Alexandra Walz doesn’t make a big deal out of it, but she’s one of the best dancers in New England. And she continues to put in the time and work, every day, to stay there.

A junior day student from Southwick, Mass., Alex started dancing when she was eight years old, which is fairly late for dancers to start. Before she danced, she used to be very good at cross country, but decided to quit because of its rigorous schedule. She ended up trying out dance because it felt more like a team and ended up being competitive really fast, she said.

Alex practices six hours a night after school and then comes home to work on academics until 2:00 a.m. It’s a “stressful life,” she admits, especially as a junior in high school.

“I kind of live a double life in which I come to school and then no one knows that I am kind of like a professional dancer,” she said. “I kind of keep it under wraps.”

But the national dance audience knows exactly who she is.

Throughout her time dancing, Alex has competed in around 25 regional and five national competitions. Her solo performance pieces are more centered towards contemporary dance, whereas in group dances the style could range between lyrical, Broadway jazz, and ballet, which she picked up at 10.

Alex said she loved dancing right away, but wasn’t aware just how talented she was until others, including agencies, started seeing it.“I didn’t realize that I was actually good until agencies started picking up on me and I started getting jobs, like modelling for dance and dancing back up,” Alex told The Willistonian.

Winning Nationals for three consecutive years, in South Carolina, California, and Connecticut, lead her to get more attention from the agencies. It was then, she said, that she “started to realize that I can actually go somewhere with this.”

Alex took a break from dance sophomore year to focus more on high school after being home-schooled prior to Williston.

“When I first came to Williston I first took a year off of dance, because I had competitions on Saturday and it was a lot of travelling,” she said. “And before I came to Williston I was home schooled, so I could pursue dance.”

Alex has since learned to balance her dance and school schedules, and although she admits she might not want to pursue dance “professionally for the rest of my life,” right now, she has her sights set on the next national competition.

Alex humbly told The Willlistonian about how she was asked to become a professional dancer.

“For the area we live in New England, there is not as much talent as there is in L.A.,” she explained. “Because [that’s] where you choose to go pro. I was given the option to go pro but then I chose not to, because I want to [have a] normal high school education.”

Alex’s dance director is the famous studio owner and dance teacher of “Dance Moms,” Loree Cloud, who is the owner of New England Dance and Gymnastic Centers.

“My particular director, she was on ‘Dance Moms’ as [well] as my duet partner, she was also on ‘Abby’s Ultimate Dance.’ So they were both big names in the industry [and] they inspired me to put myself out there,” she said.

She was also given the rare opportunity to join “Dance Moms,” but denied the offer.

“I chose not to do it because that is not the life I wanted,” she said.