Between the soundtracks echoing through Huff Hall and the thuds of feet touching down, head coach Amy Sharwarko is heard repeating “let’s run that again.” Yet come Saturday, the landing of pirouettes will be lost to only the turf of Memorial Stadium, swallowed by the definitive roar of the crowd.

Dreaming of this moment for more than a decade and recently fighting to achieve it, the Illini Dance Team crossed a hurdle this year in gaining a performance spot at all Illinois home football games. The team cheers from the horseshoe side of the stadium and performs in the south end zone during the second quarter. But this year is a trial run.

Before, the team performed at some men’s and women’s basketball games along with the occasional other sporting events, but it was never able to dance at football games.

At the end of last year’s dancing season, Katie Kodros, now a first-year graduate student in public health but still a member of the team, and current senior Makenzie Morton finally saw the chance to acquire a long-coveted spot of dancing on the sidelines during games.

Kodros set up a meeting with athletic director Mike Thomas and Morton went along.

“He came from a school that had two awesome dance teams that we competed against,” Morton said. “He knows how dance teams work at nationals and such, so we thought he might listen to us.”

That initial meeting led to more, and soon the Illini dance team was sponsored by the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics — hiring head coach Sharwarko and becoming a new part of Illinois’s spirit squad.

The dance team was once combined with the Marching Illini’s Illinettes, but the squads parted ways at one point. The Illinois dance team has been separate ever since.

Yet, with this new role at the football games, the Illinettes and the Illini Cheerleaders as well have come together to aid the Illini Dance Team throughout the transition. Cheerleading head coach Stephanie Record was crucial in helping the team master the traditional sideline school songs such as “Oskee-Wow Wow,” “Illinois Loyalty” and “William Tell.”

Though the dance team does maintain tradition with such routines, it especially looks for opportunities to perform to top-40 music.

Seen in the group’s timeout performances, this style has and continues to be the main focus of the team’s competitive season, which culminates with the Universal Dance Association College Cheerleading and Dance Team National Championships in Orlando, Fla.

Competing in the Division I-A, Illinois is up against almost all of the major Big Ten schools and other national universities, including UNLV and Tennessee. Out of jazz, hip-hop and poms categories, the team always competes in the former two.

With the championship event set for Jan. 17-19, the team will be back at school Jan. 2, practicing six to eight hours every day until the competition. Searching for its first national title since winning the jazz championship in 2000, the team is using this opportunity with a coach as a fresh start.

The squad is still set to perform at basketball games, appearing at 50 percent of the men’s and women’s home games on the sidelines with timeout performances and a few halftime routines as well. At the team’s basketball halftime performances, fans will have an opportunity to preview the team’s national routines complete with costumes, turns and jumps.

Though the benefits outweigh previous deterrents, according to dancers who have been on the team throughout the turnover, the season is an adjustment for these dancers.

“It’s a lot more stressful definitely because we’re learning new stuff every week,” Morton said. “We just started learning this dance (Monday), and we to have it perfect to perform by Thursday. So we’ll have three days to make our team look good, where as opposed to last year we had a lot longer to work on a routine.”

Starting the football season with two new routines a game, the team has since moved to one new routine for each upcoming Big Ten game. Bringing in a professional choreographer for only nationals, it is the dancers themselves who choreograph each routine.

As a junior transfer student this year, Emily Rose joined the team and has choreographed routines three times, including one for Illinois’ game against Michigan State on Saturday. Not only is there pressure in perfecting each choreographed routine as seen in the countless runs during practice, but there is also a difference between game and competition choreography content as well.

“When we’re competing we had to do so many different technical elements,” Rose said. “Our game routines are simpler and eye-pleasing. We have more skills and tricks that we obviously just can’t do on the football field.”

Bringing small problems to light throughout each run-through, the group consistently goes over the steps until they are near perfect. Whether it is inserting or subtracting moves, each dancer plays a role in choreographing the ultimate end product, creating a cohesive team, built not just on one leader.

With the chance to perform at football games comes an opportunity for more students to gain an awareness of the team, who before remained relatively unknown.

The team hopes to retain its partnership with the DIA for years to come and in doing so, bring an original perspective to Memorial Stadium.

“We’ve never really had a problem distinguishing ourselves in the past,” Sharwarko said. “And that’s one thing I said coming in. I don’t want to change our ways. If we can’t fit in the way with who we are; I don’t know if we’ll fit in with where they want us to be. I just really hope we’re given a chance to stay around a while to really show what we can do.”

Charlotte can be reached at [email protected].