Breaking Down the Different Kinds of High School Dance Teams
What’s the difference between dance team and pom team? Drill and majorette? Step, song, and color guard?
Each kind of team is found in high schools all across the U.S. (and even beyond). But not every school has every kind, and genres can differ based on culture and geography. There are also overlaps in elements like choreography, props, and venues, and “dance team” is even considered a category of its own within the larger umbrella of high school dance groups.
To provide some clarity, Dance Spirit spoke with coaches and dancers from some of the most popular kinds of high school dance teams. Read on for their insights.
Dance Team
A typical high school dance team fuses a variety of styles, including jazz, hip hop, and game day. Most teams perform at school events—like pep rallies and sports games—and dance competitions.
Mia Gomez is a senior at Coral Reef High School in Miami, FL, and captain of its dance team, the Varsity Cudettes. She says that dance team season begins in May to work on technique and get ready for competition prep camps in the summer. In the fall, dancers learn their routines and perform at pep rallies, and from November to February, they prepare for Nationals. “During Nationals season, it gets very intense,” says Gomez. Then, new members audition in the spring, and the cycle continues. The team is split into junior varsity for underclassmen and varsity for upperclassmen. Because of their range of styles, dance team members don’t stick to one particular music genre. They perform to their school’s fight song at pep rallies and in their game-day routine, which they perform at UDA High School Nationals. For competitions, they dance to anything from instrumental pieces to upbeat pop.
Costumes: Gomez says most dance teams wear embellished and bejeweled leotards to dance competitions like UDA. Some teams like to mix it up with unexpected styles. (The Varsity Cudettes wore long skirts at last year’s competition.)
College prep: Many high school alumni go on to join college teams. Gomez says that in recent years she’s seen an increase in the number of Varsity Cudettes who enter the college dance-team recruitment process. Alumni have joined The Ohio State University dance team and the LSU Tiger Girls, for example. “Now is the time when a lot of our girls really want to be on a team.”
Song Team or Pom Team
When you hear the term “song team,” you might imagine a group of singers. But it actually refers to a type of high school dance team common in California. Its name comes from one of its functions: leading songs at sporting events. As opposed to cheerleaders, “song leaders are the ones that dance on the sidelines,” says Danielle Darwazeh, dance director and head coach of the song program at Santa Margarita Catholic High School in Santa Margarita, CA.
Song-team season is year-round, with clinics and auditions in the spring, UDA camp in the summer, sporting events in the fall, and competition season in the winter. Two types of performances comprise a song team’s schedule: sideline and competitive. Sideline performances take place at football and basketball games, where song leaders perform about 10 short dances, called “sidelines” or “time-out dances.” At competitions, song teams compete against each other and other dance teams. The song team for the Santa Margarita high school attends five or six competitions per season leading up to UDA Nationals. “It’s a main part of our year and a huge component of what we’re working toward throughout the season,” says Darwazeh.
Darwazeh is closely tied to song-leading history—she was a song leader at Mater Dei high school, whose team dates back to the late 1960s: “It has progressed so much over the years in how much technique has been added to song leading.” The same tricks that used to be reserved for select members of her varsity team are now mandatory for junior varsity. Like dance teams, song teams are often college preparatory in nature. According to Darwazeh, song teams do “a little bit of everything.” Their main focuses are pom and jazz, which they compete in.
Tradition: On senior night, some song teams honor their graduating seniors by giving them flower crowns and sashes to wear while they dance on the sidelines. Younger team members will take turns sharing speeches about the seniors that they’ve bonded with.
Props: Song leaders almost always dance with poms, unless they’re performing a competition jazz or hip-hop routine.
Drill Team
If a team takes the football field wearing a cowboy hat and boots, they’re probably a Texas drill team. The drill style originates with the Kilgore College Rangerettes, a team founded at Kilgore College in 1940 by Miss Gussie Nell Davis. Davis’ team performed halftime shows with the intention of keeping football fans in their seats, rather than behaving “improperly” under the bleachers.
Former Rangerette Libby Koepke now coaches the drill team at Clear Creek High School in League City, TX. “Sometimes when people hear ‘drill team,’ they think ROTC,” she says. “But it’s not that. We’re doing dance technique.” (Teams do often have military-inspired leadership ranks, called officers, that include colonel, lieutenant colonel, major, and captain, though some teams have ventured away from this setup, says Koepke.) Dancers typically perform to marching-band music at football games and sit in the stands during game time, often performing stationary routines in the stands. Outside of games, they attend competitions against other high schools. Categories can include large groups, small groups, and solos in styles like jazz, contemporary, and lyrical, as well as pom, kick, and novelty.
Drill team is a year-round activity, with football season in the fall, competition/contests in the winter and spring, and a spring show. Dancers are often required to take technique classes in the summer. Audition timing can vary, with some teams holding auditions in the spring for the following year and others in the winter.
Uniforms: Most drill teams model their uniforms after the Rangerettes, who invented the Western-inspired ensemble of a cowboy hat, skirt (or pants, for boys), and cowboy boots in school colors. Team members also often wear a leather belt and, around their wrists, leather cuffs (called gauntlets). The top portion of the uniform varies, with some popular styles being a vest, cropped jacket, or triangle-shaped overlay. All are highly decorated with appliqués, sequins or rhinestones, and fringe. Drill teams also sometimes dance with regular short poms or long poms called streamers.
Signature step: Drill teams famously perform kicklines and jump splits in their field routines.
Color Guard and Winter Guard
Color guard is a segment of a marching band that performs with props like flags, sabers, and wood rifles. In addition to dance vocabulary, there is technique to how each prop, called equipment, is manipulated, including spins and tosses. Guard originated from historic military traditions, when a regiment of soldiers would carry flags onto the battlefield.
A year is split into two seasons, fall and winter/spring. In the fall, color guard performs an eight-to-10-minute production alongside the band’s musicians. These routines are often performed at halftime shows and band competitions and can include complex movement, props, and themes. Then, color guard enters its “winter guard” season, where the dancers (no band) perform a different, slightly shorter routine indoors to pre-recorded tracks, and sometimes with set pieces to help portray a story.
“Dance technique is so important because your body movement influences how you spin,” says Kassandra Vasquez, who coaches color guard at Flowing Wells High School in Tucson, AZ. “When I’m teaching my guards, at whatever level of dance training they are, we’re using all the correct dance vocabulary.” In rehearsals, guard performers will go across the floor to practice dance technique, with equipment training typically done with isolated exercises or in combination with movement. At contests, judges score routines on equipment technique, movement, and the overall design and impact of the performance, with an overall focus on choreography and execution.
Costumes: Costumes usually reflect the performance theme rather than school colors. Flags and other props are often styled to match. “You’re judged on your costume,” Vasquez says. “Some teams pay upwards of $200 to have them custom-made, but last year I thrifted blazers for my kids because they were portraying office workers.” On the field, color guard will wear an active sneaker or jazz shoe, and for indoor winter guard, a jazz shoe, half-sole, or bare feet are preferred.
Music: While fall season routines are performed to the marching band, winter guard gets creative, incorporating songs with lyrics, spoken word, and instrumental elements.
Majorette
Majorette dance originates from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the American South. (The genre is distinct from baton-twirling majorettes.) According to Chasen Kirby, who coaches Westover High School’s Dazzling Platinum Jewels in Fayetteville, North Carolina, majorette has spread from HBCUs to high schools and other community programs over the past century.
Kirby describes majorette as a mixture of different dance genres (jazz, hip hop, ballet, and more), and each team has its own “flair.” For example, he says, Jackson State University’s Prancing J-Settes are known for their hard-hitting bucking (moving the hips front and back with deep, wide legs), while The Southern University’s Fabulous Dancing Dolls are “daintier.” Majorettes perform in the stands and on the field during football games, as well as at competitions. The season generally runs from July to November—during the school year, the Jewels practice from 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm Monday through Thursday, perform at games on Friday, and compete on Saturday.
While majorette is a predominantly Black dance form, Kirby says he’s seen dancers of various ethnicities, though it’s much rarer in the HBCU space. The same goes for gender. Women dominate majorette (currently, all the Jewels are female), but other dancers have participated—including Kirby, who performed with a state marching band in high school, then with the Livingstone College’s Stonettes. And though it’s most popular in the American South, majorette extends internationally.
Routines: Most dances are eight-to-16-count stand routines, but teams perform longer halftime numbers on the field. A show includes a fanfare opening, drill, dance feature, ballad, and more. “We are an entity of the marching band,” says Kirby. “Any time it’s playing, we’re dancing.”
Uniforms: Uniforms are a major part of majorette, showcasing each team’s unique style. They’re almost always shiny or sparkling, with plenty of rhinestones or fringe to enhance movement. “It’s always about the glitz and the glam.”
Step
What is now known as step—a high-energy blend of dance, theater, and body percussion done around the world—began in South Africa as gumboot, a dance which evolved from miners hitting parts of their bodies to communicate with each other. Over time, step integrated elements of military drills and became popular in university Greek life before spreading beyond.
Step is a full production with sets, costumes, and spoken lines, says La’Darrion Keith Swanson, coach and founder of Garland Independent School District’s step team in Garland, TX. Numbers run from eight to 10 minutes, and each one has a secret theme only revealed during the performance. (Recently, Garland has done “Dora the Explorer” and “Wednesday.”) Choreography blends several dance forms, from jazz to hip hop to military style. Swanson warns not to confuse step with the show STOMP, which uses many more props.
Step teams travel for competitions in the winter and spring, so the Garland team does fundraising performances and pep rallies outside of comp season. In season, they practice for about four hours each weekday, with team-building activities and conditioning (including weight lifting) every other week. The dancers participate in community service every quarter. Garland’s team is coed, but some districts designate all-male or all-female teams. And while step is traditionally a Black dance form, Swanson believes it’s for everyone. “At the end of the day, it’s about self-expression,” he says. Step takes passion, creativity, humor, and risk, and the goal is always to entertain.
Venue: “The worst place for step is on the field,” says Swanson. Ideally, step happens on a stage with curtains and wings. (With the secret themes, the element of surprise is critical.)
Music: Swanson normally uses three songs per performance. Step’s body percussion plays off the music, which should be high-energy and on-theme. “It’s all about the hype,” he says.
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