We’d like to introduce you to Louise.

Louise Durrant is the only dancer to date to hold the triple crown of being accepted onto Team England Pom, Jazz and Hip Hop. She was one of the original members of the first ever unified England Pom team in 2016, competing with them at Europeans in 2016 and ICU worlds in 2017 and 2018, before being accepted onto the first unified Team England Jazz team, competing at worlds in 2019. 2020 was supposed to be the year she made her debut with Team England Hip Hop. Louise was also one of the coaches behind the Team England Adaptive Abilities Hip Hop gold medals at ICU in 2018 and 2019, and tin 2018 was one of the dancers on the team that won Cheerforce Ladies of Ten their first IASF Pom bid, all while remaining as a coach and teacher at her original team and school, The Cheerleading Academy (High Wycombe) and ESPA.

We speak to her about her training, her memories, tryouts for Team England and her plans for the future.

1. What is your dance background?

I started dancing when I was about 6 years old doing disco freestyle, modern and hip hop in my teenage years. When I was 18, I went to The Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts to do a foundation course in dance and then went on to Masters Performing Arts college to continue training. I’ve always been really interested in hip hop and started training locking in some of the clubs in Liverpool and a little while after graduating I started training and performing with an all female hip hop collective called Myself UK in London. I currently dance with JME Dance Company who are based in Nottingham and train mainly in waacking, vogue, hip hop and jazz funk. I actually really love training in new styles and will throw myself into anything, so over the years have dabbled in many different styles haha. 

2. What teams were you involved with before, during and after Team England?

Before Team England I was dancing and coaching with The Cheerleading Academy – High Wycombe. Since then I’ve also competed with Cheerforce Ladies of Ten and competed at Europeans with Bath Spa University. 

3. How did you hear about Team England?

Through my friend Alice Robinson who was the Head Coach of TCA High Wycombe at the time. Looking back, I was so clueless about Pom when I went to tryouts. I often joke about doing a baby freeze in my audition haha, but I learnt so much from that first tryout. 

4. What do you remember most about your first worlds?

Being overwhelmed and nervous haha. I hadn’t actually been a part of the cheer world for long and I didn’t really know much about Worlds. I found the whole experience so different from anything I had ever done before, but at the same time it was so exciting! I was amazed by the amount of talent I saw over the week and came away feeling so inspired and determined to be better and come back stronger. 

5. Can you give us a brief overview of what the audition process was like for Pom, Jazz and Hip Hop?

The pom audition was a full day audition with two rounds and they had a recall for the afternoon. The first round of the Pom audition covered kicks, leaps, jumps, pirouettes, motion drills and they also asked us to choreograph our own pom choreography with specific skills included. This was performed one at a time in front of a panel. The second round covered the same skills, but in more detail and we were asked to try some more advanced pirouette and a la seconde sequences, as well as set Pom choreography.

For the jazz audition we had the option to either attend the audition day or submit a video if we weren’t able to make the audition day. I submitted a video submission where we were asked to show specific skills and learn set choreography to perform back on camera. I enjoyed submitting a video audition, however it was quite a challenge learning the choreography from a video and performing it on your own in a studio to a camera rather than a panel. I think sometimes you have to work harder in a video audition to really show off your personality and performance when you a submitting a video audition and you don’t always get the same buzz that you would feed off in an in person audition. 

The hip hop audition was actually run like a workshop day. We started the day focusing on various different styles and foundations (house, breaking, locking etc) and then went on to learn a routine and perform it back in groups. 

Each audition was very much run like a workshop day and I learnt so much in each one. It took about a week for each team to find out whether we’d made the team or not. Usually each team will offer you feedback if you request feedback, so don’t ever be afraid to ask. It’s always good to know what you need to work on and shows that you are wanting to work hard and improve. 

6. What challenges have you faced when training for worlds? (other than COVID!)

Haha we’ll skip past covid! I think one of the big challenges for me ( was fitness… the older I get the longer my body takes to recover from training. Also the travelling can be tiring and a lot, but well worth it! 

7. What advice would you give for someone who wanted to try out for Team England?

Just GO FOR IT!!! Honestly, you just never know what will happen! Make sure you look at the list of skills they require you to have to be on the team and work on making them as strong as you can for the audition (this shows that you are willing to work hard, push yourself and have a lot of determination). 

Don’t think of the audition day as a tryout, but as a workshop day instead, that way it will take the pressure off and you are allowing yourself to learn and absorb all of the knowledge given to you on the day. If you get a place amazing and if not you have then learnt lots of new drills and skills to work on for auditions the year after. 

If being on a Team England team is something you really want then don’t give up. Keep trying out, practicing and working hard until it happens for you! 

8. Can you recommend key skills to master before trying out for each Team England Dance team?

For pom and jazz it is really important that you have strong a la seconde turns, pirouettes, jumps and leaps. Pom requires really strong and sharp motion technique so work on strengthening those arms and I would say that jazz requires really strong artistry, musicality and performance.

For hip hop they have a list of tricks that they like you to be able to do including a headspring, resurrection and kip up. Their audition also includes a focus on styles including locking, house and breaking, so having an understanding of the foundations of each style would also really help. 

9. What is your proudest moment?

This is a really hard question haha, I don’t really ever think of being proud….I’m always like ‘right, what can I do now’ haha. I think one moment I remember being proud of myself was when I competed at Worlds as Dance Captain with TE Jazz. I remember really struggling with training that year and constantly telling myself I wasn’t good enough to be on the team, so being able to compete as DC and the team getting through to finals in 6th place made me really proud that I’d pushed past my insecurities and made it to Worlds with such an amazing and talented team. 

Another moment would be coaching Adaptive Abilities Hip Hop and watching them win gold after they had trained so hard for months. 

10. What different challenges do you face in coaching compared to being an athlete?

I love coaching! I really enjoy watching athletes determination and grit and love seeing them realise their potential. In coaching I would say the main challenges come when you have changes to the team line up and have to rework choreography and formations. For TE coaches they also have the responsibility of finding sponsors and organising the trip to Worlds. The hard work finding sponsors is worth it though, we’ve been lucky to work with loads of amazing sponsors such as Stateside UK, Ace Custom Prints and Lady Sparkle Designs.

11. What else would you love to achieve?

I would just really love to make it onto the Worlds floor with TE Hip Hop haha. It has been such a challenging year for teams all around the world and I have so much admiration for every single coach and athlete who has struggled through last year. It’s not been easy, but we’ve all worked hard to push through and continue training over zoom. I just really hope that we can get out to Worlds or onto the mat and show everyone how hard we have all continued to train. I would also love to focus more time on coaching for TE. Although I have coached before, I’ve always been competing for another team at the same time and so haven’t really experienced the full coaching journey at Worlds. Every coach I have had on TE has been absolutely incredible and I have learnt so much from them. I would love the opportunity to work with them and learn from the way they coach and encourage their athletes. They are a huge inspiration to me. 

We absolutely loved talking to Louise about her experiences. Who are your Allstar Dance inspirations? Send us a message @cheerfromheadtotoeuk on Instagram.

Watch our Team England pom documentary and see Louise in action on Team England Pom.

I’m Emma and I am delighted to be writing up some more dance content for Cheer From Head to Toe. I was introduced to this world in 2010 when my school started up a Pom team which I was never on but I really loved watching them. I started Performance Cheer in 2012 at university at UEA and fell in love with it, working very hard to learn everything I could. I went from a reserve in my first year to eventually president of cheerleading dance in my final year. On graduating and moving to London, I felt I still had more to learn and achieve so I joined the Sparks Allstars Pom, Jazz and Lyrical teams in 2016 and have been very happy there ever since. I have competed in Pom, Jazz and Lyrical over the last seven years (I wish I was cool enough for hip hop – it might happen yet!). I’m a marketer for financial services businesses in the City of London, where I live with my Scottish boyfriend, and my cats.

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