Behind effortless routines, sharp turns and synchronized choreography is months of practice and training. The Majestics have been preparing for contest season since the beginning of the school year but are just now honing in on their performances.
The team is performing three dances: contemporary, pom and hip hop, and the dance officers are doing novelty (musical theater/jazz), contemporary and jazz.
“For hip hop, it’s a unique dance. It’s a groovy, hard-hitting dance… it’s not every day that you see [something like this] at drill team competitions,” Dance Officer Jade Bontron, 11, said. “Contemporary is kind of like a feel-good one; if you listen to the song it makes sense. “And then pom is just very iconic. [It’s] very fun; it’s very powerful. I have fun with it. I like pom a lot and I sing the words when I dance.”
Each dance requires different technique and style so the team dedicates time over the summer and occasional practices to focusing on those aspects. It’s crucial that they start early enough to ensure enough time to cover school dances like pep rallies and football games while still getting to focus on contest ones.
“We have to prepare really quick,” Head Coach Amanda Burch said. “It seems like you have a lot of time, but you really don’t. You have to be really focused and practice to get everything ready.”
This year is even more stressful for the Majestics, as the date of their final contest is pushed back later in February while the spring show is moved up to the middle of April. Since the gap between contest season and spring show is smaller, the team will have to manage their timeline and overlap more than usual.
“I’m worried about time going by really fast,” Bontron said. “I’m just really sad knowing that time just kind of really speeds up with a lot of stuff going on in February and in March.”
The directors have enough responsibility managing the overall success of the team without the task of choreographing, which is why the team hires three choreographers. Each one specializes in creating competition dances for a certain style, which is crucial to form the many moving parts and sections. However, the coaches are the ones who decide which genres to do, as well as the songs.
“Once we solidify what genres we want, at that point we have to figure out what kind of feel we want,” Burch said. “For jazz, you can go intense or you can go sassy, and for hip hop, there’s multiple venues you can go [down] as well. So we’ll see what fits our theme and the strengths of our team at that time. And then from there, that’s when we start searching out for choreographers.”
The coaches will typically reuse choreographers who they know will work best with the team and produce high-quality end results while allowing room for adaptability.
“It’s not a gamble whether it’s going to work or not, but we also don’t want to stay stagnant as well… we’ll see what we want to hold on to and what we want to branch out to this year,” Burch said.
Once the chosen choreographer receives the music, he or she will come teach it to the team. While the choreographers offer a foundation for each dance, the Majestic coaches often end up changing parts to better fit the team’s style.
“Because the choreographer doesn’t know our dancers, they can bring us new ideas, new trends, but Coach Whit[field] and myself know our dancers,” Burch said. “We’ll see the choreography, see where it’s the strongest, see where it’s the weakest, and then see in those weak spots if there’s anything we can amplify and put our own personal touch on. That way, it becomes a beautiful little masterpiece blend of outside choreography versus the Majestics.”
Along with choreography, small details such as head direction and arm placement are drilled into the dancer’s brains to ensure muscle memory and precision while performing. However, dancers must be able to perform the whole piece without losing stamina to focus on the nitty-gritty aspects. The team practices every morning from 7:10 a.m. to 8:40 a.m. and third periods on B days. Their typical routine consists of warming-up, stretching to prevent injuries, and a combination of running the dances and slowly going over every detail. However, the pressure to be a top scoring team encourages the coaches to implement new exercises and try out new methods.
“We’ll start adding on new conditioning things once we get to the second semester to help prepare us to physically be ready for [contest],” Burch said. “We have upped our running in the morning, and we’ve done squats and light leg raises … I don’t think people realize how quickly the day goes because we’re moving all day long. And so your stamina just has to be at its peak to make its way through contest and then even more so through spring show because that one really is back to back to back to back.”
The long hours and continuous drills may seem disheartening to some, but the ultimate goal for the team is improvement. The Majestics know that hard work will ensure their finest performance, which is especially important since not only will loved ones be watching, but other schools as well.
“I am very excited for contest. It’s my favorite time. I really like showcasing what we’ve been working on to the full outside community,” Burch said. “I just love getting that chance to show y’ all off. But I also really like watching other schools because they’ve been going through the same thing we have. And with dance especially, each genre can be so multi-layered within itself that no two dances will ever be even close to the same. So it’s really exciting just to get to see what other people have been working on.”
Despite being a contest, each school is extremely encouraging of one another.
“It’s competitive, but it’s also really supportive. We all get excited to see other dancers go. And when they absolutely kill it out there on the floor, like, we go crazy with them because it’s a shared experience,” Burch said.
The Majestics know that the long hours are exhausting but that the many things to look forward to outweigh any negatives. The shared experiences will form lasting memories and unbreakable bonds between the team.
“I’m looking forward to contest and just being able to dance with my team and being able to share the stage with them and putting out all of our hard work that we’ve worked towards since summer,” Bontron said.
Everyone is invited to come support the Majestics and watch them perform on Feb. 14 at Heritage High School, Feb. 28 at Burleson Centennial High School and March 27 and 28 at UNT.
