As a competition season comes to a close, the Reveliers prepare to replenish the team with a week of competitive and rigorous tryouts. Team and officer tryouts will begin following the tryout clinic to be held on April 22nd and 23rd, where clinic candidates will learn the tryout routine and process. This year in-person auditions are allowed, relieving the stress of last year’s virtual tryouts when candidates had to learn the dance and audition via recordings. 

“Last year it was fun, but different because of COVID,” Freshman Revelier, Paloma Schnicer, said. “I had to send in a video for tryouts and believe it or not it made me more nervous than performing in front of the judges. Some advice for incoming freshmen would be that even though the upperclassmen can be scary, they don’t judge you; they were freshman too once and they understand how you feel.”

On the days of tryouts, a strict schedule and protocols will be followed. Team tryouts will begin at 8:00 am and last until noon at the latest with officer tryouts following directly after, ending the day around 6:00 pm. Candidates will be required to wear a mask during the clinic and only be allowed to remove them during the tryout process. Although the Reveliers are moving towards normalcy, some COVID safety protocols are still in place, such as a closed clinic and tryouts to the public.

“I am looking forward to my senior year on Revs,” Junior Revelier Alex Henderson said. “As for tryouts I am excited to be trying out for an officer position this year and to just go through the process again.  It’s fun to get to know the new faces that come into tryouts and it gives you a preview of how it feels to be a part of the team. ” 

Girls will be given a number to be worn at all times and will belong to a small group when learning the routine. Past routines have been a Jazz dance with requirements such as wearing all black clothing. This year’s requirements have yet to be posted, but all candidates will learn the tryout routine together during the clinic. As there is no set number of girls to make the team, the natural break of the scores will determine the results posted on the Revelier social media websites via the candidate’s tryout number. 

“Every year it seems as though both team and officer tryouts become more competitive,” Reveliers Director Alison Lowrey said. “The Reveliers continue to work hard to raise the standards of our team each year. This year was full of uncertainty not knowing if what we were preparing was going to happen. We had to make lots of adjustments to our normal schedule, but the team did learn very quickly to be flexible in all of the scheduling of our events.”