Towson Dance Team Returns With Another Title

Future is unknown for TU team after 11th win from College Nationals
By Ashley Rabe
The Towerlight

An unexpected trip and dramatic routine led Towson University’s Dance Team to their 11th straight national title.

The team, consisting of 29 members, traveled to Florida for the College Dance Team National Championship last weekend, returning with a rather unexpected attitude.

“It’s the same. It’s hard to believe, but we really don’t go there to win,” coach Tom Cascella said. “We weren’t going to go back this year and around Thanksgiving we decided to go and made it something different and weird.”

According to Cascella, after multiple wins the team debated returning this year, wondering what was left for them there. After much discussion the team agreed to return, but with a goal to do something very different than years past.

“We did a song and a routine about the battle between good and evil. Some of our members wore hoods so you couldn’t see their faces and one didn’t wear a hood and at the end she was killed and one of the evil people became good,” he said.

Cascella called the theme of their performance, abandoned hope with the ultimate moral being that good always prevails.

“It was really good, it was a different style routine that we did so we took a chance and took it in a whole different direction. We went 180 degrees than what we normally do,” he said. “It was a big departure for us, it was a dramatic presentation.”

Cascella began the search for a routine by listening to countless tracks and meeting with some of the members of the team at the beginning of December. The group settled on Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.

He describes the song as a classic that everyone has heard of and that it is dark and sinister, while still maintaining a strong theme.

According to Cascella, as choreography began, it did not go well, and that the end of the routine was not completed until about a month ago.

The future of the TU Dance Team is currently unknown.

“Were going to sit down in a couple weeks and figure out where we go from here. It’s a long time to win 11 years in a row and what do you have to prove?” Cascella said.

The team is only losing three members to graduation and will hold auditions this Saturday for interested students.

“I really don’t know honestly. We weren’t going back this year but we decided to go back. We’re just going to sit down and think about it and talk together,” he said.

According to Cascella, the questions that remain for him as well as the team is if they don’t compete at College Nationals, will they get high quality individuals to audition for their team? If they don’t compete what do they do? If they didn’t compete would they lose their competitive edge?

“We’re looking at the USO tour and other shops and clinics. We were thinking of maybe going to Japan. We have a lot of options,” he said.