JagSwag hosts young dancers

By: Janese Watson

Every year, Seckman High School’s dance team, JagSwag, holds a pom clinic. This clinic is open to kindergartens up to eighth graders. It is made for dancers not only to improve their dance moves, but have fun while doing it. The girls meet new people and have amazing bonding experiences. There are games played for the girls to interact with one another and get out of their comfort zone. First grader Taylor Davis said, “I've met so many new friends!” For only thirty five dollars the dancers will learn a dance for three days and perform it on the Rickman Auditorium stage for all their friends and family to see. The package includes a T-shirt and an amazing experience.

This year’s dance clinic is themed: “Pop Stars.” Every song that is played is about being a pop star of some sort. The girls have dressed up in the past, but this year they wore what they would like so they can really focus on learning the material. The first day of camp they played some games and got right into to learning some dances. Every dancer is in their own age group to make things easier. If they feel they can do better they are able to move up a level. The girls learn as much as possible for the first two hours and JagSwag members make sure they look nice and clean for the next day.

The second day of clinic is all about technique. Without technique, everything looks sloppy, so the focus is on making sure the girls know what the proper technique is for each movement of the dance. Tenecia Clemmons mentions, “I love seeing the girls improve throughout the week, it’s my favorite thing to watch!”.The girls go across the floor doing certain moves and they improve each time around. After everyone has gone through technique with their levels they begin to dance again. Each dance is run several times to work on the dancers’ memory. After everything is complete the dancers make a big circle and go around saying a few things they liked about that day.

The third day of camp is all about focusing. This is the day parents can come watch and see what the girls have been working on for the past week. All the dancers get excited to finish off the camp strong. The girls stretch to warm up, then begin dancing once again. After the dances are perfectly clean and memory mistakes are finally gone, they are ready to perform for the big show. 

Friday’s showcase is not something that happened in the past. It is new to the camp clinic tradition. Before, the girls would perform on the third day and call it a camp. Now JagSwag has arranged them to be in the annual Seckman Spectacular. JagSwag performs all of their dances and invites schools from all around to make the show more interesting. It is a honor to have to pop star girls dance with JagSwag this year. Everyone is excited and can't wait to see what will happen next!