Much Poms

“In a dancer, there is a reverence for such forgotten things as the miracle of the small beautiful bones and their delicate strength.”

-Martha Graham

The dominant style of dance for high school and college dance teams to perform is pom. Pom is highly competitive and fuses elements of hip-hop and jazz by the collaboration and use of poms. Poms help create dynamic visuals, interesting arm motions, and add something extra to formation changes. It’s important when executing pom skills that they are done crisp and tight, and sharp and clean. Pom moves have to be hit with power and purpose, otherwise they will result in sloppy form and the dance will not match among the team. I have more information on the style of pom in a previous post.

Poms are obviously a major asset to a dance team, because they are what make a pom dance a true pom dance. It sounds silly, but at UDA camp you perform pom dances, but not with poms, and it doesn’t give you nearly the same effect in terms of visuals and placement. I would of course suggest that whenever you are practicing a pom routine or choreographing a pom dance, to use poms. To feaster pom you have to be comfortable with using them while dancing, it can take adjustment.

There are many types of poms that teams use. Some use one straight color, one assigned color to each and mixed colored poms. Some are heavy, sparkly, large, neon, small, plain, fluffy or light. It varies team to team. It’s very typical to have a practice set of poms and a performance set as well, due to the fact that they can get ruffled up and dull. Single colored poms usually do not stand out, nor do they give much visual variety to arm movement as two separate colored poms would. Medium sized poms in my opinion are the best way to go, you don’t want them to be so small that they look dinky, but you also don’t want them to be overwhelming large, and fluffy that it is difficult to effectively execute skills. Having brighter colors is also important because you want arm transitions to stand out and look more creative, and that is more noticeable when the poms have pigment of color and some shine to them.

Poms are a very important note to have when choreographing and performing a pom dance. They help translate the creativity of visuals and use of arm transitions within the dance to both the audience and the judges. They should stand out and help the team pop on stage. When using poms you have to keep a tight end on pom technique, to be sure all skills are executed seamlessly.

~Julia Brewer