| Public_Access |
10-11-2005 09:15 PM |
I think it was Hungry Mutt (leader of the yahoo ENF group) who put that website up. I'm the one who sent in the links to those articles. We never did find a video :(
Even though the links don't work anymore, I still have the text from the articles and some other information I collected. Here it is in case it someone can use it to find more info.
Quote:
Carla Sanchez
from Rancho Viejo, TX
Sophomore NYU New York University
NYU Purple and White Dance Team web site
http://www.nyu.edu/athletics/clubs/danceteam/
NDA - National Dance Alliance
NDA NATIONALS EVENT
Chick-fil-a Cheer and Dance Collegiate Championship
2002
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From http://www.nyunews.com/getstory.php?id=20003139
Although the NYU Purple and White Dance Team won the National Championship by the large margin of 0.5, its stunning outcome was overshadowed by a shocking incident when dancer Carla Sanchez, lost her halter top for two minutes of the team’s final performance.
However, it does not seem that everyone, including NYU administration, saw the incident as a harmless accident. In fact, the dance team was accused of purposely staging the incident to win.
“I was appalled by people’s reaction,” senior co-Captain Wendy Garofoli said. “We were very disappointed and hurt that they would think it was done on purpose.”
Among those that questioned the team’s motives was the administration of the Jerome S. Coles Sports Center.
“We had to meet with them about intent,” Garofoli said. “And the athletic director never even offered us congratulations. After all we had done, that was very upsetting.”
Sanchez, understandably, was even more disturbed by the alleged second-guessing.
“It hurt me because it was something I was conflicted about morally, and people thought we were the type of people who would do something like that to win,” she said. “We worked so hard to prove ourselves as a valuable team to our school and to administration, and not just a bunch of dumb girls.”
The Purple and White Dance team does not receive funding from NYU. That means their expenses, including costumes and choreography, must all be self-generated.
“If we’re trying to bring glory to our school, I don’t understand why [Coles was] bringing us down,” Sanchez said.
This was not the impression Jeff Bernstein, assistant director for Sports Information at Coles, received.
“If someone is not happy for some reason, I honestly know nothing about it,” he said. “I even wrote a press release. We were very excited about it.”
Regardless of what people think, all the girls on the dance team believe that the dancer did the right thing by continuing to dance.
“We’re trained to keep going,” Garofoli said. “Through injuries or accidents, our main goal is to finish the dance, otherwise deductions can be made.”
Though the head judge later informed the team that a deduction would not have taken place because of the extreme situation, all the girls support their teammate.
“Unless you’re a performer or someone who has been a part of dance culture, [it’s hard to understand],” Sanchez, a junior in the College of Arts and Science, said. “You are always taught to keep dancing no matter what happen[s]. I just tried not to look at myself and imagined the audience naked.”
The halter-top, created with a built-in bra came unsnapped and slowly slipped down to her waist, leaving Sanchez with nothing covering herself as she continued the show bare-breasted. However, with great courage, the dancer failed to miss a beat and continued dancing with the same intensity as everyone else.
“It must have been so embarrassing,” Garofoli said. “I don’t know what I would have done, but I hope that I would have had as much courage as her to keep dancing.”
The worst part came at the end of the show, when for the last 30 to 40 seconds she was front and center.
“We were kind of worried after we found out what had happened,” Garofoli said. “But luckily the judges saw past that and it did not affect our score. We were judged solely on our dancing ability, and we totally nailed the performance.”
“We were up by a huge margin. I could have probably adjusted my top and still won, but you don’t think about that at the moment,” Sanchez said. “I was thinking about my team. It wasn’t even a split-second decision.”
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USA Today 04/26/2002
The Chick-fil-A Collegiate Cheer and Dance Competition, run by the National Cheerleading Association (NCA), will air Saturday afternoon on CBS (2 ET). It was taped this month in Daytona Beach, Fla. There were 183 teams — 110 cheer and 73 dance — competing in eight cheer and three dance divisions. They qualified by reputation or by sending a video.
She kept dancin'
One particular dance routine you won't see on TV, though it already is the stuff of legend in cheer and dance circles. It had everything: True grit, high drama — and bare breasts.
Carla Sanchez calls herself very modest, the most modest person she knows. "You have no idea," she says. "Not even my mother has seen me naked."
Imagine the dilemma she faced when she and 17 other members of the New York University dance team began the 2-minute, 15-second routine they had worked on for months in hopes of securing a national championship. All was fine for about 15 seconds — until the plastic snap on Sanchez's spandex top inexplicably came undone.
Sanchez had an instant to make a very public decision: Quickly cover up, as every fiber in her preacher's-daughter body wanted — or just keep dancin'.
It is the kind of plot twist you might find on Fox's Boston Public: Sanchez danced those last two minutes topless in front of astounded onlookers. She believed that if she were out of sync for even a moment, her teammates would be assessed a major deduction, dooming their dream. So she soldiered on, never missing a beat.
You can guess the rest. NYU won its division, and Sanchez was acclaimed a hero. "That was very brave," said co-captain Carolyn Comparato. "She's a rock star."
Most in the audience were fellow competitors or parents, true believers in the culture of cheer and dance, and they understood instinctively: She was taking one for the team.
A few men hooted and tossed coins onstage. But the atmosphere was more admiring than salacious.
"I can't believe I just danced topless!" Sanchez cried. She asked teammates if there would be a deduction for her uniform coming undone. "We'll get bonus points!" suggested one.
Michelle Allison, head judge for dance, explained there was no deduction for the uniform failure. But neither would there have been a deduction had Sanchez broken ranks and quickly righted her costume. Being out of sync is a major deduction in almost every instance, Allison said, "but not in an extreme case like this."
No one seemed to know the exception to the rule because no one could remember anything like it happening before — except in the movies. The opening number in Bring It On, No. 1 at the box office in late summer 2000, features a high-kicking cheer routine in which actress Kirsten Dunst loses her top (demurely, in PG-13 fashion).
She wakes up screaming: It is only a nightmare. Sanchez's nightmare was real — not so much life imitating art as choreography trumping a teen movie script.
The University of North Texas charges on stage. The music begins. Human pyramids form as if by magic. Cheerleaders make tumbling passes and fly through the air. One thing is missing amid all the radiant, raucous rah-rah.
Um, no football teams. Or, as GQ writer Jim Nelson puts it, "Nothing to cheer but cheer itself." This is off-putting only for the uninitiated. For believers, it is as it should be.
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