perfectly coordinated aerial turns (SLYT)

January 17, 2024 9:19 PM

U dance team 'elated' after 22nd national championship and online attention A sequence in the choreography took the dancers through a long series of one-legged spins, ending with all 20 dancers flipping an aerial turn in unison. "That's a hard skill to get on, with 20 people on the floor," Tumbleson said. The dancers and coaches initially planned that only a few dancers would execute the aerial, but the team decided to choreograph the routine with all the dancers making the flying turns. Story here

via tywkiwdbi

posted by Gorgik (24 comments total)

MINDBLOWING video. Thanks for sharing!!
posted by potrzebie at 10:55 PM on January 17 [1 favorite]

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
posted by gryphonlover at 11:18 PM on January 17 [2 favorites]

That really was awesome!
And the coach is Tina Tumblesom? …I see what you did there…
posted by TDIpod at 11:34 PM on January 17 [4 favorites]

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Further to that, I can add: wow.
posted by Phanx at 1:03 AM on January 18 [3 favorites]

“Tina Tumbleson”?! Seriously?!
posted by nicwolff at 3:07 AM on January 18 [2 favorites]

The dance routine is incredible. And kerning is very important.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:57 AM on January 18 [3 favorites]

Holy smoke. People are cool. I feel such joy and power seeing this first thing in the morning. Thank you for posting.
posted by ezust at 5:15 AM on January 18

The artistic choreography is really amazing (and the dancer's execution of it, both in their movement and their faces). I loved the sneaking up to "good lord will take you away" part at 1:15.
posted by pjenks at 5:36 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

I didn't have time last night to flesh the post out, but there are some other great performances from the competition, including the LSU Tiger Girls and Ohio State University.
posted by Gorgik at 6:27 AM on January 18 [3 favorites]

I see that they are following the synchronized skating tradition of having exactly one man on the team.

I loved this and have watched it several times. There’s something about this style of dance that really appeals to me.
posted by Well I never at 6:30 AM on January 18 [3 favorites]

The aerial is awesome, but it's the turns that blew me away. Gorgeous technique. I get so tired of seeing dancers fall out of turns, this was just bliss to watch.
posted by JanetLand at 6:58 AM on January 18 [2 favorites]

Tina Tumbleson, yet another argument for nominative determinism.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 7:54 AM on January 18 [2 favorites]

The movements are absolutely mindblowing. But...

Isn't the music supposed to inform what happens on stage? The rhythm lines up most of the time. Is that all that's really required for choreography?
posted by tigrrrlily at 8:21 AM on January 18

Isn't the music supposed to inform what happens on stage?

Did they not make their dreams come true?
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:32 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

I was also wondering that? I felt like only those dancers doing a special trick were with the beat, and everyone else was just moving around. It was still cool and impressive, but it seemed odd. It's possible I'm not much of a dance appreciator.
posted by blnkfrnk at 11:08 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

Ohio States was amazing! The use of the costume/prop... wowow

I grew up doing tap, ballet and jazz, but before this style was popular. I never did manage to learn how to do those turns. I actually booked marked a YouTube tutorial and I really want to learn.

Arials, yeah no. Never. I'm too old and fat and inflexible. Same for the falling, rolling and popping back up.
posted by kathrynm at 11:16 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

I just watched it for the third time, and choreography is very much aligned with the music. It isn't always obvious, I guess, but the various sections align with the sections of the song, and the intensity of the movements more or less aligns with the intensity of the vocals. Even the very end of the dance, where there is a muted crash cymbal, features a group flourish that simulates a wave.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:44 AM on January 18 [3 favorites]

It looks like Minnesota's "Dream On" jazz routine placed first in prelims but second in finals. Ohio State, linked above, was the winner of the jazz category. Minnesota did, however, take first place in Pom.

The results.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:52 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]

Beautiful! Thank you for sharing!
posted by ellieBOA at 3:05 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]

I didn't have time last night to flesh the post out, but there are some other great performances from the competition, including the LSU Tiger Girls and Ohio State University.

These are excellent, I watch loads of hiphop dance but haven’t seen much jazz. I did ballet and modern when I was younger, wish I’d had the opportunity to do jazz!
posted by ellieBOA at 3:13 PM on January 18

I've casually followed college dance teams for decades. (My sister was once a D1 dance team coach.) The technical skill of today's teams is simply mindblowing. I remember when having an entire team successfully doing fouette turns together was a feat, but that's now the minimum. If you nerd out about this sort of thing, the turns into the aerial isn't the crazy part... it's the way they land the aerial on one leg, keep their spot, and then continue the fouettes. I've been been involved in the competitive dance world for ages and literally have never seen that before. Didn't know it was possible, let alone to have 20 people do it in unison.

At risk of writing a novel, I also wanted to comment on the choreography questions above. It's true that this style of dance is extremely trick-heavy and not as artistically connected to the music as other styles. It's really just its own thing... competition dance team jazz (which is really choreographed to score points, typically on a specific set of quantified criteria) doesn't look anything like jazz dance in a more traditional arts context.
posted by hessie at 6:41 AM on January 19 [8 favorites]

Humans are amazing. I love this kind of stuff. I'm not sure what song I expected a collegiate jazz dance team to perform to in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty-four, but it wasn't that one.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:48 AM on January 19 [5 favorites]

It's really just its own thing... competition dance team jazz (which is really choreographed to score points, typically on a specific set of quantified criteria) doesn't look anything like jazz dance in a more traditional arts context.

I wondered if that might be the case-- why I might be seeing it as asynchronous, when I'm just not used to the points-oriented choreography.

I've noticed a lot of things go harder than they appear to have in the past. Like, if you watch figure skating or gymnastics from years gone by, you see that the tricks seem easier and slower. Just goes to show that all fields advance!
posted by blnkfrnk at 12:40 PM on January 19 [2 favorites]

That was SO cool!!! I can't imagine being a human being doing that, just so impressed. Thanks Gorgik!
posted by WatTylerJr at 5:06 PM on January 19 [1 favorite]