On April 21, NDB’s most spirited annual event commenced. A beloved NDB tradition, Aquacades is an annual poolside rally filled with deck and swim performances made by students and even teachers. A group of alumnae are invited to return each year in order to judge each performance and determine the winners of all categories.

NDB’s Associated Student Body (ASB) organizes the whole event and has been planning it since May 2022. In December, ASB announced that Aquacades 2023 would be vacation destination themed, cleverly named “Vaycades.” Each class was designated a specific theme and music genre with the requirement that it be incorporated into all class routines. This year, the freshmen had the mountains with country music, sophomores had the jungle and rock, juniors had the city and R&B and seniors had the beach and pop music.

Students get involved with Aquacades by signing up to work on the class backdrop or by doing a routine. These are started weeks and even months in advance. The backdrops are directed by backdrop captains that sign up to lead its execution.

The classes get competitive over dance mixtapes, costumes, routines and spirit.

On the day of Aquacades, students attended the Aquacades rally in the Moore Pavillion at the end of the school day. Organized by ASB, the rally included games as each class competed for spirit points.

The students were then sent home to prepare for the evening. At 4:30 p.m., students arrived back at school dressed up in class colored face paint, tutus and anything else they could find. Those who were participating in a routine arrived in costume, ready to perform.

The alumnae were all invited to tailgate before they were ushered in for each class’ entrance. “Entrances” are skits performed by each grade, and are prepared ahead of time by NDB’s class councils. The entrances begin the festivities as classes compete to have the most creative performance and appeal to the judges for spirit points.

After class entrances, each alumna judge was announced and welcomed back with a warm applause from the student body, which began the main event.

Students in routines headed to their designated classrooms which overlooked the pool while the others gathered at the bleachers. Vaycades began with the solo deck and swim routines, with 21 routines to follow.

ASB’s routine was the last to perform. Their routine is longer than all others as the routine combines the themes and music genres of all four classes.

Students awaited anxiously for the winners of the sections, and especially, the winners of Aquacades as a whole. Once it came down to the top two classes, everyone listened for who would be announced as the overall winner. When the junior Dragons heard their class named, they proudly cheered their class chant.

“Winning Aquacades was huge for the Class of 2024 this year,” said junior Jaimie Cleland. “Every single person in the junior class was screaming and cheering each other on, it was awesome.”

Vaycades proved to be a memorable night of the 2022-2023 school year. The event encouraged a sense of comradery among the classes, building the sisterhood that is so valued at NDB.