Abby Dehmer
Staff Writer

After 18 years, Forest Lake’s Kourtni Lind is saying goodbye to her competition career.

For years she has participated in a variety of dance competitions, earning trophies, titles and opportunities.

In September Lind moved to Los Angeles and is now competing for a different type of title: professional dancer.

Lind will be competing against the best of the best for jobs in the dance industry.

If those competitions go as well as the previous 18 years, Lind will be at the top in no time.

Over the summer, Lind capped her career by taking a number of coveted titles.

Summer
competition

Lind started in Wisconsin Dells at the Wisconsin Statewide Dance Competition where she took first and second place top scoring solo awards, 3rd high scoring duet with her partner Jackie Kling, a special award for choreography and she had the highest score in over 1000 routines that were given.

From Wisconsin Dells, Lind moved on to national competition “Masquerade” in Minneapolis.

Lind spent the next week competing for judges for the “National Dancer of the Year” competition. Each day she took classes with the judges and on day four, she started competition.

Lind took home the top scoring senior solo, the solo challenge champion, National Miss Masquerade and best choreography of the entire competition.

In addition to all of those awards Lind was also recognized as the National Dancer of the Year.

After that competition it was off to New York City to train with one of the choreographers of “So You Think You Can Dance,” Brian Freidman.

Lind was chosen, along with 49 other dancers from around the United States, to attend the summer intensive program called “Pulse.”

Lind’s mother Robin said that Kourtni danced between 12 and 15 hours a day and was completely exhausted after each day. And although they weren’t competing, Lind was named the “Pulse Performer of the Year.”

From the summer intensive, Lind made a quick trip to L.A. to help out a dance company she had been touring with for over two years.

By July Lind was in Las Vegas for the International Dance Challenge nationals.

The competition included dancers from 30 states and five countries. Lind attended class and rehearsals with the other dancers who were all competing for the National Miss International Dance.

All of the classes were observed by the judges and each dancer went through interviews and an audition.

For their final competition the dancers performed the dance they were taught by their instructor during the week. After her performance Lind was asked to stay on stage as the awards were given out.

She first made it into the top five competitors and then she was announced as the new 2007 National Miss International Dance.

Lind took home a six foot trophy, a banner, flowers, a photo shoot and $1000 cash prize, as well as a television performance that aired last weekend on cable channel 10.

Dancing Dreams

In September Lind signed with one of the top agencies in the United States, “M.S.A.”

Her first audition as a professional dancer was to be one of four dancers for Celine Dion’s Tour.

Lind didn’t get the job, but she was one of the top 25 competitors, giving her yet another title to attain.

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