Have you ever wondered how the Devilettes pull off their flawless performances? They dominate on stage with a lot of practice and commitment to the team. During competition season, the team practices every day, Monday through Friday, for around 2.5 hours daily. It is a part of their responsibility to attend the practices 5 days a week. The team also performs at both boys’ and girls’ basketball games throughout the season which ends in the middle of February.

Some people inquire about the technical requirements for joining the team. For JV, there are none, but for Varsity, you must be able to perform headspring or a kip-up. Overall they look for dancing abilities, performance characteristics, and control when dancing. They have their first competition coming up on November 19th. The team usually competes in hip hop, although they used to perform in kick and pom too.

In the event of a sickness, injury, or other circumstance, each dance team has a backup pair of athletes who can be added to the routine right away, saving their routine and formations from total chaos. It is probably one of the hardest jobs on the team, as you need to know every single part of the routine and be ready to jump in at any given moment. Everyone typically ends up getting the opportunity to compete at least once.

In regards to music selection, according to Devilettes coach Britini Tengler, “for Varsity, we hire a choreographer that we collaborate with to discuss our vision or theme for the routine and make a playlist of songs that we like. We try to select songs that the athletes will get into, and that the audience will enjoy too. For JV, the JV Coach works with Devilettes Alumni to complete the same process. A great tradition we have is that we ask alumni Devilettes to help choreograph the JV competition routine.”

Good luck to the dance team as they face their first competition of the year!