With pre-season just around the corner it’s time to kick into high gear! We quickly transitioned from having rehearsal twice per week to three times per week. Unfortunately all the scheduling in the world couldn’t have seen another hurricane coming…as you’ve probably already guessed, some of our rehearsals were cancelled due to the recent and devastating effects of the many hurricanes that have hit Florida. Hurricanes Charlie, then Frances, then Ivan, and most recently Jeanne have definitely taken a major toll on all of us. As a matter of fact, Hurricane Jeanne landed and interrupted our rehearsal schedule just 2 ½ weeks before the start of pre-season. As a result, countless Floridians, quite of few of our Dancers, and numerous businesses (including our rehearsal facility) were out of power for days on end. Thankfully we didn’t miss too much rehearsal time and we got right back on schedule!

A typical rehearsal night for the Magic Dancers will start with an hour-long workout class such as TKO, which is an aerobic kickboxing class; spinning, which is a cycling class; or power yoga. When we are done with our group workout we go into our rehearsal studio and Coach Jeanine kicks things off by having the team leaders take over for the first 30 minutes when each leads a specific activity. Fitness is Vanessa’s responsibility and she leads a new fitness exercise each rehearsal using equipment such as the medicine balls and resist-a-bands. Then I take over and lead a stretch and warm up focusing on increasing flexibility. Last, Cherie is responsible for doing progressions across the floor to keep us brushed up on our technique working on kicks, turns, and leaps. Then we start working on our performance routines. Right now we are concentrating on our “sidelines” which are mini routines performed at every game during hot time-outs in the 4th quarter. The tricky part is that there is no specific song that goes with the sidelines so we have to make sure that we rehearse them with all different types and styles of music. We also work on the “feature routines” we have learned so far. These routines are the main dances we will perform at the games and range from hip-hop to jazz to fun-themed routines like our holiday dances. I’m excited because at the start of this season we will get to perform two feature routines per game and normally we only get one feature routine per game. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that we get to continue this through the entire season! The feature routines you see on the court come from a lot of different places such as Pro Dance (our industry convention in Las Vegas), guest choreographers from our training camp, Coach Jeanine, and we have the opportunity to choreograph feature routines too. When we are done working on routines it’s time for “business." This is Coach Jeanine’s time to review the upcoming calendar, book promotional events for us to attend, and give us any information or news that she may need to tell us. Our rehearsals usually run from 6:30pm-10pm and when we get out I am ready to go home and go right to bed, especially since I work full-time in an office job from 8am-5pm Monday through Friday! It’s a demanding schedule, but well worth it!

So far I think we’ve had a very productive and fun three months. I’d have to say one of my favorite moments as a Magic Dancer this season has been just watching us evolve into a team. We went from 16 individual dancers to dancing as one and we’ve worked so hard. We all can’t wait for the games to start and for our big debut (and we won’t have to wait long now)! By the way, we got some incredibly exciting news late last week and I’ll be filling you in more as we get closer…the Magic Dancers have been invited to go on a USO tour to entertain the troops in Bosnia and Kosovo this December! Almost the entire team will be going along with Coach Jeanine and Stuff the Magic Mascot! We are only the second NBA Dance team to be invited on such a tour and what an honor it is! We have a lot of work ahead of us, but I have a feeling it is going to be the most rewarding and fulfilling experience of our lives!

Hope to see you at the pre-season game on October 12! Until next time…