U dance team 'elated' after 22nd national championship and online attention

The University of Minnesota dance team is flying high — almost as high as their perfectly coordinated aerial turns — after a national championship win and a weekend of online accolades.

As the team got ready to come home to Minneapolis on Monday afternoon, Assistant Coach Tina Tumbleson said the team was "elated and proud" after the Universal Dance Association College Nationals in Florida over the weekend.

"The amount of support we received here in Florida, back home around the globe? It's been amazing," Tumbleson said. "It's been kind of hard to comprehend."

The team competed in two dance categories, winning its 22nd national championship for its pom performance, a style that involves holding pompoms. But it was the jazz routine choreographed to Aerosmith's "Dream On" that went viral over the weekend. Videos ricocheted around YouTube and TikTok.

A sequence in the choreography took the dancers through a long series of one-legged spins, ending with all 20 dancers flipping an aerial turn in unison.

"That's a hard skill to get on, with 20 people on the floor," Tumbleson said. The dancers and coaches initially planned that only a few dancers would execute the aerial, but the team decided to choreograph the routine with all the dancers making the flying turns.

"They were hungry, and they took a lot of pride in it being their routine that they choreographed," Tumbleson said.

The team has left the national competition with a first- or second-place finish every year for the last 20 years, Tumbleson said. There's pressure to carry on such a legacy.

"We talk a lot about how pressure is a privilege," Tumbleson said. "It comes from the standard and the culture that … our whole spirit squad has," noting their determination to be the best, whether they're competing for a national championship or dancing at a football or basketball game.

For a long time, Tumbleson said, dance did not get the same recognition as other sports. Social media is changing that, especially through moments of virality like the team just experienced.

"How social media moves information, that recognition, is something we're happy to see," Tumbleson said. "It's been great to have that recognition build more and more, with dancers and nondancers alike."

The U was among several Minnesota colleges and universities that made it to the national competition.

Minnesota State University Mankato also won its division in jazz and pom dances and took second in game-day dances. The University of Minnesota Duluth placed second in jazz and third in pom. Teams from St. Cloud State University, the College of St. Benedict and the University of St. Thomas also competed.