INDIANA — The Hoosiers and Boilermakers are not shy about their fierce rivalry. The two Indiana schools divide many houses and families across the state. But in one activity, the programs formed a sisterhood of sorts.
In their cream and crimson, a group of women go through the counts of their choreography that matches the tune of the marching band.
Brookelyn Wood, Director of the IU Redsteppers, takes it step by step, cleaning the routine, coaching the young women through the style and technique.
“So we were founded in 1972 by Karen Bailey,” said Wood. “And I think since then, we’ve done a really great job of keeping tradition, but also modernizing for what dancers do nowadays.”
This is Wood’s 5th season as the Director of the Redsteppers in Bloomington. The storied program started with Bailey and Title IX. Bailey approached the band director and asked if she could start a female dance team to perform alongside what was at the time, an all-male marching band. Bailey was given the go-ahead and she got to work doing her research, scoping out other teams across the country for a style and look.
The team, sporting the red go-go boots, has been a staple of the IU fan experience ever since, and the team still continues to perform their signature kick-lines as a nod to the team’s history and traditions.
“We do a kick-line in 99 percent of all of our dances,” said Wood. “We may be busting out hip hop, and we will make a kick-line and do a kick-line.”
Wood’s job is to not only continue on the beloved traditions of the Redsteppers, but also to elevate the team and their performances to the next level.
Wood relies on her many years of dance and cheer experience, both from childhood and at a professional level.
She started dancing at a young age and competing at a studio on the south side called The Dance Refinery. She also cheered in school.
“And then after high school, I went to a school called Purdue University,” said Wood. “We don’t really talk about that here.”
After her experience on the Purdue Dance team, Wood took her dancing career to the professional level as a Colts cheerleader for several years.
She uses her experience performing inside of Lucas Oil Stadium to coach her team to be game-day ready.
“So we are like high energy. I really use my Colts background for that,” said Wood. “We want to appeal to every single person in the audience and so even those top tier seats, we want to be visually impactful to them.”
Wood says she will even watch their routines from the press box and other seats around the stadium to see how their choreography and formations look for fans in all areas of Memorial Stadium.
They tend to stay closer to their traditional style and kick-lines for football games, and do more hip hop at basketball games where the crowd is closer and can see smaller movements.
Wood took the team through a COVID-19 year where she says they continued to practice each day, even though they had no games to perform at, but that they just continued to meet for their own mental health.
That’s when she heard about virtual dance team competitions and asked the team if they were interested in competing.
They all agreed, and choreographed their own routine and submitted a video. To their own surprise, they won.
The team has gone on to compete in person now, and plans to go to a bigger national competition this year.
“We are working on our technical skills. It’s amazing to me the women that come onto this team, how technically advanced they are,” said Wood. “A lot of young women today who want dance in college, they want both, They want the game day feel but they also want to be able to go show their technical aspects and compete.”
That holds true for Senior Captain Morgan McLain.
“I think Redsteppers is so special because we are a part of the band,” said McLain. “Being in Memorial Stadium with thousands and thousands of people is by far my favorite part.”
McLain says she originally did not plan to continue her dance career in college.
“I never really thought I wanted to dance in college until I joined my high school dance team,” said McLain. “I stepped foot on the high school field for the first time and I was like, this is it. This is what I want to do.”
She says the team and the sisterhood is another big part of being a Redstepper and she appreciates how Wood encourages them to succeed in academics and in life.
“Body positivity, being confident in yourself ,” said McLain. “She always says, like, you made the team they way you are, you don’t need to change anything.”
McLain says many of the dancers on her high school team are now on other dance teams across the state and they cheer each other on.
That includes Elena Eberwine, Senior Captain of the Purdue Goldusters Dance Team.
“Being a part of it, it’s just unreal,” said Eberwine about the game day atmosphere at Ross-Ade Stadium. “We are all just so passionate about what we do, that it makes everything feel so authentic.”
The Purdue Goldusters perform alongside the All-American Marching Band and the world’s largest drum at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafeyette.
They are under the direction of Coach Natalie Hess, who like Wood, got her dancing start as a child at The Dance Refinery on Indy’s south side.
Hess would go on to become a Colts Cheerleader straight out of the high school for 8 seasons.
“We are so blessed to have Natalie,” said Eberwine. “And I think she has a great understanding of the game day atmosphere as well.”
This is the third season with the Goldusters for Hess, who is working to maintain traditions from this storied dance program, but also elevate the routines to the next level and challenge the dancers technically.
“We’ve really tried to just like kind of evolve and elevate all of our routines,” said Hess. “Year after year, the talent coming in gets higher and higher, so I want our routines and our season to reflect that.”
Hess says this continuous growth and change is not only important for the fan experience, but also for the dancers themselves.
“As dancers, there’s never like a point when it’s like, you’ve reached that top,” said Hess. “You can always improve. You can always get better.”
Hess says the Goldusters are a performance team, and they’ve enjoyed many opportunities performing at game days along with the band.
This partnership just last year took them to Lucas Oil for the Big Ten Championship game, Florida for a bowl game, and Ireland for the St. Patrick’s Day parade.
They are also competing for the first time this year at a national dance competition as an added challenge for the team.
“I feel like dance is that one thing for them where it’s like, this is like home,” said Hess about the dancers and their time at Purdue. “This is comfortable. So they can like come here and breathe and come here and relax and do what they have been doing for years and years and what they love.”
In addition to the performance dance and competitions, this past summer both the Goldusters and the Redsteppers put their school rivalry aside to join other dance teams across the state and the Colts Cheer organization for a special combine for dancers.
This was a combine and workshop for high school dancers to experience and network before making their college choices. Dancers flew in from across the country to attend, in addition to a huge crowd of dancers from in-state.
Due to several college dance team coaches being former Colts cheerleaders, the bonds between the programs and each other and also the community continue to grow each season.
“I love how we have such good relations with the other dance teams in Indiana and have such good relations with Colts Cheer,” said Eberwine. “Obviously being from Indiana as well and seeing people that I know and love also go to these teams, it just strengthens those bonds.”
The sisterhood is strong between the dance programs and they support each other along the way.
“I think at the end of the day, we all just have a love for each other,” says Wood. “We all know each other really well, and so its not so much like, oh you are taking this dancer away from me, We just want the best that’s going to make them happiest when they go pursue whatever they want to pursue.”
Hess agrees. “It’s not a competitiveness. Everyone is friendly, everyone supports everyone. We talk about the Redsteppers, even though its our rival school, like the Redsteppers are our best buddies, our sisters, We love each other, so it’s great”
In the end, both captains said the positivity between teams strengthens the dance community as a whole in the state of Indiana, which benefits all college programs and students who participate.
“It’s just becoming so much more of a real option for dancers to continue on and be respected in the sport too,” says Eberwine.
