Laker Girl Auditions: Director’s Blog (cont’d)
Lakers.com:
Director of the Laker Girls Lisa Estrada is keeping a daily diary of the audition process for Lakers.com, starting with a summary of a full Saturday as over 400 hopefuls came to the Toyota Sports Center to show off their skills. Estrada will be checking in with updates throughout the week, covering individual interviews, final auditions and a wrap up once the final 22-odd girls are selected.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20: INTERVIEWS COMPLETE
Well, the Laker Girls interviews are all done. Today was the last day – it sure was neat to meet everyone.
Just like I said before, I was very impressed with all the finalists. They all are really are nice, educated young ladies. I can honestly say that every one of them being a good fit for our dance team, but unfortunately I cannot take them all. It will be a hard decision from here on out.
So, tomorrow evening is the “dance call-back” for all of these young ladies. I look forward to being able to see the 31 dancers left perform together. I will have judges there as well, they will decide which dancers move well together or which dancers move together as a unit. This because, of course, the Laker Girls dance on the court and are required to move in unison.
I am excited for tomorrow now! Alrighty, moving on to one more stage in this audition process.
Until then, goodbye for now.
~ Lisa
THURSDAY, JULY 21: DANCE CALL-BACK
Tonight was the final call-back for the group of 31 finalists! It was their “dance call-back”……which means we get to see them all dance together. It was a very fun evening!
I taught a real short dance combination to the group – it was different from the other dances they learned at the audition. This was a little more funkier. I did this because the Laker Girls dance squad will perform routines that are all sorts of styles during the upcoming season, so it was nice to see if they can adapt to learning that type of style of dance as well (and quickly).
It was interesting to say the least. It actually helped the judges a bit more. It seemed the judges were able to separate some of the girls from each other because it helped to understand each dancer’s capability of learning and performing that style of dance.
I know I said this all week but again, I was very impressed with all the finalists in so many different ways. To finish up with the audition process, now, I will take the next couple of days to check out the references of the dancers. In addition, we will take each individual’s score from Saturday, score from their job interview and score from tonight to see how the chips (votes) fall!
Doing this will help us to come up with the new Laker Girls dance team for next season.
YAY. How exciting!
I really hope these finalists have had a good experience participating in this audition process. This group of 31 dancers should be very proud of themselves – I mean, heck, they made it to the finals, out of 400+ young women. I told them tonight that making it this far is an achievement in itself (and I truly believe that!)!
Well, they will be notified on Sunday afternoon on whether they made this year’s dance team or not. This is always a hard job for me … I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love offering someone a new position as a Laker Girl!!! But, it’s the phone call notifying someone that they did not get the position – that’s what is hard to deliver, especially, after they gave it their all.
My fingers are crossed that hopefully they will come back next year though, since they made it this far!
I am sure I will fill you in later on how the notifications go…….again, thanks for checking in.
~ Lisa
MONDAY, JULY 25: MAKING THE CALLS
Well, Sunday went well … I mean, I was either the bearer of “good news” or “not so good news” for the finalists.
Only 22, out of the 31 finalists, were notified if they made the 2011-12 Laker Girls dance team. Those girls were just over the moon with excitement when they heard me offer them a position! However, the ladies that I did not have a position for this year were very understanding and handled the news with positive attitudes. I was so happy; some of them said “Thank you for the memorable experience,” or “I had a positive experience going through the Laker Girls audition process – you made us all feel very comfortable. I will be back next year!” Those are just a couple of examples.
It was nice that all the candidates seemed very positive about the audition process they went through with our organization. Hopefully they will come back next July to give it another try!
Alrighty, just like we started off last season, the new 2011-12 Laker Girls squad will consist of 22 members. As I mentioned before, at the beginning of the auditions – this is a job for our organization. So, pending some administration paperwork, we will give you a sneak peak of these members sometime at the beginning of August……..YAY! I hope you will check back then!
Thanks again for checking in with Lakers.com, me and the Laker Girls!
