The Prestigious Pardettes displayed their hip-hop and majorette talents on their largest stage yet at the Williams Center for the Arts last Friday.
“This was our first show at Williams,” Janiya Hood ‘25, co-founder and co-captain of the Prestigious Pardettes, said. “At first it was a little nerve-wracking, but once we got on stage, I was actually surprised by the [turnout].”
The Prestigious Pardettes is a hip-hop and majorette group on campus that was founded by Hood and Jamal McIntosh ‘24, who now act as co-captains, in 2022. Since then, the group has performed at sports games and other events on campus, showing off its distinctive dance style.
“[We] started the Pardettes because we just felt like there wasn’t a lot of inclusion in some of [Lafayette’s] dance teams,” Hood said. “So we came together, got everything together and had auditions and that’s how we produced the team.”
The showcase, attended by roughly 50 people, included a variety of group and solo performances that were all in the style of unique forms of hip-hop and majorette music.
“Obviously, the school knows about the dance team and the cheer team,” Hood said. “[The showcase is] just to make sure [the Pardettes] get recognized on campus just as everybody else does — just show our hard work, represent everybody on campus and show how diverse dance could really be.”
“It’s very fun and exciting to watch somebody performing dance,” McIntosh said. “Especially if you’re not a dancer yourself, you get to appreciate it even more. If you want to have a good time and connect with the people around you and just have a deeper appreciation for visual arts, then I feel like coming to our show would be one way to do that.”
Since the group’s founding, the Pardettes have been joined by students from all different dance backgrounds, from hip-hop to contemporary. Hood and McIntosh each emphasized how much dedication the performers showed at practice each day and their enthusiasm when they finally got to perform at the showcase.
“I’m glad that a lot of people actually came … a lot of energy was received from the audience,” Hood said. “I’m proud of my team for being able to do that in such a short time.”
In the future, Hood and McIntosh are planning on more performances at men’s and women’s basketball games ahead of their next showcase in the spring.
“Art is a fundamental part of the human experience,” McIntosh said. “It’s a way to connect with people around you, [including those] in the audience, but also other performers.”
