I'm getting everything ready for a high school dance line for next year and I was wondering what kind of shoes do your teams wear? I don't want to use a sneaker because it's harder to see the pointe of a toe and I always found that the soles were incredibly slippery. I was thinking of having the girls go barefoot, but I could foresee a lot of complaining about that...

The dance line would in corporate lots of kicks, pirouettes, leaps and various modern dance moves. Any advice would be appreciated.

Whatever you choose, it MUST have a rubber sole. And barefoot is definitely not an option.

:O

Why isn't barefoot an option? Just wondering, one of those DCI teams went barefoot. I know it wasn't a high school team, but is there like a safety issue that I'm overlooking?

We danced at every home football game and we just wore normal gore boots. We had two pairs, a competition pair and an everything else pair, because the football field ones got pretty nasty.

Turning barefoot on the turf is not an easy task, and besides that, after the team has ripped up the field for two quarters, it's muddy and dirty and disgusting and cold. I wouldn't want to be dancing barefoot out there.

~*~Punkgirl~*~

Long live punk rocK

You could try looking at shoes that colorguards wear. A lot of them are like jazz shoes but made more durable to last against the weather and the field. Try bandshoppe.com or bandmans.com or drillcomp.com.

And just as a side note, I wouldn't suggest going barefoot. Believe me it gets colder than you think during the season. Also, since it's for high school they probably are not going to want you all around barefoot for safety reasons. Plus, it is rather hard to turn barefoot on a field.

Always,
Ally

Barefoot is not an option for several reasons.

1) It's unsafe (and against high school regulations).
2) You'll need shoes anyway - to wear before and after the shows. And what will you wear to parades?
3) No offense, but your kids aren't good enough to justify not wearing shoes. Before you ditch the shoes, you better make DAMN sure your kids are pointing their feet consistently. And that takes several years of training.
4) Trust me - the girls will have a HUGE problem when they realize they have to march with no shoes in 6 inches of mud when it rains at a football game.

Look, you are new at this so you shouldn't try to reinvent the wheel. Don't try to innovate your very first year. Take a look through the guard catalogs and pick uniform pieces that are designed specifically for your purpose.

guess ya'll are right, i just hate dance sneakers >.<


didn't understand the downside to barefoot on the field

You don't have to choose sneakers (and I hate them too). You can find just about any kind of shoe with rubber soles. Ballet slippers, jazz oxfords, character pumps, boots, sandals... You have a lot of options.

oh wow...i'm just used to the sneaker being the only option b/c it lasts the longest. Jazz shoes would be amazing!

Our team has jazz shoes and Blochs hip hop sneakers with the split sole. They always opt to wear the sneakers for football games so we usually do hiphop - they usually only do one or two football games and dont like wearing the jazz shoes out there.