2008 Woodie Awards
TU Dance makes it 10 straight titles
Kiel McLaughlin
News | 4/17/08
Three seconds into the competition, it could have been over. After the first few notes played, the music stopped. Unfazed, the Towson University Dance Team continued their performance in Daytona, Fla., during the National Cheerleading Association and National Dance Alliance Championships during the weekend.
By the time they completed the routine, the crowd was cheering and standing. Judges determined the stereo malfunctioned and the team was forced to perform again. The mechanical malfunction proved just a small speed bump in the squad's drive to their 10th consecutive national championship.
"I told the team this was one of my most proud moments with the team," Thomas Cascella, a professor in the theatre arts department and Dance Team head coach, said. "The crowd was going crazy."
The competition is scored on criteria of various dance styles and techniques, from jazz to hip hop. Many of the more than 200 teams in the competition dance to spliced together songs to match the dance styles used, Cascella said. Towson chose to take a different route, using a single song throughout the performance. Cascella said their choice of song also set apart the performance.
"We used 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen," he said. "It's a song that so many people know and they know what's happening at each part of the song."
The TU Dance Team has only one dance student on the 24-person roster. The majority of the team, Cascella said, is made up of education, computer science and business majors. Cascella and the team members choreograph the routine over the course of about three months. Cascella said he would give the team a few weeks off to relax after intense practicing and the competition.
"Now we are trying to figure out where do we go from here? Ten years is a long time," Cascella said. "We need to decide what do we do now and how do we continue to move forward and improve. For now, we'll take some time off and then get back together and see where we have to go."
By the time they completed the routine, the crowd was cheering and standing. Judges determined the stereo malfunctioned and the team was forced to perform again. The mechanical malfunction proved just a small speed bump in the squad's drive to their 10th consecutive national championship.
"I told the team this was one of my most proud moments with the team," Thomas Cascella, a professor in the theatre arts department and Dance Team head coach, said. "The crowd was going crazy."
The competition is scored on criteria of various dance styles and techniques, from jazz to hip hop. Many of the more than 200 teams in the competition dance to spliced together songs to match the dance styles used, Cascella said. Towson chose to take a different route, using a single song throughout the performance. Cascella said their choice of song also set apart the performance.
"We used 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen," he said. "It's a song that so many people know and they know what's happening at each part of the song."
The TU Dance Team has only one dance student on the 24-person roster. The majority of the team, Cascella said, is made up of education, computer science and business majors. Cascella and the team members choreograph the routine over the course of about three months. Cascella said he would give the team a few weeks off to relax after intense practicing and the competition.
"Now we are trying to figure out where do we go from here? Ten years is a long time," Cascella said. "We need to decide what do we do now and how do we continue to move forward and improve. For now, we'll take some time off and then get back together and see where we have to go."
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