“I was so excited, because that moment, like, it made me realize that I still have a purpose in dance, and it wasn’t all the way over.”
Sunday May 3, Maize High Senior Audrey Purcell opened Instagram with the announcement that she made the Wichita State Dance Team for the 2026-27 school year. This had a significant impact on Purcell due to her minor setback this winter.
Purcell choreographed a hiphop routine that the Maize High flygirls performed at the basketball senior night game. It was during this routine where she sustained an injury. “I was doing a move, and my knee buckled and popped and felt really weird”, Purcell explained. “Later that week, I had to get an MRI, and they found out that my ACL was torn and I was gonna have to get surgery.”
This was not a stopping point but instead another reason to keep pushing. Purcell did physical therapy and trained. She knew she wanted to keep dancing.
“Dance has always been a space that I can get away from all outside, like distractions and stress, like it was something that I didn’t have to like, I knew I could be myself around. I didn’t have to put on a fake face, and I could just let all of my emotions get out by going to the studio and just dancing.”
Doctors said her dancing career would be on pause for six to nine months. Purcell had planned on dancing in college and was not ready to let go of this dream. She started physical therapy and doing exercises to help her get back to moving.
“I had made a recruitment video before that just in case, and so I had made that recruitment video, I sent it to the coach, kind of talking about what my situation was, and she was very, very understanding,” Purcell said.
After submitting her tryout Purcell patiently waited, hoped, and kept training. She did not receive an email but found out through social media that she made the team. Soon after, she was added into a group chat with the team and already has built relationships.
“It’s taught me to take a step back, take a breath, and know that it is going to fall into the way it should whether I like that or not,” Purcell said.
