Duluthian Dancing with the NBA Stars
Duluth native Jacquie Van Guilder is enjoying her time with the Minnesota Timberwolves dance team.
By Rick Lubbers
Duluth News Tribune
Jacquie Van Guilder’s informal initiation as a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves dance team came during the team’s first NBA exhibition game.
The Timberwolves were hosting the Milwaukee Bucks on Oct. 4 at Minnesota State-Mankato, and Van Guilder and the dancers were sitting courtside.
The basketball took an unfortunate bounce and Minnesota’s Brian Cardinal (6-foot-8, 240 pounds) and Corey Brewer (6-9, 188) gave chase.
“During the second quarter, we were all sitting there and a couple of the guys on our team went up to keep the ball inbounds and get the rebound, and they literally landed on top of me,” said Van Guilder, a 25-year-old Duluth native. “I was like crushed on the floor. The game presentation director said that was the worst takedown they had seen in at least the last five years. I was lucky I didn’t have a concussion.”
Shaken, but not injured, Van Guilder continued performing and finished the game.
“[The players] asked if I was OK when they got up,” Van Guilder said. “From what I heard, the whole Timberwolves bench was up on their feet, looking over there to make sure I was OK.
“That was my initiation into the season.”
But other than those few painful moments, Van Guilder has thoroughly enjoyed her time as a Timberwolves dancer.
“It’s been really exciting,” she said. “It’s so much fun dancing for all the fans. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
Dancing has been a major part of Van Guilder’s life, starting at age 5 when she began receiving instruction at Stacey’s Studio of Dance Education. Later she was a four-year member of the Duluth Marshall dance team. As a high school junior, she began attending Madill Performing Arts Center to work on technique and prepare to be a dance major in college. She studied dance and advertising at the University of Minnesota, took classes at Minnesota Ballet and spent a summer with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in Canada. She also performed professionally with Sole to Soul Dance Conversion, a traveling dance group.
“I’ve always wanted to dance professionally; that was always my goal from a pretty young age,” she said.
Van Guilder said it was a ‘spur-of-the-moment decision’ that led to her joining about 120 other women vying for 13 spots on the Timberwolves’ dance squad.
The first night of open tryouts took place in a large ballroom and each dancer had to quickly learn a routine from a choreographer and perform it for a panel of judges.
“There were so many other talented dancers there,” Van Guilder said. “Everybody there was gorgeous — they were great dancers and great performers. It was very intimidating, even though I’ve been performing for a very long time.”
But she made the first cut, which whittled the original group to 60. Those remaining women then had to perform the routine again and also demonstrate some technical skills such as leaps and turns. Another cut left 30 women.
“From there we had a week-long training camp where there was a photo session and training sessions with trainers who work with the girls throughout the year,” Van Guilder said. “We had to learn a routine and perform at a [WNBA Minnesota] Lynx game as our final audition.”
The 2009-10 Minnesota Timberwolves dance team was announced the next day.
“We were all standing there and they called my name first,” Van Guilder said. “I totally wasn’t expecting it.”
Now, aside from her full-time job as a graphic designer for a nonprofit business in St. Louis Park, a lot of Van Guilder’s time is devoted to being a Timberwolves dancer. Her weekly schedule includes a pair of three-hour dance practices, an hour of group training, another hour of personal training and two other cardio workout sessions.
When the Timberwolves have a home game, the dance team members arrive two hours before tipoff, make several pregame appearances and practice their routines a few times while the players are warming up. They are on the court during player introductions as well as timeouts and intermissions. They also change costumes about three times a game.
Van Guilder credits her rich history of dance instruction for being able to keep a step ahead of several dance arrangements.
“My dance experience definitely has helped me pick up all of the choreography. We have to know a huge amount of choreography,” she said. “In addition to knowing the main dances that we’re doing, we also have to have a bank of memory for all of the shorter dances that we do during the shorter timeouts.
“The dancing is a little bit more athletic than I normally would do because I studied mainly modern dance when I was in college. This is a lot more fast-paced — hip-hop, funk, that sort of thing.”
As far as performing in front of large audiences, Van Guilder said she doesn’t get very nervous — unless she knows somebody attending the game.
“I think it’s more nerve-wracking when there are people that I know in the stands. Performing in front of anonymous fans is so much easier,” she said. “But when you know there’s someone from home or one of my friends sitting there, it’s like, ‘Oh gosh, I have to do really good because they are watching me.’ My husband [James] has come to most of the games so far, so he’s been a trooper.”
Van Guilder said the Timberwolves dance team is one of the few cheer squads in pro sports that pays its members not only for performing at games, but also for practicing and for making appearances (although the squad does make several charity appearances). But she noted that the dancers are either employed full time elsewhere or are full-time college students or mothers.
Besides getting paid to perform in front of basketball fans, Van Guilder said one fringe benefit of being a Timberwolves dancer is seeing the NBA’s biggest superstars entertain the Target Center crowds, such as former Timberwolves forward Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers standouts LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal.
“It makes me feel really short because the players are all so tall,” she said with a laugh. “It is really exciting. I’ve never been that close to professional athletes before, to see what they do. They are just amazing.”
