Ohio State’s club dance team makes program history with both teams placing top 5 at NDA Nationals

The Ohio State? Club Dance Team with their third place trophy for the D1A hip-hop division. Credit: Courtesy of Lainey Harris

This past weekend, The Ohio State Club Dance Team placed third in D1A hip-hop and fourth in D1A jazz at the NDA Nationals, beating their past records and persevering through a difficult season, making their placements even more meaningful.

Lainey Harris, a fourth-year in marketing and co-president of the team, said their goal for success going into the season was clear — and their motivation had everything to do with their teammate Cailin Joyce, who died in December 2025 after months of fighting a rare blood disorder, per prior Lantern reporting.

“We really just wanted to go out and do everything we could to make her proud and make her happy,” Harris said. “We were so happy with where our dances got to — from when we learned them to Nationals — that when we came off stage for both dances, we didn’t even care what we placed, because we knew it was exactly what we wanted them to look like and we knew it was exactly what Cailin would want them to look like as well.”

Parker said losing Joyce was one of the biggest changes the team went through this season.

“We had to overcome so many challenges with that as a team, but I think that it truly made us so much stronger as a team,” Parker said. “We all just had the same goal in mind going into Nationals, and it was just to dance for Cailin and dance as full out as possible, because we know that that’s what Cailin would have done and that’s what she wanted us to do.”

Dilynn Parker, a graduate student in biomedical engineering and co-president of the team, said they’ve made major changes to their training that will most likely be used in future seasons, given the impact it has had.

“We just knew that we could achieve more with the dancers that we had on the team, so we really wanted to push the limits,” Parker said. “We ended up getting a personal trainer … The attack that we had for the dances changed so much from that, and I think that we’re probably gonna keep doing that as a team, just because of how drastic the difference it made [is].”

Harris said the team also made last-minute changes to their jazz costumes, after the judges’ stated that the pants they were wearing blended in with the backdrop too well.

“They wanted us so badly to change the costumes, so we were like, ‘All right, if that’s what they want, we’re gonna do it,’” Harris said. “Day two, we cut them, and our score went up a ton.”

Harris said funding looks different for club teams, especially if they want to take themselves to the next level, due to lack of provided resources.

“We are just so proud because we are a club team that competes against varsity teams, we talked about how we got a trainer and everything — that was all out of pocket,” Harris said. “We were willing to pay because we wanted to level up to where the other teams were at.”

Harris said the team also had to make unexpected changes to their jazz costumes, after the judges’ stated that the pants blended in with the backdrop too well.

“They wanted us so badly to change the costumes, so we were like, ‘All right, if that’s what they want, we’re gonna do it,’” Harris said. “Day two, we cut them, and our score went up a ton.”

Parker said she suffered an injury just weeks before Nationals and was unable to perform, but felt nothing but pride for her teammates.

“I was crying tears of happiness when they came off stage, because I was just so proud of what they put in on the floor and all the work they had accomplished,” Parker said. “That was just like [a]whole other thing that we had to go through.”

Parker said this season has set them up to succeed in future seasons.

“We’ve made program history this year, which was insane,” Parker said. “We’ve never placed that high in jazz and we’ve never had two teams in [the] top five at once. Ending on such a high this year from our placements, will just go for success next year.”

Harris said the team’s mindset was simple — they wanted to prove their worth as a club team on campus.

“We just wanted to go out there and show everyone what we worked so hard for,” Harris said.

Parker said ultimately, the team is proud of their season’s ending.

“Ending this season on this note was just the best thing that could have happened to the team after everything we’ve been through over the past four months,” Parker said. ”Just to show that we can do big things, even when hard things really happen to us. I think that it just sets us up for success for next season.”