By Judee Cosentino
The Sun Chrnonicle
The hopes and dreams of nearly 200 women ran high on Saturday during the New England Patriots’ 2014 cheerleader auditions at the Dana-Farber Field House in Gillette Stadium, where 184 dancers competed in the first round of tryouts to get in the running for a spot to cheer on the area’s NFL team.
There are currently 28 positions on the cheerleading team that need to be filled, according to cheerleading director Tracy Sormanti.
Out of the 184 participants, only about 40 would remain by the end of the day.
“The most exciting thing is to see the new talent that comes out every year,” said Sormanti. “Every year, it keeps getting better and better, and we have a great pool of candidates (this year).”
Emotions were jittery, but excited, as the dancers warmed up on the Field House floor before learning the first of their two dance routines for the day.
“I’m really nervous, but I’m really happy to be here dancing with all these girls,” said Lydia Hopkins, who is a student and member of the Providence College dance team.
Hopkins and two other friends, Jennifer Pinto and Arianna Haddock, who are also members of the college’s dance team, lent each other moral support as the sense of friendly competition set in.
Haddock was overwhelmed by the large turnout, but appreciated the welcoming environment created by the current Patriots cheerleaders, who volunteered their time to encourage the dancers.
“It made me feel a lot more comfortable,” said Haddock.
Across the floor from Haddock, Hopkins and Pinto were Nicollette Mollica of North Andover, Lia Moceri of Cranston, R.I. and Holly Maron, a student at the University of Rhode Island, who is originally from Boulder, Col.
“I’m just excited that I got the opportunity to even come here,” said Maron. “This is amazing. I’m in the same place as all these amazing dancers and athletes.
Sormanti, the team’s cheerleading director, was once a Patriots cheerleader herself, and she said she knew all too well the nervousness and competitiveness the ladies were facing.
“I respect everyone who comes out and wants to be part of this organization,” she said. “I wish I could choose everyone.”
After the warm-ups were completed, the dancers assembled in the center of the field house floor to learn the 30-second across-the-floor routine from line captain Stephanie Sanchez.
Before they began, Sormanti gave the dancers a brief, but powerful, pep talk.
“Just the fact that you’re here today shows that you want it,” she said. “You’re already superstars. You’re shining. You’re great.
“Believe in yourself, and the judges will believe in you. Think, ‘I am here because I deserve to make this team.'”
In addition to the across-the-floor routine, the dancers performed another choreographed and freestyle routine.
The 40 remaining candidates will participate in another audition on April 19, with the final roster being posted on the Patriots’ website on May 3.
This month is our Tenth Anniversary and to celebrate we’re posting some of our all-time favorite photos.
Donald and Sandy at the 2013 P-R-O Convention
Over the past ten years we got to meet some of the country’s most talented and beautiful dancers. But we also get to meet the people you don’t see on the court or the field, but who work very hard to make the world of professional and sports dancers into what it has become today.
Sandy was a Pro Bowl Cheerleader for the Buccaneers before her long tenure as the teams cheer director. Donald ran directed the Washington Bullettes before coming over to the NFL and transforming the Redskins Cheerleaders into the elite squad they are today.
They’ve both moved on from the NFL, but are still doing what they love best. Sandy is traveling the globe with her Pro Tour Productions and Donald is working for the DOD as a Morale and Welfare Officer in Eastern Africa.
A few months after I started this site, I got an email from Donald. I just sort of froze. I knew who he was and I’m thinking, “Uh, oh! It’s all over. He’s going to tell me to cease and desist and he’s probably got an army of NFL lawyers in his pocket.” But it turned out he wrote to let me know I made an error in a post. I made the correction and emailed him back. I thought that would be the end of it, but then Donald replied to tell me he thought I was doing a great job and he was going to let the other NFL Cheer Directors know about the site. And thus began our first steps towards legitimacy.
Alumni Talmesha and Kristie at Redskins Cheerleader Finals on Sunday
As you can see, everybody wanted a photo of the new squad.
This month is our Tenth Anniversary and to celebrate we’re posting some of our all-time favorite photos.
Samantha in 2012
I’ve always loved Samantha’s smile. This photo was taken in the lockerroom at MetLife Stadium during the group performance portion of the Flight Crew Finals.
About a week at after the 2013 season ended Samantha, departed on a cruise ship where she landed a job dancing. She’ll be gone for almost a year! What an exciting adventure.
Kevin Bowen
Colts.com
Over 150 women started in pursuit of capturing a spot on the Colts 2014 Cheerleader Squad. That squad was finalized on Thursday night with 28 women making the team in a Final Showcase at the Hilbert Circle Theatre.
As the numbers were read off one-by-one and the smiles began to form, the dreams of 28 hopeful NFL cheerleaders became a reality.
Emerging from the back hallways of the Hilbert Circle Theatre was the 2014 Colts Cheerleading Squad, making their introduction as a team on Thursday night for the first of what will be numerous appearances over the next year.
“I’m so excited right now,” Colts Cheerleader Manager Kelly Tilley said minutes after selecting her squad.
“Every group that came out tonight I thought really brought it, really practiced their routines, looked great and it made it really hard for us to decipher between those 28 members.”
Former Colts Cheerleader Megan M. and Colts punter Pat McAfee emceed Thursday Night’s Showcase.
In typical McAfee fashion, he kept the crowd laughing all night long before the suspense of who made the 2014 squad was announced.
“It’s absolutely awesome to see these women that love the Colts and the organization just as much as I do and the fans do,” McAfee said.
“It’s been awesome to be up here, entertain their families and some fans, but most importantly to see a lot of these girls have their dreams come true. We are excited to have them on the sideline with us.”
Erica at Eagles Cheerleaders SemiFinals on Wednesday evening
The Brooklynettes dance team has pioneered a diversity of techniques and outreach efforts that blends Brooklyn Nets and NBA brand ambassador and performance artist
By Matt Scanlon
Industry Magazine
In what is generally considered to be cheerleading’s founding days, Princeton University recruited students and players in 1877 to shout synchronized cheers at both baseball and football games, and adolescent males (of all ages) will be at once fascinated (and possibly depressed) to note that cheerleading was generally an all-male activity, from then until the early years of the 20th century. During World War II, however, men were simply not available to act as sideline boosters (or players, in most instances), so cheering quickly became almost universally female dominated—both at the high school and college levels—and today, approximately 97% of all cheerleading participants are female.
The true marketing genius behind evolving this tradition beyond occasional if enthusiastic athleticism into true choreographed performance came at the hand of Dallas Cowboys manager Tex Schramm, who realized in 1969 that he should form a squad dressed in provocative fashion, a plan that both wildly multiplied Cowboys ticket sales and generated an institution of fascination and sex appeal that continues unbroken to this day.
One thing that’s critical to note when assessing the Brooklynettes, the Brooklyn Nets dance team as an organization, however, is that they ain’t cheerleaders.
“This is a team,” explained Kimberlee Garris, Director of Entertainment Marketing for the Nets. “Actually, more than that… it’s a sisterhood.”
A creative and novel rebranding of the New Jersey Nets dance team, the Brookylnettes are now in the pre-playoff mode of their second season. Part Nets ambassadors, entertainers, seasoned dance professionals, and NBA ambassadors, the team of 20 represents a complex of fitness, flexibility, and capability that would put the amiably bouncing Dallas boosters of the ’70s into a state of stupefied awe. With just over a single minute to essentially perform a choreographed theater in the round—and just a few times each game—ample responsibility rests on the team to do remarkable things in a tiny economy of time. To that end, prop changes are flurrying and de rigueur, and costume changes a blur of diversity (including everything from an alluring variation on black tie to tear-away pants), requiring pre-team knowledge that, Garris pointed out, regularly shocks the uninitiated in its complexity.
“It’s generally recommended that those interested in joining have at least eight years of dance instruction or experience,” said Garris, who joined the front office of the New Jersey Nets in 2005, not long after taking home a cognitive neuroscience degree from Harvard. “Other than that, as long as you’re 18 and keen to be a performer in a very challenging environment, you’re welcome to audition.”
“It’s very clear within the first 30 seconds of that audition if there is technical training going on,” Garris added. “We will be examining whether they can do a double pirouette, for example…some kind of leg kick, turning jump, or Calypso, plus other leaps and turns. Are they pointing their toe? Is their leg in the right place? Are they staying on top of their pirouette leg? Then there’s the question of whether they are giving you something that you think will read in an arena of nearly 18,000 fans.”
Not surprisingly then, the 400 applicants who turned out for last June’s audition were, within the four rounds of cuts, carefully winnowed to a precious 30 or 40. That intimidating competitor-to-final-member ratio applies to the existing team as well, all of whom are required to re-audition at the end of each season.
Dancers are directed principally by choreographer Adar Wellington (who has danced in videos for Kanye West’s “Lost In The World” and Usher’s “Scream,” among many others), though the team often brings in guest choreographers to supply fresh moves. Garris pointed out that this performance diversity has its corollary in the overall mission of the team, which she described as needing to achieve nothing less than being, “ambassadors of Brooklyn, the Nets, and the NBA simultaneously.”
In addition to the 41 regular-season home games here at Barclays Center, select members of the team are recruited to travel around the world for NBA grassroots events. Typically, six dancers at a minimum are required to achieve a performance quorum in such venues, and within the Brooklyn team’s short year-and-a-half of action, members have traveled to such ports of call as São Paulo, Singapore, Naples, Madrid, and Milan. A regularly occurring performance at these events is the team’s signature “Dunking Divas,” in which non-acrophobic members leap far above the 10-foot-high basketball rim—using a trampoline as propulsion—then slam varying styles of dunks.
“And that’s just one performance that sets us apart from most of the other teams out there,” added Garris.
Megan Roup, a wide-smiling two-season Brookynettes vet and native of Santa Barbara California (middle, right), who has been a New Yorker for eight years, explained that the fitness required for such a job is unrelenting, but all part of a day’s work for dance professionals.
“I do this, of course, but I’m also a fitness model at Wilhelmina in the city, as well as work at the Tracy Anderson Method in Tribeca,” Roup said, adding that the novel dance-based fitness method school (of which Gwyneth Paltrow is a co-owner) has captivated city residents growing bored of the same old grind.
“Dance cardio and muscular structure work is how I would describe the method most accurately,” she said. “It’s choreographed and rigorous, but great fun.”
Expecting some breakthrough dietary techniques from the Tisch School of the Arts graduate, we were instead supplied with a useful and intimidating excuse to screw up…ever so slightly.
“I try to keep an 80%/20% ratio in mind when maintaining an exercise routine and diet. Four-fifths of the time, I really try to eat right, and what revolutionized that process for me was eliminating gluten, sugar, and dairy,” she explained. “But it’s critical to give yourself time off—at least one day a week that even professional athletes need to rest and recover, and that one day off program just works well for me.”
Liz Chestang (facing page, middle, left), a newcomer to the team and BFA graduate in dance performance and choreography from Ohio University in Athens, had in mind a career in the company of a classical dance organization, but quickly found herself fascinated by modern dance, including hip-hop, and made a beeline for New York just two weeks after graduation. She, like most members of the team, maintains another career.
“I’m also a fitness instructor,” Chestang explained from under a wild expanse of auburn curls, “…at a studio called Body by Simone [in Chelsea], which emphasizes a fusion of dance-cardio, and a variety of toning methods, with some elements of Pilates thrown in there as well.” She, too, emphasized eating what performers often term a “clean” diet, in her case an almost unstoppable supply of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, yogurt, proteins such as egg whites and chicken, “…and tons and tons of water.”
“But then, you also live in New York…in Brooklyn. It would be simply ridiculous not to enjoy a slice of pizza once in a while,” she added with a grin.
Garris pointed out that such articulate and outgoing representatives of the team are part of what is searched for in the interview process, and those particularly adept at being motivating spokeswomen are recruited into the Brooklynettes All-Star contingent.
“People who have this intelligence and caliber do us a world of good, of course,” she explained. “And there are instances in which—as a result—they are recruited to do other jobs, or might matriculate into other full-time gigs. We just had a dancer who was asked to join the company of The Lion King, for example. This is a remarkable opportunity, both for us and them, and that mutually beneficial dynamic is just part of what makes the organization work.”
