Dance team places
sixth in Las Vegas
The first-year Club Sports
team incorporates
various types of dance
By Jennifer Rollings
lor the Emerald
As members of the dance line in
the Oregon Marching Band last
year, Kiyoko Whiteside and Jaime
Wiest enjoyed the rush of adrena
line and creative satisfaction that
can come from performing in front
of a roaring crowd. Yet they still
yearned for something more.
Last April, Whiteside, a senior
communication studies major,
and Wiest, a senior sports market
ing major, decided being on dance
line was constricting their space,
style and choice of music. Danc
ing in the middle of a football field
wasn’t enough, they said.
“We wanted an opportunity to
do our kind of dance, and we were
going to find a way to do that,”
Whiteside said.
So last year, they assembled an
Oregon Club Sports dance team,
the first of its kind at the Universi
ty. And just four months after
starting practice, the team is cele
brating its sixth-place showing
this month at the United Spirit As
sociation Dance and Cheer Na
tional Competition in Las Vegas.
Placing at nationals is a far cry
from the team’s status a year ago
— non-existent and unprecedent
ed.
In order to gain sponsorship,
Whiteside and Wiest compiled a
petition of 15 signatures last April
from students interested in joining
the team. They received official
approval from Club Sports later
that month
Tryouts took place toward the
end of spring term and again in the
fall. By October, Whiteside and
Wiest were the proud co-captains
of eight teammates and were ready
to begin outlining their objectives.
The team's primary aim was to
develop a more innovative type of
dance. Whiteside describes their
style as a combination of “jazz
dance, funk and technical moves
based on ballet.”
The team also wanted the op
tion of entering dance competi
tions.
"Every girl on the team was in
volved in high school dance or
cheerleading,” Whiteside said. “I
think we all missed the intensity
of competition.”
That was one reason the team
was striving to dance with artistry
and originality.
"On a football field, you have to
use bigger, slower movements and
do simple routines,” Wiest said.
“The skill level we face in compe
tition is extremely tough. ”
The next hurdle the team faced
was organizing practices and find
ing suitable locations to rehearse.
Since November, the School of
Dance has allowed the team to use
facilities in Gerlinger and Ger
linger Annex. The team now prac
tices together twice a week for
more than three hours at a time.
In addition to scheduling, the
team was responsible for its own
supervision. Except for occasion
ally seeking professional choreog
raphy consultation, it has been
without a coach this year.
"Because we didn’t have a
coach, we really had to listen to
each other’s critiques,” said Kate
Grossman, a freshman exercise
and movement science major.
Whiteside and Wiest are con
sidering hiring a coach for next
season, but because of limited fi
Nick Medley /Emerald
The Oregon Club Sports dance team practices a routine last week in Gerlinger Hall. The team placed sixth in a recent competition.
nancial resources, the team would
need to find a person who could
volunteer.
As a first-year Club Sport, mon
ey matters were no small problem
for the team. It was granted the
standard start-up budget of $300,
which it supplemented with fund
raising clean-ups of McArthur
Court and donations from local
businesses.
Each team member also made a
personal contribution of $100.
The team’s largest expense was
the national competition in Las
Vegas because of the fees for cus
tom-designed uniforms, airfare
and hotel accommodations.
“Nationals was practically the
only thing we spent money on this
year,” Whiteside said.
Club Sports was later able to
give the team an extra $650 to help
pay for the trip.
The team’s biggest difficulty,
however, has been getting expo
sure and establishing performance
experience. Outside of nationals,
the team has danced at a men’s
and women’s basketball game and
has performed several exhibitions
at local high schools.
“Making a name for ourselves
was hard,” said Sarah Taft, a fresh
man pre-journalism major. “At
one of our halftime performances,
nobody knew who we were. We
had to dodge security guards to get
on the court and do our routine.”
Among their goals for the fu
ture, Whiteside and Wiest said
they’d like the team to refine its
technique. Next term, all team
members must include a ballet
class in their schedule. The cap
tains are also trying to decide who
will take over the second co-cap
tain position after Whiteside grad
uates in the spring.
Despite the hardships of surviv
ing its first year of existence, the
dance team agrees that overall, the
positive experiences they have
had being a team outweigh any
thing negative.
“If you look at our group, we
have so much diversity in terms of
attitudes, personalities and back
grounds,” said Taya Kancha
naranya, a sophomore interna
tional studies and Spanish major.
“But when we’re dancing, we're
all together.”
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