This Mardi Gras, Loyola’s dance team marched in five New Orleans parades, making 2010 their eighth consecutive year striding down the parade routes.

“It was fun,” said Kim Kolb, dance captain and mass communication sophomore.

“Once you hear the music and everyone starts getting excited yelling, ‘yay Loyola,’ it makes you dance harder.”

While Loyola doesn’t have a marching band, the dance team makes due by hiring a local disc jockey to follow them in a car playing the music they choose. Alexa Triplett, dance captain and biochemistry sophomore, even said she prefers a DJ.

“It’s easier to march without a band because you get to have multiple CDs of music,” Crystal Vaccaro, dance team adviser and associate director of admissions, said.

With their pre-set music arranged, the only thing left for the girls was to get over their pre-Mardi Gras jitters.

Some of the dance team members had their first Mardi Gras experience ever while dancing with the team.

“I was nervous for the first parade because it’s the very first one,” Triplett said.

“No matter how much you prepare for it, you don’t know what it will be like.”

The dance team practiced three weeks in advance for accuracy and learned four new routines. The practices were held in the sports complex.

“We practiced over and over and over again,” Kolb said.

“We marched around the gym,” Triplett said, “and the hardest thing was turning the corners and staying in formation and keep yourself in lines.”

The team received entry into the parade lineups by request from the parades. According  to Vaccaro, the team has already been requested for next Mardi Gras after their impressive performances this year.

“It’s an honor,” Kolb said.

The crowd enjoyed the girls’ smiling and dancing to their music. The Mardi Gras participants even gave feed back about the team’s performance.

“(The crowd) said they like the dancing and liked the fact that the team smiled and that they were a good team,” Vaccaro said.

“My favorite was when the team stopped for a long period of time and a little girl grabbed their pompoms. The little girl glowed.”

“It was during the Krewe of Tucks parade and it was adorable,” Triplett said.

“The girl’s mom asked for our pompoms for a picture and the little girl stood in front of the banner shaking them.”

The new out of state members of the dance team may not have been ready for the long routes, though, and had a hard time adjusting to carnival.

“It was a culture shock,” Vaccaro said.

“Two members were from surrounding areas so they had an idea of Mardi Gras,” Triplett said. “Everyone else didn’t have a clue.”

“One girl was from Guatemala so she really wasn’t ready for it,” Kolb said.

“The first parade she thought she would be able to handle it, but after we told her how long we had to walk she was shocked.”

While Tucks was a nine mile route, the remaining parades were five to six miles on average.

The team did not find out the length of the parade route until the morning of the parade.

The parades were not always all smiles for the girls this year, though.

 “I broke my finger slipping on a bead in the parade,” said Maria Pinheiro, dance captain and English writing junior.

“I jumped back up, figured out where we were in the routine and kept marching.”

Now that Mardi Gras is over, the dance team will continue dancing in the support of the Loyola Wolfpack.

Brittney Holmes can be reached at [email protected]