Majorette Dancing Is For Every Body, Period.

Majorette dance style is, hands down, one of the swaggiest ways a person can express themselves physically, which is why so many dancers flock to it. However, North Carolina A&T’s first plus-size majorette team, Liquid Gold, is challenging these notions by reminding us the beauty of Black culture truly lies in the multitudes of its niches. “I was in summer camp, we would make dance teams with each other, and one of my friends put me on to the show ‘Bring It,’” says Mayes, who talks about how the reality show, which previously aired on TLC and centers Miss D’s Dancing Dolls majorette team from Jackson, Mississippi, inspired her. She noticed that while the university’s dance teams did invite people of all shapes and sizes to participate, there was a tendency to underestimate individuals whose bodies did not fit the “norm.” In the world of majorette dancing ― and the world in general ― there’s the long held belief that people with thinner bodies are naturally athletic and more capable of pulling off the intense stunts seen in majorette choreography. “I know a good amount of majorette dancers who are beasts, that are powerhouses, and that can go toe-to-toe with anybody you put in front of them…who were discouraged about joining their majorette team because there was nobody on that team that looked like them,” says Mayes, who feels like these barriers need to be broken down in order to truly put on display the full breadth of beauty and talent the majorettes embody.