The drill directors at Memorial and Independence, once student and teacher, partnered on a recent halftime performance at The Star.
When Sara Denman was on her high school drill team, her director helped organize a collaborative performance with a nearby school: Two drill teams, one football game, one halftime show.
That performance made an impression on Denman, and now that she’s dance director at Memorial High School, she wanted to make it happen again in Frisco ISD.
Her collaborator in that team-up? Her high school dance director, Jolene Bourque — who is now director at Independence High School.
The chance to work together again struck at just the right time. Memorial and Independence finally played each other after years of not doing so; the schools’ head band directors are friends and worked together on the music for the drill performance; Bourque and Denman are close.
“Ever since I knew I’d be in Frisco, and we’d be working closely together, we knew we’d want to collaborate,” Denman said. “Jolene has been a mentor to me since high school and now in the district. It’s been so fun.”
The pom routine started with Independence, whose captains recorded the performance and sent it to Memorial. Their captains learned it and taught the team, and each team visited the other to practice together.
In another blast from the past, band directors Logan Stalcup of Memorial and Daniel King of Independence teamed up on the drill music, years after working together in Lovejoy. The bands were intermixed on the field as they played for the drill teams, and it all came together beautifully.
“It ended up being a really neat experience for our students to share the field with students from another program,” King said. “I already have students asking me if we can combine our halftime performances again with other schools.”
After about a three-week process, it was finally time to perform at The Star — and both dance directors said the show was a hit.
“One parent told me, ‘I had chills; that was amazing!’” Bourque said. “There were 50-something kids on the field, so it was really cool our audience got to see that.”
Denman said she heard the same feedback, and was looking forward to developing the show in the future.
“The way that Jolene and I work, it was really seamless,” she said. “We learned a lot and will make it even better, moving forward.”
And this idea goes back even further than when Denman was a student. For Bourque, it started when she was in school.
“I grew up in Garland, and my drill team director and her best friend at Garland High School did a huge collaboration at halftime,” she said. “When I was Sara’s director, one of my best friends was at Sachse and we did Thriller at halftime. Sara got to be a part of this, and now we’ve brought it to Frisco. It’s so cool.”