Tigerettes practice routines for Big Easy Blues
With top-notch work ethic and attitude, the Russellville High School Tigerettes and color guard are working hard to prepare their dance and flag routines for the Marching Hundred fall show, the Big Easy Blues.
“The auxiliary is the visual component that adds to the music,” explained Tigerette and color guard sponsor Roxanne Bowles. “When you’re listening to this great music, you’re seeing flags, you’re seeing kicks, and you’re seeing batons. It’s just this entertainment experience.”
Bowles, who also teaches English at RHS, took on the color guard sponsorship this year. She became the Tigerette sponsor last year – a role that had been her goal for quite some time.
“The second I heard they needed someone, I emailed them and said I was more than interested,” Bowles said. “Dance is my passion … It feels like home to me to be over here in the band room. It’s fun for me to see them get excited about the stuff I was always excited about.”
As an alumna Lionette at the University of North Alabama, Bowles brought the UNA golden standard precision dance style to the Tigerette danceline, which grows this year to 16 members from last year’s 10-member group.
“It’s very clean and sharp,” Bowles said. The girls will also perform a hip-hop routine for pep rallies this year.
Tigerette co-captains Brianna Wood and Kesciley Fletcher have been a driving force for the Tigerettes this summer – “They’ve been super positive, keeping the girls’ energy up all the time,” – and color guard co-captains Ashley Rose and Alison Bryant have motivated the 14-member color guard.
Bowles said she is pleased with how the Tigerettes are shaping up, learning the choreography for this year’s field show from Lionette Karlee Mark. They are “gelling really well.”
“These girls are really top-notch dancers. We only have four old dancers – the majority of them are new,” Bowles said. “The work ethic is top notch, and their attitudes are top notch. It’s a good group of girls.”
In the color guard, the routine will embrace a traditional style and boast a five-member rifle line. At least twice in the show, all auxiliary groups – Tigerettes and color guard, plus majorettes under the direction of Angela Crittenden – will combine for a large scale routine.
“We’re trying hard to do a unified auxiliary where we are working together for effect, for the audience,” Bowles said. “There’s this huge sense of accomplishment that they are all working together to put on something fabulous.”
Bowles said the style of the Big Easy Blues is “the model show, from my point of view … to choreograph to, from an auxiliary standpoint.”
“The rhythms are consistent, and it has big hits in the music that blow you away,” she said. “It has good energy about it. It makes you want to dance in it. I expect the audience will be dancing or clapping along with the girls.”
