The day after 37 Desert Vista Dancers got back from Winter Break, their coach, Bianca Caryl, announced to her dancers that they had been selected to perform in the Super Bowl halftime show with Katy Perry.

They had less than 24 hours to contact parents and sign contracts.

“I thought Caryl was kidding at first,” said Lauren Dicarlo, a senior at DV to Ahwatukee Foothills News. “Then she wanted us to call our parents and she had to know by that night… (The experience) made me appreciate dance so much and all my experiences through dance. I’m going off to college next year and it made me really think about how I want to continue dance in college now. I love dance.”

The dancers were the orbs you saw surrounding Katy Perry while she sang “Firework” and “Roar”.

Students were required to keep the performance a secret until after the halftime show. The only other people who knew of them performing were their parents.

“It was hard to keep the secret,” said senior Laikyn Ring to azcentral.com. “Even our teachers were asking what was going on and we couldn’t tell them.”

Rehearsals were held in Glendale and Goodyear, and required over 40 hours of practice in two weeks. Rehearsal typically lasted between four and five hours a day. Though the practices were difficult and long, all of Desert Vista’s dancers agreed that the final product was extremely rewarding.