Dance team gears up for basketball season halftime performances
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December 1, 2009
Lindsay Huth
The Knights are down by 15 points and halftime has arrived. The crowd is crestfallen, but luckily, the dance team is there to galvanize the fans. Coached by Tara Pizer, the girls, led by captains junior Isabella Testa and sophomore Micaela Gutlove, are excited to bring their energy off the football field and onto the basketball court.
“I’m excited to start the season and have a fresh start,” said Gutlove, a dancer with 12 years of experience.
The team debuted 15 years ago, making it a fairly new group. Since then, the team has continued to grow in size and spirit.
“I have loved building the team up and making it more accepted at Hoban,” Pizer said.
After a decade and a half of cheering on Hoban teams, the girls have not lost their zeal for dancing. They initiate each season with a summer camp at Pizer’s studio where they start learning several dances. To improve their technique, they practice two to three times a week and before games, performing a different dance to a new song at most home games.
“I pick most of the songs,” Pizer said. “I try to keep them crowd friendly and do different genres like jazz, lyrical, and musical theater because we have a lot of different people to entertain.”
Their success has been forged by the efforts of Pizer, a dancer since age three. She started to seriously dance at age nine and began teaching her own classes at 15. Currently, she owns her own studio, 8 Count Dance, located in Green. She has been the Hoban coach for three years.
“The girls did not have a coach, and I stumbled upon the job,” Pizer said. “I was a student teacher at Hoban so it worked well to teach and then go to practice.”
Although Pizer choreographs the routines, the captains contribute a lot as well.
“If Tara cannot come to practice, we run and correct the dances and at games we make sure everyone is there,” Gutlove said.
As co-captain, Testa is also motivated by her role and love of dance for the coming season.
“It is really fun to see the audience’s faces and our classmates’ reactions because they really like the dances,” Testa said.
With an ample supply of leaps, twirls, energy and smiles, the dance team can entertain and revive the crowd and basketball team.
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