Fame or Famine

Ok, so I’m actually only going to be writing about the first part of that headline. But it’s catchy, isn’t it? Last Sunday was one of the biggest sporting events ever – I’m talking, of course, about the  Wisconsin State Cheerleading Competition, where my youngest daughter Danny, a junior at East High School, would be competing.

I remember when she first told me she wanted to quite cross country (my old sport) and join cheer. She’d been nervous. “Dad…how would you feel if I became a cheerleader?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Why do you want to be a cheerleader?”

“Because it’s fun!” was her immediate answer. “And…I’m good at it. I went to the tryouts, and I can be a flyer – that’s the person who gets tossed in the air, does all the stunts.” Her voice was excited and her face bright. So I did what any good father would do when faced with his child’s dream.

“Then you should definitely do it,” I said, smiling. “And be sure to tell me way in advance when the games are, so I can go cheer with you.”

She didn’t do so good on that part, but that’s a genetic trait. But she had told me about this competition well in advance, and so I was able to make my way there on Sunday afternoon.

It was late in the competition, so the seating was pretty empty, but there was a large stage set up, with a curtain which would belch stage fog before each school’s cheer group would come on. I got a chance to see several schools perform their routine before my daughter’s group, and was surprised – both in positive and negative ways – by what I saw.

On the negative side was the lack of choreography. There seemed to be an immense emphasis on stunts and gymnastics, as opposed to actual dancing. I should state here that, as a dancer myself, there isn’t necessarily supposed to be more choreography at the event -  I just would have liked to see more grace there. On the other hand, having thirty young women do a backflip simultaneously is pretty impressive no matter what you call it, and I was quite impressed by the abilities of various schools.

That’s the other negative surprise – the lack of crowd support. Cheerleaders have to fight against one of the toughest things in the world: apathy. Their job is to get people excited, and I’ve seen how difficult that can be in a crowded stadium when there are teams that people have come to root for. At the competition, there was a distinct lack of excitement from the crowd – yet under the steely critical gaze of the judges, the cheerleaders gamely smiled and encouraged the crowd to cheer along, usually in a teaching format. First they would teach the cheer, shouting and demonstrating, and then order the crowd to repeat it – which more often than not left cavernous silences in the routines, but they would just smile and move into the next lift, pose, or stunt.

That was one of my worries, as I watched the flyers from each group. First observing them with a dancer’s eye, I was impressed with the aerial arabesques, the perches, the flips and reverse pikes and the catchers unerring support. At a certain point, though, I shifted from dancer to Daddy, and realized that my kid was going to be up there doing that stuff! Suddenly my palms seemed a little clammy, and I kept telling myself that Danielle was much older now than the time she’d stood on her twin sister’s shoulders, directly against my warnings, and ended up getting staples in her head at the E.R. that night.

She was much older, and wiser, and this time she’d been taught by experts. I kept telling myself that.

Of course, as a Daddy unfamiliar with anything but the cheerleading stereotype, I also had to deal with my preconceptions about the connection between cheerleading and sexuality. It was a relief, I have to admit, to see that while the uniforms were, well, uniform – short skirts and long-sleeved tops – the range of body types was quite diverse, and there did not seem to be an unhealthy homogeneity to the performers.  This helped ease a father’s fear of body image issues that might have preyed on my little girl’s mind, undoing years of work trying to encourage her to be happy in the body she has and not to let peer or cultural pressure drive her into binge diets or worse.

I’ve also tried to make sure she was educated and assertive enough to make her own decisions about sexuality, and so it was also a relief to see that, for the most part, the choreography that was there was not exploitative of the cultural stereotypes around young women and sexuality. Most of the routines I saw were much more about athleticism and excitement than any kind of sensual overtones, though as the competition proceeded I did see more of the larger clubs venturing into more suggestive choreography, often based off of hip-hop moves to go along with the accompanying music. They never crossed the line into blatant sexuality, though, and I again found myself relieved – possibly a bit hypocritically, since I myself perform with a burlesque troupe. However, I’ll claim Daddy’s rights to be protective of his youngest daughter.

And that’s what it came down to. Her team was one of the last performances, and there she was, my youngest running, leaping, standing tall in the center of a balanced pose with a bright grin on her face. She was focused, intent, and this was the culmination of her work over the school year, to follow that dream of being a flyer and compete with her teammates. She told me later it was not their best performance, not by a long shot, and I suppose if I really tried I could pull out some dance critiques and talk about some aspect or other that was not quite as je ne sais quoi as it could have been.

But you know, I’m not going to. Instead I’m going to hold that treasure in my memory: the littlest twin, four pounds twelve ounces at her 5-week premature birth, who used to literally sleep in the palm of my big Irish hand, was up there strong, proud, and doing what she loved, and I got to go and support her in it, cheering and whooping and chanting “E…H…S!!”

From the first time some ancient hairy ancestor started stomping their foot, that’s what dance is all about: sharing that energy with each other. It’s what still brings nations and people together, in spite of all the reasons we have to be apart.

Thanks, Danny, for sharing it with me.

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