HEAT: HAMILTON’S HIP HOP TEAM

By Jeffrey Cheng ‘25

coming out of the pandemic. “The SDA performance was a 25 minute performance and now we are projecting it to be about an hour and a half. The teams are able to do more choreography, more people want to be involved in the dance community,” said Flores. Every group is getting more involved. Given the commitment to dance practices, scheduling a time in the single dance studio on campus can be challenging. “Between faculty dance rehearsals, other dance groups, and dance classes, there is very limited access to a safe dance space. The multipurpose room is there, but it’s not great,” said Thomas, who would like to see Hamilton invest in another dance space. The multipurpose room does not have a safe dance surface since it is concrete. Flores also believes Hamilton needs to invest more in dance spaces. She has seen Hamilton accept more students interested in dance, so it is on the college to manage these demands.

In spite of the unfortunate dance practice times, often at night around 9-11pm, the team is constantly working to perform for the school. In the fall semester, HEAT’s first big event is the football halftime at parent’s weekend, and they continue these performances at football games throughout the semester. This year, the group also hosted their own HEAT Hive Event as a tribute to Beyonce and an opportunity to have a fun event for themselves. The spring semester’s focus is on the C&C day performance.

For C&C day, they have a roughly 12 minute lineup that they are expected to perform. The amount of time and energy it has taken to choreograph a 12 minute piece has proven to be challenging, which is why members are all the more excited to perform. “It’s gonna be an even longer mix than last year… I think there will be some fun references,” said Flores, who was not trying to spoil the performance. Scatliffe is also looking forward to performing and she says, “when everyone is screaming or they hear a song they like, it makes the performance more exciting… the audience can hype [us] up but we can also hype [the audience] up.” The team has worked hard to prepare an exciting performance, so be sure to watch their performance on C&C day May 5!