Team Feature: Hampshire

They caught everyone’s attention with a high finish in an elite dance conference. Now, Hampshire Dance Team looks to take the next step forward.

 

by Norm Ramil, 8 Count Audio chief.music.officer & dance.fan

 

Hampshire can be a hard place to describe without a map. If you’re from outside of Chicago, think of it as a suburban school with almost 1,500 kids. And if you’re from the Chicago ‘burbs, Hampshire’s a small school, way out there in the fields of northern Kane County. Go east, and there’s suburbia with its Starbucks and Chipotle. Go west, and there’s corn.

It’s getting bigger and busier. Hampshire High School opened its new building in 2008, and new subdivisions explain the school’s enrollment jump from 1,074 in 2010 (thanks, Wikipedia!) to 1,491 (thanks, IHSA.org!).

Hampshire’s dance team is also up-and-coming. They’ve got sass on their side whether they mean to or not—the school’s nickname is the Whip-Purs, or sometimes the Whippurs. Not sure. But basically it’s some kind of wild cat with a lot of attitude. Their mascot commands a prominent spot on the wall of their gym, shared this afternoon by both the dance team and the cheerleaders.

When I walk in, I see that they’re sharpening up a kick line. Coach Vanessa Castellano has them focusing on their head snaps, an essential element to any kind of kick technique. It doesn’t take long for musicality to show up as a concern, with their coach counting out the “and” counts to highlight the syncopated rhythm of the song. She mentions that straight and strong arms (again, critical for kick) means “engaging the same muscles you would use for pom work.”

Practices start with cardio, like running up to a mile. Then comes a stretch session plus crunches, pushups, and arms. Fall practices sometimes include some across-the-floor technical work, something to always improve on. But once competition season starts, it’s all about cleaning that routine and the facials—the “performance quality,” as Coach Castellano calls it. The gym isn’t always available, but when it is, that’s the time to fix up formations, spacing, and lines.

This year’s Hampshire Dance Team has 13 on the roster for football season, and 11 of these girls wore the Whips uniform a year ago. Over half are seniors (six). Dancing alongside them are three juniors, two sophomores, and two freshmen. These ladies made it through a tryout that required a toe touch, double or triple pirouette, battements, tilt kicks, calypsos, and seconds (if they have them). An “additional skills” part lets the dancers demo any extra talents like tumbling.

Hampshire Dance Team’s goals for the summer, besides two football dances, are to work on tech skills. We’re talkin’ jumps (switch leaps, center leaps, calypsos), we’re talkin’ turns (seconds and triples). The girls are also focusing on flexibility because that makes these skills easier to achieve while also helping with kicks and leaps. Conditioning and endurance are also priorities because strength is such a big key to good performance.

Coach Vanessa Castellano has built up Hampshire’s dance program for the past three seasons. The Hampshire Dance Team broke through a couple seasons ago with a surprising 3rd place conference placement in the elite FVC. “We have been working in the past few years to broaden our technical skills,” she Castellano, recently engaged and an HHS English teacher. “We usually incorporate turns in seconds, leaps, center leaps, calypsos, etc.” But they’ve got the home crowd in mind when it comes to designing dances for games and pep rallies. So they go with fast pom routines since “the crowd seems to enjoy the upbeat music we choose, which always adds more energy to the performance.”

The town of Hampshire’s on the smallish side, so these dancers come from a variety of studios: Faulbourg School of Ballet, Duet Dance Academy (South Elgin), Pro Dance Elite (Algonquin), Rebecca McCarthy School of Dance (Algonquin), and Integrity School of Dance (Elgin). In the works is a dance program for Hampshire High School’s feeder middle school, which Castellano says would “create more of a connection between middle school dance and high school dance.” This kind of coordination has helped Hampshire’s cheer program reach higher levels, so hopefully Hampshire’s middle schoolers will soon have a natural route to the high school dance team.

Team bonding isn’t just a summer thing for Hampshire. The dancers have a pizza party before the homecoming game, and two or more sleepovers throughout the year provide plenty of fun source material for their Instagrams and Snapchats. Seniors get the spotlight in a routine along with a special gift on senior night, and the end-of-season banquet caps everything off. The Hampshire Dance Team stays close in more ordinary ways, too, the kind that you’ll remember the most even years later (the girls carpool to football and basketball games and dress up for away games).

Coach Castellano handles the choreo duties for the four dances during football season, and while she collaborates with the seniors for their senior night routine, she’s definitely in charge of that choreography as well. Basketball games feature the team’s competition dances, plus another three or four routines that can be anything from jazz to pom to hip hop to lyrical!

So she’s got a tight hold on choreo, but there’s a loose, positive vibe to the team. She’s usually smiling and laughing about something, and it looks like practice is as much about hard work as it is about having fun. During water breaks she’s right in there among the girls, chatting happily about life. And when she teaches a dance with her back to the team, Coach Castellano still has a big smile on her face, even if the wall is the only thing to witness it.

“My coaching philosophy is simple, but I find it to be very effective…I always tell my girls that I will work hard for them, tirelessly if I have to, as long as they come to practice every day ready to work.” She emphasizes “the need for a positive attitude, as well as a mutual respect between team members and coaching staff.” The girls spend a ton of time together, so it’s important for them “to look out for each other, respect one another, and work together for the betterment of the team.” All of this, she hopes, creates a close bond, “a family unit with my team.”

That dance family reaches up into the college level. In her three years leading the Hampshire Dance Team, Coach Castellano has seen ten seniors graduate. One of them is at Western Michigan majoring in dance, while another is set to start studying dance at Loyola in the fall.

When it comes to teams they admire, Hampshire mentions a surprising choice. The girls are big fans of The Royal Family hip hop crew and their “striking performance quality.” Castellano goes on to praise how “they always attack their choreography and their facials are unbelievable. They’ve really inspired me and my girls to push ourselves to the next level.” On the other hand, these girls join the legions of dancers who look up to the University of Minnesota Dance Team: “they have such amazing technique, but also some of the sharpest pom work we have ever seen!”

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Chatting with the seniors

Jess doesn’t have a studio background, but does have plenty of pom experience from middle school. One hard part about catching up to her teammates’ technique was just learning the vocab of dance. On the other hand, her gymnastics skills came in handy—“I was pretty surprised at what I could do.” The key to stepping up her game was relying on Ms. Castellano, an accomplished studio instructor. For the non-technical dancer, Jess says that the key to picking up choreo quickly is to practice at home as soon as possible.

So what’s a cool aspect of being on a small team? “The girls are close, and there’s lots of trust. We pick each other up, and there’s no drama, which makes it all more fun.” Jess also loves the fan support at Hampshire.

Abby has a serious handshake—she means business. Really, I wasn’t ready for that one, so be warned if you ever meet her in a formal setting. She’s always ready to spark some humor into practice. No longer at a studio, she loved “jazz because it’s fun, but also contemporary because it’s pretty.” Her favorite moments as part of this team? “Getting that nervous feeling at conference” when you’re ready to go up against some pretty big names in dance. But along with that is the frustration of knowing that some people don’t see this as a sport (she’d like to prove them wrong). Here’s some proof that she and her teammates are athletes: next year, she doesn’t have any immediate plans to dance after high school because her body’s physically “done.” Maybe some credit for that goes to Ms. Castellano, “who brings out the best in each of us.”

Caroline’s studio background in Algonquin, where her fave classes were jazz and ballet, is a super-valuable asset for Hampshire. That’s because she helps the non-technically-trained teammates step up their dance game. And the biggest difference between studio dancing and dance team? “You see them every day,” so team unity is uber-important. The coolest part of Caroline’s time on Hampshire Dance Team has been the transition from bad to good. “I saw the team perform freshman year,” she remembers, and there was some hesitation until she eventually came on board after the fall season. She’s grateful to go from pretty much the bottom of the conference all the way up to 3rd. As a trumpet player in the school band, Caroline’s pretty amazed that some dancers don’t rely on counts! (I totally agree.)

Morgan’s starting her 4th year on the team. As a freshman, she didn’t know what to expect—“I didn’t even know they were bad!” But suddenly there came the fan support: an actual fan section at their competitions and compliments as she walked the halls of HHS. She loves the support within her team, too, saying that their small size makes it easy to get closer. She credits Coach Castellano for helping the team improve its technique, just like today when the girls needed help with on kick line.

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The team moves on to another routine during practice. This time, it’s pom, and Castellano teaches the dance from her choreography notebook. The girls learn it quickly. And after cheer leaves for the day, the dance team tries it out on the other side of the gym, full out with music. It’s a good mental shift and it lets Coach C spot some problems. But the team’s also thinking ahead, with one girl asking, “Should we be concerned about doing seconds on the grass?” Maybe. But part of being a Whippur / Whip-Pur / Whip / wild, cat-like creature is being strong.

Practices are full of smiles and laughs, and besides the very open and casual conversation that flows back and forth between Coach and the dancers, the girls are comfortable expressing themselves to each other. One dancer had trouble getting a part right in the pom routine, and when she finally figured it out, she blurted out an “Oh my God, I got it!” And when the cheerleaders run through a particularly catchy chant, the Hampshire Dance Team can’t help but join in during a break.

Coach C announces that she’s feeling generous and ends practice a few minutes early. The girls respond with a group “Thank you,” and I start to really understand her philosophy. This really is a small dance family, where the dancers are optimistic and definitely aware of their rising status. And they’ve got a coach who’s hands-on with technique and choreo while also crafting a happy atmosphere with her team.