Team Feature: Huntley

They slay at hip hop, know their way around a lyrical routine, and miss doing pom more often. Here’s how the Huntley Raider Dance Team covers so much stylistic ground.

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

Huntley has a little bit of everything. Need the comforts of suburbia? They’ve got plenty of that on the east side. In a rustic mood? Then check out the old farmhouses west of downtown. Grandparents looking to socialize with other retirees? Huge retirement subdivision. Dancer? Several nearby studios to choose from.

Huntley High School’s dance team has a history that parallels the school’s growth. Way back in 1999, the dance team placed 4th at IDTA state in what we used to call “pom dance” (and what we later called “open pom”). But that was in the “A” division with all the small schools. These days, Huntley is huge with nearly 2,900 kids, and the Raider Dance Team is a fixture in IHSA’s 3A class for competitive dance. The varsity team won their conference division and then sectionals in a very successful 2013-14 season, and JV has won conference for the past two seasons.

New to Huntley is its spacious fieldhouse, big enough to handle all levels of cheer plus varsity dance on the afternoon I dropped by. The team had just returned from UDA camp in Wheaton where they won first place for their home routine. The busy summer also included a kids camp, and today’s practice comes right after team pictures in the gym.

Nineteen varsity girls make the change from uniforms to practice gear and head into the fieldhouse (one varsity dancer isn’t here today—she’s connecting with family in Poland). Varsity Coach Chrissy Amling has just arrived from her day job to take charge of the photo shoot and team practice. A long time studio instructor, Coach Amling now focuses exclusively on this team. Her team of 20 is led by six seniors, and at this late July visit, senior Lauren leads warmups as official captains haven’t yet been named.

JV and Varsity mostly do their own thing on practice days. JV—also with 20 on their roster—is usually in action but those girls did choreography work this morning, so they’ve got the afternoon off. The JV dancers are coached by Coach Kristin Maggiore. Most of these 40 dancers have studio experience at various places nearby, including at the high-profile Dance Force Studio. It’s this varied technical background that lets Huntley excel in both lyrical and hip hop.

After stretching and warming up to an upbeat Katy Perry mix, the Red Raider Dance Team focuses on football season. Coach Amling has to double check and make sure that the girls legitimately know their fight song lyrics. “I’m a little concerned because our first performance is just a couple days after school starts,” she confesses in a low voice as the girls gradually inject more power into their fight song dance after a few run-throughs.

The girls have to be loud, anyway: three cheer squads are making plenty of noise on the other side of the fieldhouse. Cheer and dance work well together at Huntley, with lots of coordination during tryouts. The two programs also collaborate on sideline dances, with the dancers being careful to make the mini-routines as accessible as possible for the cheerleaders. This kind of mental flexibility is useful since the band might play the fight song at a variety of tempos, and the dancers need to be ready to adjust their counts accordingly!

Huntley is known these days for strong hip hop and lyrical routines—the ultimate pairing of dance styles that shows real versatility. They’ve also gone with pom routines in the not-too-distant past, but the realities of IHSA competition cemented the program’s shift to hip hop and lyrical. Speaking of being an official sport, Huntley enjoys great support from their athletic director, who’s pretty new to managing girls’ sports but getting the hang of it, according to Coach Amling.

“I’m definitely a people person,” she says. That helps to explain her knack for working with other dance coaches and Huntley’s own cheer program. Coach Amling judges tryouts for Batavia’s esteemed dance program, and in turn, Batavia’s coaches help out when it’s time to pick Huntley’s dance team.

To be a member of the Raider Dance Team, you’ll need lots of flexibility, a variety of leaps and jumps, and it doesn’t hurt to have aerials and tumbling tricks up your sleeve. It’s the first step in forming a team that could easily show up at sectionals with a potent hip hop or lyrical dance—with both styles having been serious contenders in recent years for Huntley’s dancers.

After clearing up those pesky fight song lyrics and cleaning up the sideline dances, it’s time to finish learning another football dance. The team’s five strongest girls learned a UDA dance—a mix of jazz, pom, and hip hop elements—and are now in charge of teaching it to the rest of the team.

Coach Amling interjects, “Remember, you’re gonna have poms in your hands…it’s different with poms!” She also takes a few moments to explain to the girls all the mysteries of doing diagonal formations well. “You’re going to have to communicate with each other to get into proper spacing on that long diagonal,” she tells her dancers. Senior Lauren has the girls count out the counts to make sure they’re hitting their sharpness and musicality goals.

But once this pom stuff is nailed down, the rest of the dance should be smooth sailing; Coach Amling confides to me that the hip hop part of the dance will come really easily to her team. Hip hop is something she brought to the program seven or eight years ago, but the veteran coach also tells me that her girls really miss doing pom at competitions. I gotta think that out there in the world of Illinois dance, other teams feel the same.

These girls deserve credit for envisioning what the dance will really be like in likely game night conditions. One senior concludes that “it’s not a good idea to do seconds on the turf,” and so they all decide to stick with a double for that part of the choreo. Team collaboration seems to come easily. “It’s their first really calm day of practice,” someone explains to me, since summer has so far been packed with stuff to learn quickly. Still, clearing up choreo is the priority today, and the fun “personality test” that had been on the agenda gets pushed back for another day. I didn’t catch all the details, but another team activity on the horizon somehow involves rhinestones.

And then it’s bonus time. The cheer coaches wrap up their practice and come over with good news: the gym’s open. The air-conditioned gym. The dancers pack up and leave behind the hot, sweltering air of the fieldhouse.

That challenging diagonal ends up being the focus of their gym time. Actually, it’s not the diagonal but the transition heading into it, and just having one teammate absent creates some interesting challenges. But remember that thing about this team being mentally flexible? It comes in handy here, with the girls easily figuring out how to maintain spacing and alignment after some collaboration.

With a newish campus built on farmland, the occasional field mouse finds its way into the building. So on those long competition days when the team gets back late after a long bus ride, a mouse encounter is definitely possible (even if it’s just the sound of scurrying). Luckily the critters seem to understand that when it’s Huntley’s turn to host a contest, it’s best to stay out of sight.

As varsity cleans up their formation-heavy football routine, Coach Amling notices the smaller group of Fox Valley Conference school logos painted on the back wall. The FVC lineup looks a little different this year, but Huntley’s proud to remain alongside some of Illinois’ dance powerhouses. Dance is a big deal at Huntley. The team gets a lot of school support and the dancers enjoy a high profile within the school community. Huntley also boasts an orchesis group, and they, like the dancers, sometimes rely on portable mirrors to make the best use of available practice space.

Huntley’s dancers are big fans of country and hip hop when they’re away from dance, which definitely reminds me of the variety in their dance specialties, hip hop and lyrical. But with lyrical being more of a calculated, strategic move, it’s hip hop that owns these dancers’ hearts. “Hip hop is what matters,” a couple of them tell me. Their tryout requirements look pretty standard, but a couple things on the list pop out: headsprings and straight-leg kips. Huntley’s intense hip hop dances have been conspicuous routines at competitions over the past few years, alongside lyrical dances that are also beautifully executed.

Half of these girls would like to keep dancing after the move on from Huntley. While they’re still Raiders, however, it’s all about dance. The team runs a “Pommerettes” youth clinic in September, but besides football obligations, they’ve got their minds on the competition season ahead of them. When I ask if any team members have other athletic backgrounds, they explain that there’s no time to do other sports. The seniors explain it simply: “We’re all pretty dedicated.”