Which collegiate cheerleader had to dance topless to win a national competition?

 

NYU Dance Team 's

Carla Sanchez

Sophomore

Rancho Viejo, TX 

This site is dedicated to the lovely Carla Sanchez, an NYU cheerleader who lost her halter top and was forced to dace topless for over two minuets in front of TV cameras and a live audience during the recent cheerleader nationals in Daytona Beach FL. We are seeking any tips at all that may lead to the discovery of a bootleg clip or even a picture of Carla's embarrassing dance. if you have anything to share please contact us at info@fairlytorain.com

She kept dance’n  

Story by Erik Brady, USA TODAY

One particular dance routine you won't see on TV, though it already is the stuff of legend in cheer and dance circles. It had everything: True grit, high drama — and bare breasts.

Carla Sanchez calls herself very modest, the most modest person she knows. "You have no idea," she says. "Not even my mother has seen me naked."

Imagine the dilemma she faced when she and 17 other members of the New York University dance team began the 2-minute, 15-second routine they had worked on for months in hopes of securing a national championship. All was fine for about 15 seconds — until the plastic snap on Sanchez's spandex top inexplicably came undone.

Sanchez had an instant to make a very public decision: Quickly cover up, as every fiber in her preacher's-daughter body wanted — or just keep dancin'.

It is the kind of plot twist you might find on Fox's Boston Public: Sanchez danced those last two minutes topless in front of astounded onlookers. She believed that if she were out of sync for even a moment, her teammates would be assessed a major deduction, dooming their dream. So she soldiered on, never missing a beat.

You can guess the rest. NYU won its division, and Sanchez was acclaimed a hero. "That was very brave," said co-captain Carolyn Comparato. "She's a rock star."

Most in the audience were fellow competitors or parents, true believers in the culture of cheer and dance, and they understood instinctively: She was taking one for the team.

A few men hooted and tossed coins onstage. But the atmosphere was more admiring than salacious.

"I can't believe I just danced topless!" Sanchez cried. She asked teammates if there would be a deduction for her uniform coming undone. "We'll get bonus points!" suggested one.

Michelle Allison, head judge for dance, explained there was no deduction for the uniform failure. But neither would there have been a deduction had Sanchez broken ranks and quickly righted her costume. Being out of sync is a major deduction in almost every instance, Allison said, "but not in an extreme case like this."

No one seemed to know the exception to the rule because no one could remember anything like it happening before — except in the movies. The opening number in Bring It On, No. 1 at the box office in late summer 2000, features a high-kicking cheer routine in which actress Kirsten Dunst loses her top (demurely, in PG-13 fashion).

She wakes up screaming: It is only a nightmare. Sanchez's nightmare was real — not so much life imitating art as choreography trumping a teen movie script

   

Chick-fil-A Cheer and Dance Collegiate Championship airs April 27

Saturday 2 PM EST NCA/NDA on CBS Sports.

- another article about the incident from an NYU newspaper:
 
 
- a picture from the event from the NYU dance team's web site (attached).  No, don't get excited!!! It doesn't show anything and might not even be from the same routine.
 
 
- details from the event, including schedules of when the competitions were:
From the schedule here and info in the article above, Carla lost her top during the Dance Grand Champion event, where the winners of Div I (Towson U), IA (U of Lousiville), and 2 (New York U) competed with each other.  This was the second and final routine from the NYU dance team.
 
 
- and the *most* interesting of all:
This site has streaming video of each routine in its entirety!  All but one of course :-(   At first I got excited when I saw a link for the NYU routine on the above page, but it unfortunately just links back to their first performance (unlike the other two finalists).  The video is also very small and blurry.
 
There also happens to be a link to purchase video tapes of the competition!!!
 
Unfortunately, I can't tell from the way they are labeled which one has the "Dance Grand Champion" and my gut tells me that what we want to see is edited out. The videos are also kinda pricy.

http://www.nyu.edu/athletics/clubs/danceteam/main.html 

Here is a picture of the entire team.

http://www.nyunews.com/getstory.php?id=20003139

Dance Team Busts Out -- Some ponder Carla staged incident