BEMIDJI, Minn. — Christmas Day 2025 is one Moraya Holleman won’t soon forget.
When Holleman and Bemidji’s Just For Kix team claimed the championship at the National Together We Dance Competition eight months ago, she thought it might be her last chance to dance in front of an audience.
That all changed last on Dec. 25 when Holleman took the field at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis to dance in the elaborate NFL halftime show led by Snoop Dogg.
She was one of 24 “Snoopettes” who high-kicked and danced their way through much of the
10-minute show
that also included country star Lainey Wilson, Italian singer Andrea Bocelli and his son Matteo, and Huntr/x, the fictional girl group from Netflix’s animated hit “KPop Demon Hunters.”
The show was watched by an estimated 30 million viewers on Netflix and many of the 67,000 fans at the stadium who witnessed a Minnesota Vikings victory over the Detroit Lions.
“It was an amazing experience,” said Holleman, a 2025 graduate of Bemidji High School.
Moraya Holleman, pictured on the far left, dances during the halftime show at U.S. Bank Stadium on Christmas Day.
Contributed
For her audition, Holleman had to make a short video of herself dancing in the high-kick style. She was home for Thanksgiving from the University of Minnesota, where she is majoring in biomedical engineering. She danced to “Can’t Hold Us” by the rapper Macklemore, with her cellphone propped on a cart at the Gillett Wellness Center. Then she emailed the video and photos of herself to the company that produced the halftime show.
“There was something about it they liked,” Holleman said.
The dancers rehearsed for five days before Christmas Day, between six and nine hours each day.
“We really didn’t know each other,” Holleman said. “But we all had been trained in the Minnesota kick style growing up, and we all came together and made friends really fast.”
Although the game did not start until 3:30 p.m., the dancers arrived at the stadium by 10:15 to get their hair and makeup done, have lunch … and wait.
“The last thing you want to happen is for stuff to be running late in a huge production like that,” Holleman said. “We all just kind of got to hang out, talk to one another, feel the excitement of the day kind of building. It wasn’t maybe as stressful as I had thought it was going to be. There was just a lot of excitement and energy in the air.”
After Snoop Dogg got the show started, rapping in a red suit with a matching fur-trimmed jacket, the Snoopettes took the field to accompany Huntr/x as the trio sang a version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Holleman and her mates continued to dance through the remainder of the show as Wilson sang “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and the Bocellis sang “White Christmas.”
Mike and Brenda Holleman have been watching their daughter, Moraya, dance since she was 3 years old, and had club level seats for the Christmas Day halftime show.
Contributed
Holleman did not get to meet any of the musical stars. “We were working in very close proximity with them, and all of them were extremely nice people,” she said.
Moraya’s parents, Mike and Brenda Holleman, watched the show from club seats right in front of her. They’ve been following her dance career since she first joined Just For Kix as a 3-year-old.
“It’s just been fun watching her in all of her years of dance,” Brenda said, “because she has always given it her all, from the time she was little until this last performance. She just shines out on the floor. We knew this was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so we purchased club seats that had a perfect spot for viewing her.”
Moraya will return to college in January with fond memories of Christmas 2025. Future plans could include becoming a dance coach.
“This experience was definitely one that reminded me that dance is not going anywhere out of my life,” she said. “I had kind of ignored it a little bit for the last six months, just trying to adjust to college. But this experience kind of slapped me in the face and said, ‘If you think you can ignore dance, you are very, very wrong.’”
Moraya Holleman gives her speech, “Redefining Success,” during Bemidji High School’s commencement ceremony on May 24, 2025, at the Sanford Center.
Madelyn Haasken / Bemidji Pioneer
Dennis Doeden, former publisher of the Bemidji Pioneer, is a feature reporter. He is a graduate of Metropolitan State University with a degree in Communications Management.
