As we move from one dance season to another, we find it a perfect time to look back on the year!
Rounding Up a Successful 25/26 Season!
We started the year off strong with our taster session in September before moving swiftly through the winter months, with highlights being our competition team audition weekend, our Hello Yellow! campaign, Tash Bash and Kingsholm performances and our annual reunion.
In December, we hosted our Annual Christmas Quiz at Roxy Lanes in Cheltenham, which was attended by students at UOG across many clubs and societies alongside those not affiliated with either. Through ticket prices and our raffle, we proudly raised £606.74 for Sunflowers Suicide Support, who are a community that provides support for those affected by the pain of suicide. (https://www.sunflowerssuicidesupport.org.uk)
On the topic of fundraisers, the end of February brought our highly anticipated So You Think You Can Dance! Fundraising money for Gloucester Feed the Hungry. A total of 13 teams across the uni competed for the coveted first place trophy in front of a sold-out audience, with ultimately Men’s Football taking the win and Women’s Football taking home the Audience Choice award! There were also performances made by our own jazz and street competition teams alongside mini games for the audience to get involved! This event would not be possible without the involvement of all competitors, so we once again offer a huge thanks and congratulations to all those who got involved. We raised a whopping total of £1,640, in addition to a large food donation, for Gloucester Feed the Hungry, a local charity who do incredible work all year round in the Gloucester and surrounding areas.
Our competition season in February and March enabled us to attend the University of Southampton and the University of Derby’s dance competitions, with all 6 of our competition teams and a mixture of 3 solos and 2 duets. Both of these competition days started with early morning wake-ups and ended with trophies in hand on the coach back home, with bundles of laughs and lots of memories made in between.
In addition to this, we were lucky enough to host our own competition on 28th February at Plock Court, judged by three industry professionals and hosted by UOG Dance Alumni, Katy Owens, and Eva Case. The competition, organised by our competition secretary, Ruby Baines, brought together five universities in addition to ours to compete against each other throughout the day across 9 categories and a dance-off. Highlights of the day included: pre-awards group dance with all 171 dancers on the floor together, the pizza van that provided a delicious lunch for all attendees, the guest performance by graduate dance company Junction K and, of course, all Glossy the Goats’ fabulous moves. A huge congratulations to our Tap Team for winning a special award for Best Choreography of the Day! We would like to take this moment to say another huge thank you to everyone who helped on the day and to everyone who came to support. (See below for full results from our competitions this season)
Our final competition came at Varsity against the University of Worcester – and was the competition fierce. All our dancers delivered insane performances across all six teams, and while both Worcester Saints delivered incredible routines on the floor, we were victorious overall, and the Varsity win returned to UoG Dance! A special congratulations to our Ballet and Tap teams who delivered eye-watering wins over the Saints of 15 points (Ballet!) and 19 points (Tap)! Finally, we would like to offer a huge congratulations to Worcester Saints, who were worthy opponents, and we are massively looking forward to getting back on the floor next year to defend our title!
As a club, we would like to take a moment to say a huge thank you to all of our competition team choreographers for their hard work this season and for delivering these incredible routines.
On our social side, we had our weekly Wednesday nights run by Maegan Lewis and Amy Edwards at Home and Botanic, which provided many, many, many laughs and helped strangers who met on a random night during the first full week of uni to become friends with bonds that will last a lifetime. In addition to this, our socials enabled friendly faces of the past few years to return to the club and catch up with old friends! A massive thank you to Mae and Amy; your hard work this year is truly appreciated and noticed by the club, and you have certainly left big shoes to fill!
This year we also consistently ran social and open classes available to all members. These classes were organised by our social class choreographers, Isabel Jacks and Charlotte Mantle, and ranged from jazz to lyrical to acro to Latin. We were also fortunate to have UoG Dance Alumni, Katy Owens, and Emily Thompson, return to teach a class each, alongside a pole and hoop class. These classes were a highlight of the weekly dance calendar, and we would like to thank everyone who taught a class; our social choreographers, these classes would not be possible without you!
Our social class year ended with our annual end-of-year showcase, which (unfortunately) fell on the hottest day of the year so far, but our dancers pushed through the heat to deliver an 11-dance show to our audience. These dances were comprised of our competition dances alongside a collection of social class routines. We were also lucky enough to end the evening with a surprise Domino’s from the SU for being the first club to reach the Silver Team Glos Status!
Our year rounded out with the SU Awards and our own personal awards, which were both attended by many of our members. We were fortunate enough to win Event of the Year for our Home Dance Comp at the SU awards in addition to being nominated for the following: Inclusivity Award, Club Member of the Year (Charlotte Mantle), Best Marketed Group, Fundraiser of the Year (SYTYCD), Legacy Award (Amy Barker). Along with this, several of our members received Full and Half colours on the evening (See full list below).
Dance Awards ended our year, starting with a wholesome group dinner before moving to Mr Cambrays for awards. Dancers across the club were awarded a variety of different awards on both comp and social sides. A MASSIVE congratulations to first-year, Lyla Wills for being named UoG Dance Member of the Year 2026!
We would like to finish this round-up with a huge thank you to all our dancers and supporters from across the 25/26 season. Your commitment, hard work and effort is massively appreciated by everyone; you all make this club what it is! To all our leavers, please remember UoG Dance will always be your home away from home, and we wish you the best in your next steps.
A massive thank you to our committee members for 25/26! Over the year, you have all worked incredibly hard, and you will have a lasting imprint on the club; you have left big shoes to fill – Thank You!
Finally, we would like to offer our Club Captain, Lily-Rae Sepulveda-Tucker, an insanely huge thank you! You worked incredibly hard all season to make the club special to every single one of its members, and for that we are endlessly grateful!
We look forward to getting back in the studio in September and meeting new faces and seeing old ones again,
Dance Love,
Cianna Thompson
Club Captain 2026/27
Committee 2025/26
Club Captain: Lily-Rae Sepulveda Tucker
Vice-Captain: Cianna Thompson
Treasurer: Ellie Mallard
Competition Secretary: Ruby Baines
Marketing Officer: Amy Barker
Social Secretaries: Maegan Lewis & Amy Edwards
Community Officer: Isabel Jacks
Welfare Officer: Havin Yuecetas
Choreographers 2025/2026
Ballet – Isabel Jacks
Tap – Cianna Thompson
Jazz & Contemporary – Amy Barker
Street – Alexis Patten
Wildcard – Charlotte Mantle
Competition Results
Southampton
Ballet – 2nd
Street – 3rd
Lily-Rae & Izzy’s Duet – 3rd
Derby
Tap – 1st
Jazz – 2nd
Contemporary – 2nd
Street – 2nd
Cianna & Eve’s duet – 3rd
UOG Dance Comp
Tap – 1st
Contemporary – 2nd
Ballet – 3rd
Jazz – 3rd
Wildcard – 3rd
Lily-Rae & Izzy’s Duet 1st
Best Choreography of the day – Women In Finance (Tap)
Full Colours
Lily-Rae Sepulveda-Tucker
Cianna Thompson
Half Colours
Amy Barker
Amy Edwards
Chhaya Ivey
Maegan Lewis
Ellie Mallard
Alexis Patten