Fairfield senior Casey Nadzam packs up her backpack each Tuesday and Thursday evening in preparation for a three-hour-long practice ahead of her. She checks off all the essentials: sneakers, a water bottle, Advil and her shiny silver pom poms. Of course, Nadzam never forgets a crucial part of her routine—a lacrosse ball to roll out her muscles. With everything packed, Nadzam makes her way to the RecPlex, ready to gear up for Dance Team practice.
Nadzam serves as co-captain of the team, alongside fellow senior Kristina Cioffi. As one of Fairfield’s Division One level teams, the Dance Team performs at various school events, as well as competing at the National Dance Alliance (NDA) at the end of their season. However, most Fairfield students recognize the Dance Team from their halftime and sideline performances at every home basketball game in the Leo D. Mahoney Arena.
“Being able to experience the basketball games from a front-row view and helping to raise school spirit is so much fun,” Nadzam shares. Along with performing at each home game, the Dance Team will accompany the men’s and women’s basketball teams throughout the MAAC and potentially NCAA tournaments.
“Last year we traveled to Indiana with the women’s basketball team for their game against Indiana University,” Cioffi said, recalling this as one of her favorite memories with the team. She added that the dance team attends around 25-30 basketball games throughout the year.
Outside of their well-known routines at the games, the Dance Team also attends their own competitions. Both co-captains are already gearing their team up to compete at NDA in Daytona, Fla. this April.
“This is the first time that we are attending nationals and we are very excited to compete in the two routines that we have been working on over the past few months,” Nadzam says. She explains that NDA is a three-day intensive camp that ends with a smaller competition in order to gain a “bid” for Nationals. From there, the team dedicates one weekend to strictly learning their choreography for Nationals, which entails over eight hours of practice each day. Competing in both jazz and pom styles, the Dance Team puts countless hours into making these routines competition-ready.
“After we learn the routines, our practices consist of cleaning, revising and perfecting our routines up until we leave for nationals in April,” Cioffi adds. Nadzam and Cioffi are eager to lead their team in pursuit of the national championship title.
Along with games and competitions, the Dance Team can be found performing at various campus and town events throughout the year. “We always dance at the Meet the Stags event in town and the Alumni Family Weekend event on campus,” Cioffi said.
“Any event that the school asks us to attend and dance at, we go!” Nadzam added.
As a Division One team at Fairfield, the Dance Team may not be the first sport to come to mind, but Nadzam and Cioffi are deeply grateful for the support they have received from the Athletics Department.
The Athletics Department “provides us with time in the Mahoney Arena for practices and they fund us to travel with the teams to the MAAC and the NCAA if the teams make it,” Nadzam explains.
“Fairfield Athletics has treated us very fairly and done their best to support all of the members on the Dance Team,” Cioffi continues, “They also make sure that [we] never feel uncomfortable at any of the games by the rowdy nature of the crowd.”
As members of the Dance Team for four years now, this team has grown to be very special to both Nadzam and Cioffi.
“Since we have so many performances and practices, the team truly begins to feel like a second family which is something that has gotten me through some tough times during my semesters at Fairfield,” Nadzam says.
Echoing this, Cioffi shares that “as an upperclassman now, it has been really rewarding for me to carry on Dance Team traditions from past years, and create new ones that will stay for many years to come.”
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