Director Spotlight: Marilu Amador-Harman
Houston Dynamo) Marilu Amador-Harman is a proud Latina of Cuban and Spanish descent.
Like many Latin natives, she has always had a passion for dancing and music. Her natural talent for dance led her into a career of professional dancing, choreography, show production, and music editing. Trained for over a decade at the McAllen Dance Theatre company and later in New York and Los Angeles, Marilu was a star performer and choreographer throughout her youth, and continued her passion well into her college years and beyond. When Marilu was a freshman at Texas A&M University, she was dismayed to find that the school so rich in tradition was lacking something that had been a personal tradition all her life – dancing. So she broke new ground and started The Texas Aggie Dance Team, a dance squad that performed at every one of the Aggie basketball games and later under her coaching went on to win national awards.
That uncontrollable urge to get up and dance lured her to Dallas while completing her senior year and receiving her Bachelor’s of Science degree. She danced for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks for one year, and then moved to Houston where she signed on with the Houston Rockets to re-vamp their cheerleading program. Under her leadership as dancer, captain, choreographer, marketer and director of the team for 10 years, her squad eclipsed even the starry moves of the pros in LA and New York, and received accolades from industry publications such as Sport Magazine which acknowledged her creativity as the reason for their choice as “Best in the NBA”.
Her expertise in the professional sports dance arena was sought after by other teams, and her style and presentation changed the face of the typical NBA dance team to the high energy Broadway style NBA teams showcase today. After only 2 years in the league, Marilu was recruited to serve as the visionary, creator, and director for numerous sports dance teams in Houston. Starting with the Power Dancers of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, Marilu also went on to create, choreograph, market for and direct the Texas Terror and Houston Thunderbears Arena Football Cheerleaders for 5 years, and the WNBA’s Houston Comets Team NRG co-ed hip hop squad for a record 7 years (after creating this concept, Marilu’s idea for the WBNA’s new dance crew spread and was copied throughout the league into what we see today on most of the basketball courts.)
And now, Marilu has been recruited once again to help create the newest sports dance team in Houston, the MLS Houston Dynamo’s “Dynamo Girls” who are now in their 2nd year. Not only new to Houston, but new to U.S. soccer as a whole, Marilu’s passion and commitment to the dance program has once again helped to pioneer a new dance endeavor for professional sports, as other MLS teams are looking to the Dynamo Girls’ program for support to start their own pro-dance squads.
Her strength does not only lie in choreography and creativity – but in the ability to take normal everyday people and their abilities and create something exciting. Marilu’s strongest conviction is to use the gifts that she has been given to help others. This conviction was noted by MTV producers in February of this year, when Marilu was featured as a coach on MTV’s reality TV show “MADE”. You can catch Marilu’s episode on this season’s show schedule. [Click here to watch it online] But her passion to coach and be there for others doesn’t end there. Many of Marilu’s dancers have gone on to fulfill their own careers – they have become local and national recording artists, actors, choreographers, directors of professional sports dance teams, studio owners, and several have gone on to perform in movies and with artists such as Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Fergie, Christina Aguilera, Frankie J, and many more. In the end analysis, Marilu is a visionary and a dream pusher – she believes in fulfilling her own dreams and helping other people do the same.
