DYLAN M. HOLLIDAY  

The Bamboom Dance Crew is a collective of dancers that dedicate two to two and half hours, three times a week to perfecting their talents. The crew has been united at Virginia Tech since 2008, representing the school at dance competitions and workshops around the Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia region.  While it is true that they have been competing for a very long time, this year, the journey was just a little different.

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As with every semester, Bamboom kicked off with a series of tryouts beginning around mid-September.

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Gloria Kim, a freshman architecture major and newcomer to the Bamboom family, was initially intimidated by the competition of auditions and her lack of previous choreography training.

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“Tryouts were intimidating because everyone was so good,” said Gloria Kim “It was scary at first because I wasn’t really used to it. I didn’t have choreography in my background, but I did really like it and it was fun.”

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Kim, although intimidated, showed her mettle to the dance crew, winning a spot on the team after tryouts had ended.

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“It was very exciting. They surprised me at my door and it was exhilarating because I was waiting for them.”

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Now as a full-blown member of Bamboom, Kim was excited to finally get to work with the team.  She looked forward to bettering herself as a dancer and to growing with the team not just as fellow dancers, but on a much more intimate scale: becoming her second family.

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“I clicked with them really well and I’m really blessed with them,” Kim said.

Again Bamboom is made up of many different individuals who, at the beginning of the semester, had their own goals they wished to accomplish with the dance crew.  For Breanna Myers, Bamboom’s Executive director, choreographer and veteran member, personal success is secondary to that of the dance crew’s.  “For me, personally, my goal is always to grow Bamboom as a team and continue to put out better and better sets,” Myers said.  

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“I really just wanted to have Bamboom be on the forefront of the DMV dance community.”

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For Miya Oshiro, continuous personal growth is her top priority for the semester.

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“I just always want to improve.  I feel like there’s always something that I didn’t do how I wanted to do the year before and I always try to make a point to push for it,” Oshiro said.

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Self-improvement for Oshiro can lead to genuine respect from others in the crew as well.  Even in dancing, respect is earned, not given.

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“There’s this one choreographer on the team who I never used to make it into their pieces, but I made it a point to try and make it into those pieces.  It’s my goal to just push myself,” she said.

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Although practices and workshops help Bamboom’s members bond and hone their chops as dancers, the driving force behind the dance crew is competing against other crews around the region.  From Coalescence, the annual hip-hop dance showcase at James Madison University, to Prelude: DMV, the hip-hop dance competition at Virginia State University, Bamboom has competed against various crews from around the region.  This fall semester of 2015, it was announced that Prelude: DMV would be held on Nov. 17 and Bamboom were set on winning nothing short of first.

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In preparation for the competition, Breanna Myers and her fellow choreographers got together and prepared each set of their four part competition routine.  In Myers’ words, there was one word to describe the process: stressful.

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“Choreographing a competition is always a lot more stressful because you have to think not only do I just like this choreography, but how is it going to translate on stage? Is it complex enough? Is it exciting enough? Are there enough wow factors movements in your piece? And then there’s always a time crunch,” Myers said.

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“It’s stressful but it’s fun and rewarding.”

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Before the competition was announced, there was a level of mystery as to who the competitors would be.

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“Honestly, we didn’t have any clue how the competition was going to look because this is the first year that they had DMV Prelude in the fall semester,” said Myers.  “We didn’t know what teams were going to show up.  There were a couple of other competitions happening around the same time so we didn’t know who we were going to be up against.”

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As time and practice loomed on, however, the shroud of mystery was lifted and the team had a chance to relax.

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“Once the lineup came out, it was all teams that we were familiar with, so that was kind of comforting,” said Myers.

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While there was an air of confidence for Bam Boom leading up to Prelude: DMV, they also knew that in the final days it was time to buckle down and get serious.  On the Friday before the competition, the team got together for a four to five hour practice to work out any kinks in their routine.

With the arrival of Nov. 17, it was time for Virginia Tech’s very own Bamboom Dance Crew to put their long hours of practice to work.  Many members of the team carpooled their way from the mountains of Blacksburg to the bustling college city of Petersburg, VA.  

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While some would be nerve-racked upon arrival to the competition site, the team handled themselves a little differently.

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“I honestly feel like we were pretty chill,” Oshiro said.

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“We didn’t really stress or anything… I feel like we were already pretty set in how we felt.  After we were on stage and got to work with the stage, we were fine.  We already knew everyone also so we were just messing around and having fun.”

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But, then arrived the moment.

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It was the moment before Bamboom takes to the stage and executes every step and movement that the team practiced over the course of the semester comes and affects many of the crew’s members.  “I feel like that part always gets really crazy and we’re always about to pee our pants! We always have to do a mini prayer before because we’re always freaking out,” Oshiro said.  

 

 

The show has begun.