South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

Youths participate in Final Four festivities

Two Oakville youngsters participated in the festivities for the recent NCAA Final Four Basketball Tournament in St. Louis.

Tanner Dallas, 9, of Point Elementary School, and Stephanie Anderson, 11, of Wohlwend Elementary School, were two of 14 area children selected for the “Hoop City Kids” performance group at the Hoop City at the America’s Center.

Stephanie and Tanner attended 22 hours of rehearsals in six days to learn the choreography for an 11-minute show, according to a news release.

The “Hoop City Kids” had a show written just for the Final Four, including a soundtrack recorded specifically for the show.

Steve Caroll produced the show, and Ser-gio Mejia was the choreographer.

The routines involved singing, dancing, monologues and choreographed moves with a basketball. A professional actor from Los Angeles served as the “coach.”

The “Hoop City Kids” did a total of 19 performances during the four days of the Final Four festivities.

Tanner had fun getting autographs from some of the players, climbing the rock wall and playing twister. He takes an all-boys’ hip-hop class, but spends even more time doing tae kwon do as he just received his first degree black belt. He also does gymnastics.

Stephanie enjoys basketball, according to the release.

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