Dance Team grooves into the hip-hop category

For the first time in program history, Dance Team is introducing hip-hop as one of its routines this year, which they will perform throughout the season.

Assistant Coach Florrie Ku added a hip-hop routine to Dance Team’s lineup this year, as it is a style she has long enjoyed both dancing and teaching. By doing so, she hoped to gradually introduce hip-hop as a potential style for future teams to continue developing.

“At first, I thought it was a joke. I was like ‘there’s no way,’ because hip-hop’s really fun to do, and obviously we hadn’t done it yet,” junior officer Jocelyn Reyes said. “I feel like the whole team is really excited about starting a new style because it shows that Dance Team could do any style. It gets us out there, and I feel it’s really impressive to be able to do that many styles.”

Compared to their usual dance styles, such as jazz, lyrical, pom, contemporary and kick, which are heavily technique based, hip-hop is fast-paced and upbeat, focusing on energy, power and intricate movements.

“I hope we gain experience from trying a new style. It’s hard that we’ve never done hip-hop before, but when we do it, it makes us more diverse as dancers. If we just do one style our whole life, it won’t get us anywhere,” co-captain senior Savannah Huang said. “In dance, a lot of things can come at you, and it’s better to be prepared.”

Over the summer, dancers took hip-hop classes and auditioned for smaller groups aside from the mandatory sections, medium jazz and kick, taking classes to explore and prepare for the styles they’re interested in. In the hip-hop routine, Ku is working with a group of 10 dancers and preparing their choreography for upcoming competitions.

“We finished the dance and I can see the vision [for it]. I’m excited for when it gets cleaned and we get to finally perform it,” freshman member Rozene Ann Dino said. “I’m excited for everyone to see it. The more exposed we are to it, even at competitions, the more the dance team will want to do it every year.”

Tryouts for each routine were held during summer camp, where every dancer was taught a short segment of the dance before performing it to the coaches in small groups. From there, the team for the routine was determined.

“We learn off of each other, and our coach helps us. She choreographs it to fit our dancing style. We’ve really been working on hip-hop this past summer, taking classes at studios and pushing ourselves to do better,” Huang said. “It’s a really fun style of dance. I’m excited and happy that we got to experience this in my last year.”

In future years, Dance Team plans to keep hip-hop as part of their program and competitions.

“I think the dancers are excited but nervous. I’m the same as well. I think we just really want to make a good first impression, since this is the first time in history that Dance Team has entered in hip-hop,” Ku said. “I hope it will be comething that makes future dance team members want to join us.”