Pizazz Dance Studio in Greenfield to perform before Friday’s Celtics game

Members of Pizazz Dance Studio who will be performing at the Boston Celtics' game against the Orlando Magic on Friday at TD Garden. CONTRIBUTED
Published: 01-16-2025 5:13 PM |
GREENFIELD — Pizazz Dance Studio in Greenfield has been waiting a long time for an opportunity like the one it has this Friday.
Studio owner Caitlin Vautour has had her dancers do many performances around Western Massachusetts, including performing at Springfield Thunderbird hockey games as well as UMass basketball contests.
Two years ago, Vautour applied to perform at a Boston Celtic game. She was put on a wait list and this summer, the Celtics reached out to let her know they were picked to perform at a game.
That’ll happen Friday night, as Pizazz will perform before the Celtics game against the Orlando Magic at the TD Garden.
“Everyone is very excited,” Vautour said. “Our company has been trying so hard to do this. We’ve been doing a bunch of performances elsewhere but getting to perform at a Celtics game will be special.”
The company is sending 19 dancers to perform — made up of its A and B groups — with the dancers ranging from 10 to 18 years old.
It took a lot of work to get the dancers on the parquet at the Garden. After Pizazz was selected, the work was just getting started. The Celtics require a certain number of tickets be sold in a section in order for the performance to happen, which meant the studio needed to begin fundraising.
Vautour made sure to thank all those who supported the dancers to make this happen as well as the local businesses that donated gift cards for a raffle, which helped raise enough money to make the performance happen.
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“I found out over the summer we were selected,” Vautour said. “I had to keep it a secret because we had to put a chunk of money down to preorder the tickets required to officially be selected. It was a great feeling when it all came together. There’s a lot of requirements that go into it.”
The hard work also came in preparing for the performance.
While the company has experience performing in front of large audiences, doing so at the Garden is a different level. The MassMutual Center where the Thunderbirds play can host 8,000 people while the Mullins Center can sit as many as 10,000. The company competes in competitions, but Vautour said those crowds are usually around a couple hundred people.
TD Garden can sit just under 20,000 people, and with the game being on a Friday night featuring a Celtics team that has the best record in the Eastern Conference and a Magic team with the fifth best record in the East, a sellout crowd should be expected.
“They were all crying and excited when they found out they’d been selected,” Vautour said. “They were also freaking out and nervous. They understand what means to perform at a Cetlics game. They’ve put in the hard work though and know how cool of an opportunity this is. They want to go out with a bang and be able to keep going back and performing there.”
The routine is set to five minutes. With it taking place on a basketball court rather than a stage, Vautour and the team had to change their typical routine around to make it something everyone in the stands would enjoy.
“We took a hip hop dance we did last year and fixed it to make it fit on a basketball court,” Vautour said. “We moved people and things around to get the crowd going. Most dances you’re facing the front with people in the audience. On a basketball court, you have people watching from every direction so we changed things around so they aren’t just facing one side of the crowd. We decided this was the dance they were most comfortable with and was appropriate for a Celtics game where the music will pump people up.”
After COVID, Vautour wasn’t sure if the studio would be able to survive.
With each performance in front of a large crowd, Vautour said she gets people coming up looking to give dance a try. With a performance at the Celtics, she says she hopes it only adds to the interest in the area.
“Any time we do anything local we have kids and families coming up to us after trying to join,” Vautour said. “This is another opportunity to show what we can do and show dance is a sport. Not a lot of people think it is but we practice like any other sport and have competitions that are like games.”
As you’d imagine, it’s been a busy week putting the final preparations in.
Usually the hip hop classes are 45 minutes long but this week, the dancers have been practicing for an hour and a half. Not only are they working on their Celtics performance, but they are still practicing their Thunderbird dance, UMass dance and competition dances.
All the hard work will be shown Friday, with Vautour saying how excited she is to see her dancers embrace the moment and give a great performance.
“We are beyond proud of all of them,” Vautour said. “We can’t wait to see them shine on the court. They deserve this more than anything and truly have worked so hard for this moment.”