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Pat’s dancers to perform at Orange Bowl halftime

Dancers rehearse the routine they will perform on Dec. 30. Photo by ASHLEY ELDER/Hendersonville Lightning

By Ashley Elder, Published: December 14, 2016

It will be déjà vu for the Shepherd family when Sher Shepherd Phillips takes the reins for this year’s Orange Bowl halftime show in Miami.

Her mother, dance studio founder Pat Shepherd, took a dance team to the Orange Bowl parade 20 years ago, when Sher was a young dancer herself.
Live on ESPN at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Pat’s School of Dance will wow Michigan and Florida State fans with an 8-minute performance to the music of pop group DNCE. Sher and her husband, Dustin Phillips, choreographed a routine for 330 dancers who will be dancing in two groups on the field.
To songs that include “Body Moves,” “Toothbrush” and “Cake by the Ocean,” 35 dancers from Pat’s will join some 300 other dancers at the stadium. Dressed in fringed white tank top paired with a solid black skirt, the dancers will also wear wrist bands that light up.
The game starts at 8 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 30, and the halftime show begins around 10. Dancers’ families are either driving or flying to South Florida on Christmas to be in Fort Lauderdale for rehearsal the day before the game. “A lot of families are going to Disney beforehand,” Pat said.
The dancers’ itinerary also includes a full day of workshop classes with big name choreographers.
“You put in long hours and you have a finished product,” Dustin Phillips said.
Many dancers who went last year are going this year as well, including 11-year-old Mackenzie Sullivant.
“I love these bowl games to be together with friends and work as a team,” she said.
For Isabella Oates, 10, the Orange Bowl trip is her first with the local studio. She’s never been to Miami and hopes to go to the beach and go swimming while she is there. One male dancer, Jonathan Gironda, will be joining the girls in Florida this year.
“We love doing trips,” Sher
said. “Trips are more for the experience and the memories for the students and the parents. They get to experience the dance world outside Hendersonville and meet kids from other dance studios across the nation.”
When Pat took a dance team to the Orange Bowl Parade in 1996, Sher remembers waking up on New Year’s Day to find herself on the cover of the Miami Herald, dancing to her mother’s choreography.
This year it’s Sher’s turn as a choreographer at the Orange Bowl, one of the higher-profile showcases of halftime entertainment.
“I wanted my son to follow his dream and I wanted Sher to follow her dream,” Pat Shepherd said. “How exciting that her dream was to
be me.”