What It's Like on Dance Team

Dancergirl78, we respect you. We couldn't even dance if we had, like, 100 feet. —Sparkitors

If you’re in high school I’m pretty positive at one point in time you’ve looked at your schools dance team members and thought that you want to be them, really enjoy watching them dance, or that you hate them all with a passion.

While cheerleaders are the ones pumping up the team, and are usually the punch line to vicious jokes (at my school at least), dance team only slips in for the halftime entertainment. We don’t get a whole game to prove ourselves like cheerleaders and other athletes do. We get TWO minutes and that’s it. Here are some other things you probably didn’t know about dance team:

We consider ourselves athletes. *Takes break to estimate the amount of seconds spent laughing* It’s true, ask any of the members of my team and they’ll all tell you we shouldn’t be considered a “hobby.”  Our bodies may not be as ripped as other athletes, but we still have strong cores. If we didn't, we’d be like jelly doing our intricate turn sequences at pep rallies.

Being on dance team does not make you a rumor target. Not to say anything bad about the other halftime and in-game entertainment, but dance team members have significantly fewer rumors going around about them. In my school, the ratio of rumors about dance team is 1:5 compared to cheerleaders, and 1:10 compared to marching band.

We’re not stupid, pretty, popular girls. Yes, every club in high school has popular people in it, but dance team is like one quarter popular and three quarters average. We also have the biggest ratio of members in honor society for a school activity… well, except the academic team.

We are not aspiring, uh, “performers.” There’s this little thing dancers use called "props," and my team is notorious for them. Our best dance was done at the last football game of the season in the pouring rain. We were using chairs and the dance was epic. Our spirit section loved it. Problem was, some students hated it and started telling us next time we should use poles…not cool.

We all just want some respect. While it’s admittedly somewhat gratifying to be the topic of horizontal naked dance conversation (my best friend's boyfriend says that I’m tied for 4th most-naked-dance-worthy on my team), it’d be nice just to be admired for what we do during halftime, not just what you wish we would do after the game.

Hopefully this has opened you eyes, and changes you view of the dance team at halftime or your schools pep rallies. It probably won’t though, which is fine; you do your thing and I’ll do mine. Just remember I have 13 teammates that can and will jump you if you mock us openly again.

Does your dance team get respect?

Related Post: A Day in the Life of a Dancer on School Break