“Battle of the Sexes” is a concept that’s just so… last century. For the Rebel Girls & Company, it’s more like “Triumph of Both Sexes.”
“It’s the Rebel family, right?” says Marca DeCastroverde, as she explains why she began integrating men into UNLV's dance team in 2017. “There’s no other college dance team in the country that has multiple males. Other teams have one, but it’s never a group. We hold our young people to a really high standard, and we’re all on the same page of what those standards are.”
Her philosophy is progressive in a sport that hasn’t yet normalized across co-ed teams.
The troupe once again earned the title of national champions at the 2023 UCA & UDA College Cheerleading and Dance Team National Championship, placing first in both the Hip Hop and Game Day categories.
It’s easy to see why. Just go to the 2023 videotape.
Not Their First Rodeo
Not that the winner’s circle is unfamiliar territory – they’ve won multiple national awards in various categories in 2008, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. To date, they’ve captured 10 national titles in the program’s history – an impressive feat considering that they are one of the smaller schools competing against SEC schools with richer budgets and a deeper pool of student athletes from which to form teams.
They power Rebel fever like a co-ed juggernaut – whether at competitions or performing/cheering at all men’s basketball and football home games – even earning kudos this year from. Rep. Susie Lee on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. “Las Vegas and all of Nevada are cheering you on!” Lee followed up in a tweet.
These dance athletes have got game even beyond the games – they’ve performed on America’s Got Talent, traveled to China to represent Team USA, and were invited to perform for the NBA Summer League. Several members landed pro gigs with the NFL’s Raiders and Broncos and the NBA’s Boston Celtics.
“We kind of changed the game, and we leave an impact and inspire younger boys who dance to continue it past high school, which is pretty special,” says senior captain Cassidie Turlan. “This year we really came together as a team and kind of realized that if we were one unit and worked together as one that we are going to be unstoppable.”
Yet the team structure did leave some competitors grumbling. “We get a little heat for having a co-ed team,” DeCastroverde says. “(Other teams) like to say, ‘Well, you win because you have males.’ People who don’t win are always going to have something to say about the people who do, right? Our females were winning far before we had males in the argument. We didn’t all of a sudden become amazing. (The criticism) doesn’t make sense.”
That gets an amen from current assistant coach Gage Jaeger Johnson – a member of the first group of male team members and class of 2021 graduate. His dance skills earned him a spot in the cast of Cirque du Soleil’s Mad Apple at New York-New York Hotel & Casino.
“An artist is an artist and a dancer is a dancer,” says Johnson, one of several alumni who have coached the team — a list that includes UNLV alumni Napoleon and Tabitha D’umo of So You think You Can Dance fame – and provide a through-line in the team’s heritage from past to present. This year he helped guide them to a 99.1 score for their hip-hop routine – their highest score ever.
“The whole female-male argument puts down women as artists and athletes," Johnson says. "It’s not about male and female. It's about the dancers and their talents. I just ignore (any controversy). It creates a really cool dynamic to have both girls and boys on our team. They feed off each other.”
Moreover, the inclusiveness is in step with UNLV's culture, says DeCastroverde, who performed with the team from 1998 to 2002 and has since put two decades in as coach. “I really wanted to open up an opportunity for young male dancers and also wanted them to get their education while continuing to dance."
Recruiting male dancers took more work; the men didn’t flock to open tryouts. So DeCastroverde scouted local high schools and scoured the UNLV campus for any hidden talents.
“There was a curiosity and even a stigma of, ‘being on a dance team,’” she says. “It took a lot for me to convince them that this is going to be hip hop, the type of dancing you enjoy.”
That’s assuming, also, that they enjoy the training commitment. “It’s pretty intense,” Turlan says about the competition practice requirements. “It’s seven days a week, eight hours a day. We’re there from morning until night. We eat meals together. It takes dedication and determination to get the routines to our level. It’s vigorous, but it’s what we signed ourselves up for.”
And the experiment that began in 2017 has paid great dividends. “This year we have seven boys on our team, which is pretty incredible because our coaches have opened up the collegiate dance world for boys, and they don’t always get the same opportunity as girls do in the dance world,” says Turlan, who also teaches hip hop at Captivation Dance Affiliates in Henderson.
“We’re a program that has so much inclusivity and so much diversity, and we get to really showcase the boys.”
Setting Rebel Girls & Company on a new course was part of the thrill for Johnson. “It was very fun just to be a part of that first group and kind of set the tone of what the company was going to be in the future, to where it’s led to now” he says.
For DeCastroverde, that’s a team that values sportsmanship. “There’re people we run into that have super-poor sportsmanship, making snarky comments about us being co-ed. The people who come into this program will not behave that way. You have to go up to people and congratulate them and say, ‘Maybe our time will come next year.’ When you win, be classy, when you lose, be classy. What I care about most is that you grow as people.”
