Lansing’s Phanhthalath to join Towson dance team

Alea Phanhthalath is used to winning — a lot.

The Lansing native helped The Next Jennaration Dance Studio capture countless national championships and three world titles over the past 15 years. This fall, she will be taking her talents to Maryland, where one of the most successful college dance teams resides.

Phanhthalath will be attending Towson University to continue her academic and dance careers. The Tigers have won a jaw-dropping 19 national titles, all occurring this century. Phanhthalath is more than looking forward to soon being a part of a dancing dynasty.

“I’ve always wanted to be on a Division I dance team ever since I was little,” Phanhthalath said. “Right when I walked on Towson’s campus, I felt like I was at home. The coach, Tom Cascella, was very welcoming, and he’s such a creative choreographer. I love the way he teaches and the bond he has with each of the students. The team is very inspiring. They’re very supportive of each other, and they work very hard. I’m excited to dance with each of them.”

Phanhthalath’s commitment to Towson would not have been possible without her coach Jenna Stickel, who has taught her ever since she started dancing at two years old. Phanhthalath expressed her gratitude to Stickel for making her the elite dancer she is today.

“Miss Jenna is so supportive, and she pushes me to my best ability,” Phanhthalath said. “She just wants me to be the best dancer I can be. She’s a great teacher, and she’s the reason I got this far into dancing. I’m very thankful for her.”

Despite The Next Jennaration losing such a prolific talent, Phanhthalath is encouraged by the future of the dance program, especially with how much it has evolved in recent memory.

“We try to get kids as young as possible,” Phanhthalath said. “The team has grown so much, and there’s just so many little kids on our competitive team, and they’re traveling as much as we do at four or six years old. It’s crazy, and I hope they dance in college like me, as well.”

There’s plenty of debate surrounding whether or not dance should be categorized as a sport. But after hearing what Phanhthalath and her fellow dancers go through to prepare for each competition, those who don’t think it’s a sport should reconsider.

“It’s a lot of work,” Phanhthalath said. “We practice four hours almost every day. You have to stretch and work out outside of dance… We do a lot of cardio and abs and we also go to Journey Fitness to work out there… People definitely don’t think of dance as a sport. They just think we just dance in circles on stage. But it’s definitely a lot more work than that, and it takes a lot of dedication and time.”

Along with the physical aspect of the sport, dancers also have to learn a lot of choreography for a wide range of music, from ballet to hip hop. For Phanhthalath, contemporary music is her go-to genre for dancing to tell a story.

“There’s slower music, which is lyrical and contemporary,” Phanhthalath said. “There’s usually more of a storyline in those types of dances, so it’s easier to perform. Jazz and hip hop is if you want to have more energy and really look crazy on stage.”

Phanhthalath translates her dancing prowess to cheerleading at Lansing High School, which Stickel also coaches. Phanhthalath has been on the team since seventh grade and was one of the captains this past year. Over the years, she’s noticed some similarities between dance and cheer that have been mutually beneficial.

“In cheerleading, there’s dancing involved,” Phanhthalath said. “There’s also tumbling, and—at least with my dance team—we tumble a lot, so I have that advantage of knowing how to tumble because of Miss Jenna. At The Next Jennaration we also do really crazy lifts, so it was really easy for me to adapt from dancing to cheerleading. It’s mostly kind of the same thing for me at least because my team would do stunts like that.”

As Phanhthalath gets set to join another outstanding dance team, she hopes that the sport will continue to grow in both participation and attendance at the local level.

“I think dance is a really inspiring sport,” Phanhthalath said. “You can just go out on stage in front of hundreds of people and tell a story and be yourself. It’s a really amazing opportunity to get to do it. It’s very exciting and amazing.”

Phanhthalath concluded: “Dance is such a crazy world. The amount of talent at competitions is insane because every team wants to be the best obviously, so just going to a dance competition and seeing all the different amounts of dances is crazy.”

Phanhthalath will be majoring in sociology at Towson.