The dance team brings a unique level of experience to the court. Bryanna Cure and Naomi Murray are two of the four captains on the school’s dance team. They also danced for the Madison Mustangs, a local football team that plays in the Ironman Football League (IFL).
“It was a lot of fun,” Cure said. “The team is really good so I have had really good experiences just watching them.”
Cure and Murray are in their second year as students at Madison College. This is also their second year participating on the dance team. Both Cure and Murray were named captains before the fall semester by coach Hayley Mason.
The IFL season starts in late May and lasts until late August. With the Madison College season ending, it provided perfect timing for the ladies to pursue dancing outside of Madison College.
Mason, also the coach of the Mustangs spirit team, helped Cure and Murray find their way to the team.
Both Cure and Murray dealt with an adjustment when joining the Mustangs organization. The organization did not have a typical dance team. It was a spirit team. A spirit team is similar to a dance team, but there is more to a spirit team than just the dancing aspect. A spirit team cheers for the sports team that is on the field or court as well.
Cure and Murray took similar paths to the college’s dance team. Cure started dancing when she was five years old while Murray started when she was three. Cure took a class focused on jazz and ballet. Murray took different classes at that young age as well.
“I started out with ballet, then I went into tap, then went into jazz, hip-hop and pointe,” Murray said. “I just love to dance.”
Cure’s experience as a dancer around sports does not stop at just the Madison College WolfPack and the Madison Mustangs. Cure danced for the Wisconsin Wolfpack indoor football team before they suspended operations prior to the upcoming 2011 season in the Continental Indoor Football League.
“If the opportunity comes up again, I would (dance for them again),” Cure said. “If they have a team in the future, I would definitely go back.”
The Wisconsin Wolfpack dance team was different than the Mustang spirit team. With both teams, the dancers had to be very involved. However, with the Wolfpack, there was more promotional work, according to Cure. The dancers would go out during timeouts and intermissions to throw out footballs or t-shirts to the fans. They would also go through the crowd and sell raffle tickets. Cure is taking steps to make dance a potential career.
“I feel like both experiences were so amazing,” Cure said.
Even though they have taken similar pathways to the 2010-11 dance roster, Murray and Cure have different aspirations with dance. Murray is looking to segue into a career outside of dance, while still keeping a place for dance.
“It’s something to keep me active and stay in shape,” Murray said.
Murray is currently a liberal arts/transfer student, but her goal is to have a career in radiology. She is on the waiting list for the radiology program at Madison College.
Cure wants to be a dance teacher or instructor at some point. She also takes adult classes at Fusion dance studio. She is looking to eventually minor in dance at a four-year university.
“I feel like it would be a great fit especially since I love dancing so much,” Cure said. “I like encouraging young people and other people to dance because I feel like it can make you feel better about yourself just knowing, ‘wow, I can do this.”
Regardless, both of the dancers will be dancing for Madison College athletics in the near future.