The Dance of 14 Days: Day #8 January 16th, 2012- Junior Dance Teams!

The roar of thousands of people clapping, whistling and yelling for you!!!! What a feeling for a young girl.

When I was 9 years old, I auditioned to become a member of the Junior Soulmates and made it!!! You had to have some dance experience. The Junior Soulmates were two teams, one for girls between 8 – 12 years old and the second team was for girls 13 – 18 years old. A 12 year old could try out for the second team if she thought she was ready. We practiced one to two times a month on a Sunday and we would perform at the Soul football games. The Soul an indoor football team plays their games at the Wachovia Center. We would perform during half time.

I have been a jr. team member for several years. The SOUL stopped playing for 2 seasons do to the fact that the ownership was losing money.

Over the last 5 years, I have been a member of the Platinum All Stars. We travel and perform at various venues. We have performed at Madison Sq Garden, Wachovia Stadium, and the Spectrum. We have performed for collegiate football teams, professional hockey teams, arena football teams and the Sixers basketball team. We also performed during half time for the Harlem Globetrotters. We have also performed twice at the Atlantic City Thanksgiving Day parade.

In the summer of 2010, I joined the Trenton Thunder (minor league baseball) Dance Team and was a member of their first team ever. We performed at the end of their games before the fireworks show.

This winter the Trenton titans were planning on having a dance team but do to low numbers that have decided not to have a team this year. I was looking forward to it. I enjoy the hockey games.

This season I have decided not to do the Soul; however, I am still on the Platinum Dance Team. We will be performing for the Harlem Globetrotters this March.

My funniest experience with all the dance teams was my first year as a Soul Jr. dancer. After the game, the players would come back on the field and would sign shirts, footballs, programs whatever you wanted; they would even take a picture with you. I had worked my way up to the front and had a shirt I was trying to get signed, when these two girls a little younger than me came up to me and asked me to sign their football. They wanted my autograph!!! At first, I thought they were just showing me the football but then they said, “You were great can we have your autograph?” I signed the football Meaghan!