Author: Chris Ellis
While most of Occidental’s student body was on winter break, the women of the Occidental Dance team were hard at work putting together routines for the UDA/UCA College Cheerleading and Dance Team National Championship at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. With the competition scheduled for Jan. 14, the Tigers came back to campus early to continue a last round of practice and refinement before facing off against rival dance teams.
“We’ve been practicing dances since August. It’s been a nonstop rush to get to Nationals,” Mackenzie Tucker (first-year) said. While they have worked tirelessly since August to create dances, they do it with no coach and little school funding. Because the team lacks a coach, each dancer shares responsibility and leadership duties. This changes the team dynamic in a profoundly positive way, giving the women a sense of ownership over the team and its accomplishments. “We are this team. Without our own leadership we wouldn’t be as accomplished as we are today,” Tucker said.
Moreover, because Occidental has no formal Dance team sport, the ASOC classifies dance as a club sport, severely limiting the funding the team receives from the school. After only receiving about $2,000 a year in direct school funding, the team had to make up the difference in costs to go to Nationals.
According to Cuervo, the dance team is expected to raise around $10,000 in order to attend Nationals. To meet this expectation, the team fund raises at Spitz and Italianos. The women also host bake sales, mistletoe sales and car washes once a week on average. “The students at Occidental have been so supportive of us. In order to obtain this money from just fundraisers, we would need to receive around $5 from each Occidental student, which is very difficult,” Cuervo said.
In an effort to raise even more money, the team gave Dean Avery a brief yet poignant PowerPoint about the importance of dance on campus. As a result, Dean Avery approved another $2,000 dollars to the team. Overall they ended up raising over $10,000—all going towards the cost of their competition in Florida.
“I think our hard work and fundraising was definitely worth it! When I finally got to experience all that we had been working for in Florida this January I realized just how amazing and unique the experience of going to Dance Team Nationals truly is and I am so proud of our hard work to get there,” Emily Hawkins (first-year) said.
Despite the various obstacles the team faced before they made it to Nationals, they were a formidable force in the competition, placing 16th in hip-hop and 18th in jazz within their division. They competed in Division III/Open against teams with much more established and well-funded programs. This division put them against 33 schools, including Cal Lutheran and Harvard.
Dance captain Alyssa Cuervo (senior) is happy with the team’s ranking, noting that they moved up three spots from the previous year. “I was really excited about improving because the talent at nationals increases every year and more schools are getting involved. So, the fact that we are still improving is really great,” she said.
This article has been archived, for more requests please contact us via the support system.
