What’s the distinction between dance workforce and pom workforce? Drill and majorette? Step, track, and shade guard?
Every type of workforce is present in excessive faculties all throughout the U.S. (and even past). However not each faculty has all types, and genres can differ primarily based on tradition and geography. There are additionally overlaps in parts like choreography, props, and venues, and “dance workforce” is even thought of a class of its personal inside the bigger umbrella of highschool dance teams.
To offer some readability, Dance Spirit spoke with coaches and dancers from a few of the hottest varieties of highschool dance groups. Learn on for his or her insights.
Dance Crew
A typical highschool dance workforce fuses quite a lot of types, together with jazz, hip hop, and sport day. Most groups carry out in school occasions—like pep rallies and sports activities video games—and dance competitions.
Mia Gomez is a senior at Coral Reef Excessive College in Miami, FL, and captain of its dance workforce, the Varsity Cudettes. She says that dance workforce season begins in Could to work on approach and prepare for competitors prep camps in the summertime. Within the fall, dancers be taught their routines and carry out at pep rallies, and from November to February, they put together for Nationals. “Throughout Nationals season, it will get very intense,” says Gomez. Then, new members audition within the spring, and the cycle continues. The workforce is break up into junior varsity for underclassmen and varsity for upperclassmen. Due to their vary of types, dance workforce members don’t stick to at least one specific music style. They carry out to their faculty’s battle track at pep rallies and of their game-day routine, which they carry out at UDA Excessive College Nationals. For competitions, they dance to something from instrumental items to upbeat pop.
Costumes: Gomez says most dance groups put on embellished and bejeweled leotards to bop competitions like UDA. Some groups like to combine it up with sudden types. (The Varsity Cudettes wore lengthy skirts ultimately yr’s competitors.)
Faculty prep: Many highschool alumni go on to affix school groups. Gomez says that in recent times she’s seen a rise within the variety of Varsity Cudettes who enter the school dance-team recruitment course of. Alumni have joined The Ohio State College dance workforce and the LSU Tiger Women, for instance. “Now could be the time when lots of our women actually need to be on a workforce.”
Tune Crew or Pom Crew
Whenever you hear the time period “track workforce,” you may think a gaggle of singers. Nevertheless it really refers to a sort of highschool dance workforce frequent in California. Its identify comes from considered one of its capabilities: main songs at sporting occasions. Versus cheerleaders, “track leaders are those that dance on the sidelines,” says Danielle Darwazeh, dance director and head coach of the track program at Santa Margarita Catholic Excessive College in Santa Margarita, CA.
Tune-team season is year-round, with clinics and auditions within the spring, UDA camp in the summertime, sporting occasions within the fall, and competitors season within the winter. Two varieties of performances comprise a track workforce’s schedule: sideline and aggressive. Sideline performances happen at soccer and basketball video games, the place track leaders carry out about 10 brief dances, known as “sidelines” or “time-out dances.” At competitions, track groups compete towards one another and different dance groups. The track workforce for the Santa Margarita highschool attends 5 – 6 competitions per season main as much as UDA Nationals. “It’s a foremost a part of our yr and an enormous element of what we’re working towards all through the season,” says Darwazeh.
Darwazeh is intently tied to song-leading historical past—she was a track chief at Mater Dei highschool, whose workforce dates again to the late Nineteen Sixties: “It has progressed a lot through the years in how a lot approach has been added to track main.” The identical tips that was once reserved for choose members of her varsity workforce at the moment are obligatory for junior varsity. Like dance groups, track groups are sometimes school preparatory in nature. In accordance with Darwazeh, track groups do “a bit little bit of every thing.” Their foremost focuses are pom and jazz, which they compete in.
Custom: On senior evening, some track groups honor their graduating seniors by giving them flower crowns and sashes to put on whereas they dance on the sidelines. Youthful workforce members will take turns sharing speeches concerning the seniors that they’ve bonded with.
Props: Tune leaders nearly all the time dance with poms, except they’re performing a contest jazz or hip-hop routine.
Drill Crew
If a workforce takes the soccer area sporting a cowboy hat and boots, they’re in all probability a Texas drill workforce. The drill type originates with the Kilgore Faculty Rangerettes, a workforce based at Kilgore Faculty in 1940 by Miss Gussie Nell Davis. Davis’ workforce carried out halftime reveals with the intention of protecting soccer followers of their seats, reasonably than behaving “improperly” below the bleachers.
Former Rangerette Libby Koepke now coaches the drill workforce at Clear Creek Excessive College in League Metropolis, TX. “Typically when individuals hear ‘drill workforce,’ they suppose ROTC,” she says. “Nevertheless it’s not that. We’re doing dance approach.” (Groups do typically have military-inspired management ranks, known as officers, that embrace colonel, lieutenant colonel, main, and captain, although some groups have ventured away from this setup, says Koepke.) Dancers sometimes carry out to marching-band music at soccer video games and sit within the stands throughout sport time, typically performing stationary routines within the stands. Exterior of video games, they attend competitions towards different excessive faculties. Classes can embrace giant teams, small teams, and solos in types like jazz, up to date, and lyrical, in addition to pom, kick, and novelty.
Drill workforce is a year-round exercise, with soccer season within the fall, competitors/contests within the winter and spring, and a spring present. Dancers are sometimes required to take approach lessons in the summertime. Audition timing can range, with some groups holding auditions within the spring for the next yr and others within the winter.
Uniforms: Most drill groups mannequin their uniforms after the Rangerettes, who invented the Western-inspired ensemble of a cowboy hat, skirt (or pants, for boys), and cowboy boots at school colours. Crew members additionally typically put on a leather-based belt and, round their wrists, leather-based cuffs (known as gauntlets). The highest portion of the uniform varies, with some widespread types being a vest, cropped jacket, or triangle-shaped overlay. All are extremely adorned with appliqués, sequins or rhinestones, and fringe. Drill groups additionally typically dance with common brief poms or lengthy poms known as streamers.
Signature step: Drill groups famously carry out kicklines and soar splits of their area routines.
Coloration Guard and Winter Guard
Coloration guard is a phase of a marching band that performs with props like flags, sabers, and wooden rifles. Along with dance vocabulary, there may be approach to how every prop, known as tools, is manipulated, together with spins and tosses. Guard originated from historic navy traditions, when a regiment of troopers would carry flags onto the battlefield.
A yr is break up into two seasons, fall and winter/spring. Within the fall, shade guard performs an eight-to-10-minute manufacturing alongside the band’s musicians. These routines are sometimes carried out at halftime reveals and band competitions and may embrace advanced motion, props, and themes. Then, shade guard enters its “winter guard” season, the place the dancers (no band) carry out a distinct, barely shorter routine indoors to pre-recorded tracks, and typically with set items to assist painting a narrative.
“Dance approach is so essential as a result of your physique motion influences the way you spin,” says Kassandra Vasquez, who coaches shade guard at Flowing Wells Excessive College in Tucson, AZ. “After I’m educating my guards, at no matter stage of dance coaching they’re, we’re utilizing all the right dance vocabulary.” In rehearsals, guard performers will go throughout the ground to observe dance approach, with tools coaching sometimes accomplished with remoted workouts or together with motion. At contests, judges rating routines on tools approach, motion, and the general design and influence of the efficiency, with an general give attention to choreography and execution.
Costumes: Costumes normally replicate the efficiency theme reasonably than faculty colours. Flags and different props are sometimes styled to match. “You’re judged in your costume,” Vasquez says. “Some groups pay upwards of $200 to have them custom-made, however final yr I thrifted blazers for my youngsters as a result of they have been portraying workplace staff.” On the sphere, shade guard will put on an energetic sneaker or jazz shoe, and for indoor winter guard, a jazz shoe, half-sole, or naked ft are most popular.
Music: Whereas fall season routines are carried out to the marching band, winter guard will get inventive, incorporating songs with lyrics, spoken phrase, and instrumental parts.
Majorette
Majorette dance originates from traditionally Black faculties and universities (HBCUs) within the American South. (The style is distinct from baton-twirling majorettes.) In accordance with Chasen Kirby, who coaches Westover Excessive College’s Dazzling Platinum Jewels in Fayetteville, North Carolina, majorette has unfold from HBCUs to excessive faculties and different group packages over the previous century.
Kirby describes majorette as a mix of various dance genres (jazz, hip hop, ballet, and extra), and every workforce has its personal “aptitude.” For instance, he says, Jackson State College’s Prancing J-Settes are recognized for his or her hard-hitting bucking (shifting the hips back and front with deep, extensive legs), whereas The Southern College’s Fabulous Dancing Dolls are “daintier.” Majorettes carry out within the stands and on the sphere throughout soccer video games, in addition to at competitions. The season usually runs from July to November—in the course of the faculty yr, the Jewels observe from 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm Monday by way of Thursday, carry out at video games on Friday, and compete on Saturday.
Whereas majorette is a predominantly Black dance type, Kirby says he’s seen dancers of varied ethnicities, although it’s a lot rarer within the HBCU house. The identical goes for gender. Girls dominate majorette (presently, all of the Jewels are feminine), however different dancers have participated—together with Kirby, who carried out with a state marching band in highschool, then with the Livingstone Faculty’s Stonettes. And although it’s hottest within the American South, majorette extends internationally.
Routines: Most dances are eight-to-16-count stand routines, however groups carry out longer halftime numbers on the sphere. A present features a fanfare opening, drill, dance characteristic, ballad, and extra. “We’re an entity of the marching band,” says Kirby. “Any time it’s enjoying, we’re dancing.”
Uniforms: Uniforms are a serious a part of majorette, showcasing every workforce’s distinctive type. They’re nearly all the time shiny or glowing, with loads of rhinestones or fringe to reinforce motion. “It’s all the time concerning the glitz and the glam.”
Step
What’s now often called step—a high-energy mix of dance, theater, and physique percussion accomplished all over the world—started in South Africa as gumboot, a dance which developed from miners hitting elements of their our bodies to speak with one another. Over time, step built-in parts of navy drills and have become widespread in college Greek life earlier than spreading past.
Step is a full manufacturing with units, costumes, and spoken traces, says La’Darrion Keith Swanson, coach and founding father of Garland Impartial College District’s step workforce in Garland, TX. Numbers run from eight to 10 minutes, and each has a secret theme solely revealed in the course of the efficiency. (Lately, Garland has accomplished “Dora the Explorer” and “Wednesday.”) Choreography blends a number of dance kinds, from jazz to hip hop to navy type. Swanson warns to not confuse step with the present STOMP, which makes use of many extra props.
Step groups journey for competitions within the winter and spring, so the Garland workforce does fundraising performances and pep rallies exterior of comp season. In season, they observe for about 4 hours every weekday, with team-building actions and conditioning (together with weight lifting) each different week. The dancers take part in group service each quarter. Garland’s workforce is coed, however some districts designate all-male or all-female groups. And whereas step is historically a Black dance type, Swanson believes it’s for everybody. “On the finish of the day, it’s about self-expression,” he says. Step takes ardour, creativity, humor, and threat, and the objective is all the time to entertain.
Venue: “The worst place for step is on the sphere,” says Swanson. Ideally, step occurs on a stage with curtains and wings. (With the key themes, the component of shock is essential.)
Music: Swanson usually makes use of three songs per efficiency. Step’s physique percussion performs off the music, which ought to be high-energy and on-theme. “It’s all concerning the hype,” he says.
