Blazer dancer tryouts: More than meets the eye, and not easy to judge

By Kerry Eggers
The Portland Tribune
Jul 20, 2010

When I was asked to judge tryouts for the Trail Blazers’ dance squad for the first time this year, it wasn’t one of those decisions you wrestle with for the longest time.

It’s a rough job, for sure, but somebody has to do it.

My dance expertise fizzled out years ago on the disco floor, but I have spent the past 15 years watching the Blazer dancers do their thing at the Rose Garden.

I figure I’m as qualified as anyone to cast a vote in the selection process of 16 women to dance at the team’s 41 home games next season.

I saw a lot of strong candidates during Sunday’s finals in the Winningstad Theatre at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts.

There were 33 finalists who went through five routines, spanning nearly four hours before a packed house in a performance that was televised and will be used as an eight-episode reality series on Comcast SportsNet later this summer.

Several of the 11 judges who sat in the balcony Sunday hold significant dance experience. A few of us did not. That didn’t faze Todd Bosma, the Blazers’ director of game operations, or Michelle Woodard, the Blazers’ performance teams manager.

Bosma sought a panel of judges who represent a cross-section of the fans who cram the Rose Garden every night and watch the dancers perform. In his instructions to the judges, Bosma offered this: “If you’re not a technical dancer, don’t try to judge on technique. Judge on what you think is important. Just be consistent. Whatever you see in dancer No. 1, look for the same in dancer No. 33. Score what you see.”

Of course, technique and dancing ability matter. So does appearance, at least to me and a majority of the males who cast an interested eye on the dance squad during Blazer games.

But there’s more to it than that. Bosma and Woodard are looking for “the best overall representatives of the Trail Blazer organization,” he said.

“They’re not just dancers, they’re ambassadors,” Bosma said. “We send them out for appearances all throughout the year. We ask them to promote our brand and our team and our organization.”

It doesn’t hurt to have a little charisma and some personality in front of a crowd.

“The ladies on the team work really hard at what they do,” Woodard says. “They’re excellent athletes and dancers and performers. You don’t make it because you’re cute. They just happen to be cute as well as talented.”

The judges’ votes mattered, but not ultimately. Bosma, Woodward and other Blazer representatives met with the 33 finalists earlier in the week for interviews that were graded and figured into the overall selection process. Our votes figured into the formula that decided the winners, but the Blazer reps had the final say.

The tryouts began a week earlier, with 77 women performing during preliminary sessions at Portland State’s Stott Center. I attended one of the sessions, and while I respect those with the courage to get out there and try, some of them weren’t qualified to be a member of the dance team.

I can’t say the same for the finalists – 22 from the tryouts, joined by 11 from the 2009-10 team who gained an automatic pass to Sunday’s show. Every one of them was good enough to become a member of the Blazer dancers.

“That’s true,” agreed Mark Mason, the KEX (1190 AM) disc jockey who doubles as the Blazers’ public-address announcer and has judged dance-team tryouts for many years. “But you have to pick the best of the best.”

Mason said he was looking for “the wholesome look, the girl next door.”

“That’s the kind I enjoy watching,” he said. “I try to imagine them dancing in a Blazer dancer uniform. How they look, their eye contact, if they engage the audience. You have to communicate with the dance. It comes from their pores. They love dance that much.”

I didn’t have any real pre-set criteria. I’m not sure what all goes into making for a good Blazer dancer, but I think I know one when I see one.

The tryouts are open by design, and the television coverage adds a transparency to the process.

“We want people to know how we do it, that we’re fair to everyone who is trying out,” Bosma says.

The 11 returning dancers weren’t identified to the judges or the audience. Mason and I agreed that we recognized some, but not all, of the returnees.

“We don’t stack the odds in their favor,” Woodard says. “A lot of the judges don’t know any of the girls on last year’s team. The one advantage (for returnees) is they know what’s expected of them. Someone new maybe doesn’t quite know how to perform. But it’s what you do out there that counts.”

I should say here, there were no bribes offered to the judges by the competitors. Or if there were, I was excluded from the gratis list.

Judges were asked to score, from 1 to 10, each of the dancers’ five routines – three in small groups, a fourth solo and a fifth “hot timeout” number they were told of only an hour before Sunday’s show.

Nobody was out of sorts Sunday. Voting is very subjective. One judge’s taste doesn’t necessarily match another’s. It struck me that Bosma, Woodward and company had some tough decisions to make.

“I don’t sleep this week,” Woodward said. “I worry about getting it right. Judges’ scores help guide us to the final decision, but I went home Sunday night and didn’t have 16 girls on the team in my mind. There were more than 16 who could do a good job.”

On Monday night, Bosma and Woodward gathered 31 of the 33 finalists (two couldn’t make it) at the Rose Garden. With the TV cameras rolling, they entered the Blazers’ locker room, where name plates for the 16 winners were set up.

All 11 returnees made next year’s team. So did the two with previous Blazer dance team experience but weren’t members of last year’s squad. There were three new dancers who made it, including one who was trying out for the fifth straight year.

The survivors returned to bedlam in what Bosma calls “the Happy Room” in the Courtside Lounge to sign an agreement to work next season.

“There was so much screaming and yelling, I felt like I was at an American Idol concert,” Bosma said.

For those who didn’t make it, it wasn’t quite like that.

“There were tears on both sides,” Bosma said. “The happy tears are fun to see. The ones who don’t make it, those tears I completely understand, too. I respect every single girl who tried out.”

I do, too. They had a lot of guts to get out there and perform in front of a big crowd and a TV audience. They put a lot of work into preparing for the routines. I’m sure many of the ones who didn’t make it were crushed.

For the ones who did, exciting times are ahead.

“We have a couple of appearances scheduled for this weekend,” Bosma said. “The (2010-11) season will be here before we know it. This past week was hard, but now the real hard work happens.”

As for the judges, we take a ribbing for doing something a lot of guys would kill for.

“I’m pretty proud that I get to do this,” Mason offered. “If anybody razzes me, deep inside, they’re jealous.”