale were the size of dinner napkins. The competition accepted dancers as old as 19, but the enterprise skewed much younger. Angelina was a member of the preteen team, but there were also older teenagers and girls as young as 4 who were there to compete. This was Prestige’s fifth competition this season, and its core team of 52 dancers would enter over 20 dance pieces over the course of the three-day competition. With their small heads, shellacked scalps and long necks, the teammates looked elegant and creaturely, like a row of lizards. While she stood sipping coffee, the girls warmed up around her, brushing their fingers against the athletic-gray lobby walls for balance. Crupi still had nightmares about last year’s style, a too-complex choice involving a pouf encircled by braids.
Dina Crupi, Prestige Academy’s 25-year-old studio owner and competition-team director, had chosen the hairstyle for its versatility: It allowed various headpieces and hats to be put on and removed with ease. Each girl wore her black uniform and sported the team hairstyle, a low bun gleaming with hair spray. On a Friday afternoon last spring, Angelina and her teammates from Prestige Academy of Dance arrived at a technical high school in Sparta, N.J., for the Imagine National Dance Challenge, a children’s dance competition. She started competitive dancing less than three years ago. Angelina is a 12-year-old competitive dancer, and canny to the ways in which technical acuity and preadolescent pliability can be combined to her advantage. It left a gaping hole in her smile, but she liked how it looked: “Now if I show the judges I’m mature, they’ll be more impressed,” she said, happily. 32 JUMP, 2016 02/12-14, Pittsburgh (before Mack Z vs.The second time I met Angelina Velardi she had just lost a baby tooth.31 Sheer Talent, 2016 03/05-06, Pittsburgh (midseason hiatus).29 RADIX, 2016 05/06-08, Pittsburgh (at time of Mommy Meltdown).28 Sheer Talent, 2016 06/11-16, Las Vegas Nationals (at time of Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like Ab-bee).10 Artistic Dance Exchange, 2022 02/18-20, Pittsburgh.9 Rising Star Talent, 2022 03/06, Pittsburgh.6 Breakout Dance Competition, 2022 04/22-24, Pittsburgh.5 Artistic Dance Exchange, 2022 04/22-24, Chicago.1 Artistic Dance Exchange, 2023 02/03-05, Pittsburgh.
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