Dancing in the shadows

College dancers are being shadowed. What about it? 

The dance world has grown immensely in the last decade. The college dance world specifically. The Universal Dance Association(UDA) and the National Dance Association (NDA) are both national championships where college dance and cheer teams compete for the national title, and a blingy ring.

Majority of universities and colleges have dance teams or clubs that dedicate their blood, sweat and tears into perfecting routines to be good enough to win. But you would never know just how much the dancers dedicate, since they are shadowed by the mediocre football team or basketball teams. 

You can read articles or watch a day in the life  video on Tiktok, but it does not give the time lost to practice the recognition it deserves. So let me put it in perspective…

Taken from my personal experience I was a part of the JMU dukettes.I devoted every minute outside of school and work to the team. Cutting out the things I liked to do for myself such as go to the gym or hangout with my friends. A week practice schedule would look like Monday-Friday, three-ish to four-ish hour night practices and Saturday and Sunday, 9-6:30ish. I say ‘ish’ because if you did not finish what was on the practice todo list, you would not leave until it was complete. 

As this is a “normal” schedule for a division 1 athlete, dancers are not even considered to be a part of the name athlete. Some may argue dance is an art and others argue it is a sport. I would say it is both. Dance styles such as ballet is an art but when you are competing among other schools you are now involved in a competitive nature making it a sport. 

At JMU, the Dukettes dance team is considered part of the Marching Royal Dukes. Even though it is a completely different program from having their own national season that overlaps with “MRD” season which is just football season. The funding the dance team gets is a cut from what the MRDs receive. They practice separately, compete separately and perform separately, so why are they completely associated with a marching band?? 

Yes they use their music at football games but so do our cheer teams. Yet, they are considered a sports team and get recognition from the school. From being posted by the school about their achievements or even just about their season while the dance team does the same amount of work and gets nothing for it. 

The JMU Dukettes just won their sixth national championship title for the school. JMU said nothing. No email to the students, no instagram posts congratulating the team or letting the JMU community know they were going to a national championship; they put no effort in doing anything. Meanwhile they send out countless notifications about football games,whether it is to get your ticket or if the game is sold out; if the team won or lost. 

In my opinion it is unfair that the athletes devote their time to get nothing in return. Part of the reason I quit is because the school gave no fucks about the team. The Dukettes show up for every single home game. Supporting the dukes and the school can’t even recognize that.

My sophomore year the school finally allowed the team to perform timeouts at football games. But they put it in the last quarter, where the majority of students leave at halftime so no one was there to appreciate it. 

As my time on the team has come to an end, they are striving and making a name for themself in the dance world. By just winning the D1A Pom category at the last NDA championship along with many other accomplishments. Dancers are athletes too and should no longer be put in the shadow behind all other sports.