{"id":702558,"date":"2026-04-07T03:59:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T03:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/702558\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T03:59:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T03:59:22","slug":"heres-a-clip-and-save-chart-to-help-you-figure-out-which-dancers-are-performing-at-portland-trail-blazer-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/702558\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s a Clip-and-Save Chart to Help You Figure Out Which Dancers Are Performing at Portland Trail Blazer Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some people go to Portland Trail Blazer games to watch basketball. They notice how the coach has rearranged the lineup to accommodate for injuries, who is being lazy on defense, who just hit a triple-double, blah blah blah.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t even know what a triple-double is. Show me the BlazerDancers.<\/p>\n

Not in a gross, leery way, but the highlight of going to Moda Center\u2014at least for this fan\u2014is watching the BlazerDancers do their hyperspeed choreography to contemporary pop hits and seeing the Stunt Team\u2019s flyers sail through the air and then back safely into their partner\u2019s arms. There\u2019s a chance I could even stumble upon a Rip City Crew dance battle on the concourse. I\u2019m also in it for the snacks, the benched players\u2019 fashion choices, and silly game-break challenges, like when fans try to win a car by sinking a halfcourt shot.<\/p>\n

\"\"BlazerDancers (Sam Gehrke) <\/p>\n

Michelle Burch has been the BlazerDancers\u2019 coach for 18 seasons and also oversees all of the NBA team\u2019s dance squads as the Trail Blazers\u2019 senior manager of performance teams. She\u2019s also a former BlazerDancer (and Jefferson Dancer!) herself who has performed at the Super Bowl and in Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans. Burch says I\u2019m not alone in focusing on all the pomp and circumstance at Blazer games rather than the professional basketball happening on the court. <\/p>\n

\u201cLots of people go for the game itself. And then other people also enjoy all of the entertainment around it\u2014the lights, the intros, the entertainers, the performers\u2014all of that. Which we love,\u201d Burch says. \u201cWe\u2019re there to enhance that experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even for a dance fan with a moderately trained eye, all of the performances during a Blazer game can be confusing. There are three separate dance squads affiliated with the Trail Blazers, all with their own styles, uniforms and dancers. There are many commonalities, though: All three squads are technically co-ed, though the Stunt Team has the most fellas since every \u201cflyer\u201d needs a \u201cbase.\u201d Dancers are as young as 18 years old, all the way up through their 30s; a typical dance lifespan is three to five years on a squad, according to Burch.<\/p>\n

\"\"Rip City Crew (Eric Shelby) <\/p>\n

All of the dancers are paid hourly for everything they do, such as practices, games and community appearances. (Cheerleader compensation is a contentious issue. In 2015, a Milwaukee Bucks cheerleader sued the team for wage theft; the lawsuit settled in 2017. The Netflix show America\u2019s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders exposed low wages when a squad veteran said she earned about as much as a Chick-fil-A worker. Burch politely declined to reveal their exact rate but said dancers with seniority are paid more than the rookies.)<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve made this handy li\u2019l clip-and-save chart for when the lights dim, a Zara Larsson song begins, and you need to determine exactly which squad you\u2019re watching. <\/p>\n

\"\"(Sophia Mick) <\/p>\n

Willamette Week\u2019s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office.<\/p>\n

Support WW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some people go to Portland Trail Blazer games to watch basketball. They notice how the coach has rearranged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-702558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-portland","12":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","13":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","14":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116361427674507985","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}