Looking for some creative ways to help your dance team bond this season? Here are 5 different ways to unite your team and bring your dancers closer.

Team Talk Circles

Bringing the team in to talk before and after practice is a good idea for multiple reasons.  First, it focuses their attention. You can use the time to talk about what you're going to do at practice that day and set goals. Secondly, you can use it as a space for team members to give each other shout outs and motivations.  At the beginning of practice, have your team set goals they'd like to achieve and give some words of encouragement to each other.  You may even choose a word of the day, like "Focus, "Dedication" or "Trust."

At the end of practice, have each team member say a compliment to someone else on the team about something they did well at practice that day.

Love Notes

Create a small notebook with each dancers name on it.  Pass the notebooks around in a circle and have each dancer write a few sentences about what they love or admire about the dancer who's notebook they have. This is something you can add to throughout the season, or do right before nationals to bring the team even closer at crunch time.

Secret Sister (or brother!)

Designate secret sisters or brothers throughout the season.  This may be something you do once a month, or twice a year.  Each person has to create a gift for their secret sister/brother.  Try and encourage dancers to make their gifts or at least be very thoughtful with them.  Consider these gifts like care packages, specific to the person who is receiving.

Dance Mirror

This is a fun game for dancers for them to get physically close and incorporate movement into the exercise. Dancers get into pairs and face each other.  One starts to move and the other has to mirror the movement.  By the end of the exercise, dancers must be touching and moving. Then, the roles reverse!

Team Theme Parties

Bringing the team together outside of practice helps the dancers to get to know each other on a more personal level.  Throwing a themed team party is a awesome way to bring the team together to enjoy snacks, movies and games.  Have a Flashdance themed party, where everyone dresses up 80's and you watch the iconic film.  Or even a Chicago, Bob Fosse theme! You can relate it to dance to continue their education while bonding and having fun!