Under the florescent lights of the school gym, the 13 members of the dance team knelt in anticipation for their first basketball game halftime performance of the 2024-25 season on Jan. 10. The team performed their competition hip hop routine to a mix with songs like “Not like Us” by Kendrick Lamar and “Blick Blick” by Coi Leray and Nicki Minaj.
For junior officer May Gendeh, performing at a basketball game for the first time offered a starkly different feel than performing at a football game: “For football, the audience is so far away, they can’t see facial expressions or movements as clearly. At a basketball game, [the audience] can see every movement, and it’s a lot more pressure.”
While the team had only had two halftime performances — during the boys’ basketball game on Jan 10 and the girls’ basketball game on Jan. 17 — Gendeh found these additions provide an earlier incentive to clean and perfect their competition routines. As their competitive season runs through winter sports, any mistakes made can be fixed several weeks before the competitions, rather than right before or during competition day.
In fact, the team’s work, cleaning and repping their routines, paid off at their most recent competition on Feb. 15 at Lincoln High School: placing first with the pom and contemporary dances, and placing second with the jazz and hip hop routine.
To improve their halftime performances in future years, Gendeh hopes the team will have the chance to block their formations on the gym floor, as the different lines on the floor makes it hard to maintain perfect, straight lines.
“We probably haven’t done [basketball performances] in the last three years, because it [often] conflicts with our competition season, but we need practice on our dances, so that’s why we’re doing it,” said Julia Peck, the administrative assistant who also works as the team’s adviser. “[We also] haven’t had consistent coaches during the basketball season. It’s much easier to do when you have a coach.”
