Sheba Huddle

Title: Sheba Huddle

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Folklore: Ritual, Tradition
  • English
  • USA

Informant Data:

  • Dami Apoeso is 21 years old and was born in Hartford Connecticut. He grew up in the Bronx, New York City and currently lives in Spring Valley, New York. He is majoring in computer science. He danced for approximately 6 years in a summer camp before joining Sheba his sophomore year at Dartmouth.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context

All members of the group who are present at the time participate in the huddle. The team does a huddle before every performance and at the end of every practice. Even if a member is present but not dancing they participate in the huddle. The informant does not remember when the tradition started but believes it has been happening since he joined the team.

  • Cultural Context

Sheba tries to create an inclusive culture and treat the team as a second family, and doing a huddle at the end of each practice and before performances allows the members to bond with each other. Sheba is also a high energy dance group, and they purposefully do the huddle loud enough for the audience to hear them even though the team is backstage. This helps Sheba get the audience excited and energized before they have even begun dancing.

Item:

Group members get in a circle with one hand in the center of the circle. A member, usually the captain or director of the team, will lead the team in chanting, “1, 2, 3, Sheba!”. Sometimes the person who leads the chant may say a few words first.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Sheba Huddle

Transcript of Associated File:

“We would do our Sheba huddle. We make sure we do it loud enough so that the crowd outside can hear us and know that we are about to perform. And we do this at um we do this before every show and we do this at the end of every practice”

Group: “1, 2, 3, Sheba!”

Informant’s Comments:

Informant believes that the huddle is a ritual that gets the team energized and excited before a performance, and a way to connect with other members after a potentially tiring, or difficult practice.

Collector’s Comments:

Many teams and groups have huddles, but it is very interesting that Sheba purposefully makes their huddle loud enough for the audience to hear. This reflects on the high energy culture of the group.

Collector’s Name: Marcus Reid

Compiled/Analyzed by: Sruthi Pasupuleti

Tags/Keywords:

  • Dance
  • Team
  • Tradition
  • Ritual

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