Taylor Sweeney ’19 and Jordan Sweeney ’21 started dancing when they were just 3 years old. Their mother signed them up without giving them much of a choice in the matter.
According to Taylor, when children start taking dance classes, they have to start off with the basics, tap and ballet. This often causes young dancers to lose interest, because they do not want to practice the intricate dances they learn in class.
Taylor and Jordan’s mom kept them motivated by inspiring them to be like their favorite actress.
“Our mom would say, ‘Miley Cyrus would not be Hannah Montana if she did not practice or she didn’t stick with it and really work on her singing and dancing, you should practice,’” Taylor said. “We started to like it more and more once we stuck with it.”
Taylor and Jordan’s mother, Jeanette Sweeney, said she first wanted them to be involved in dance for the social aspect.
“I signed up Taylor for dance, because she was being cared for by her grandmother at home as an infant while I worked full time,” Jeanette said. “I felt she needed social interaction outside my home, because it was just Taylor and my mom day in and day out.”
Jordan and Taylor decided to switch dance studios when they were in high school to focus on a new style they loved: hip-hop.
“It is the one style of dance in which I find all things that I’ve taken from learning various styles of dance combined: power, emotion, texture, precision, energy, technique, lyrical expression, storytelling,” Taylor said.
They spent most of their dance career at a small studio in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, which was more focused on tap and ballet, so they said they were a little behind in hip-hop when they arrived at Morton’s Dance Center in Landisville, Pennsylvania.
Jordan and Taylor were members of the studio’s hip-hop competition team. Their goal was to be as advanced in hip-hop as the other members of their new studio. Taylor said it took four or five months before they started to blend in with the rest of the team.
“We had our own sort of flair that differed from the other dancers, who had only trained with [our new coach] and had not had the extensive technical training that we had,” Taylor said. “We wanted to continue to transition into that ideal hip-hop dancer that we were constantly looking up to, which meant we wanted to be hard-hitting, clean and precise.”
Now, Taylor and Jordan, known around campus as the Sweeney Sisters, are performing before the headliners at the 2019 Spring Concert for the second year in a row. The 2018 Spring Concert was the duo’s first performance in front of their peers at St. Joe’s.
“People knew we danced from our Instagram videos, and we had received positive feedback from that, but it was overwhelming how much love and support we received before, during and after spring concert last year,” Taylor said.
After the buzz from their performance at the Spring Concert in 2018, they created a club on campus called Hip-Hop Hawks, where they choreograph for dancers with varying skill sets, from beginner to advanced.
They said they created Hip-Hop Hawks to provide a welcoming and judgement-free environment for people who want to dance. For the duo, dancing is about self-expression, so the club allows Taylor and Jordan to pass the opportunity to be creative and expressive on to others.
“We are providing [the ability to express yourself] for other people and learning from other people, like we did our whole lives” Jordan said. “It doesn’t matter how good you are. If you love it you can be good at it.”
Every Friday, Taylor and Jordan stand at the front of O’Pake Recreation Center’s multipurpose room to teach dancers a new combination set to popular music.
Donald Morris ’19 is a member of Hip-Hop Hawks, and he said he loves the welcoming and inclusive atmosphere of the club. He said he always wanted to take dance classes, but never brought himself to do it until now.
“It’s flexible and allows people to come and go when they want,” Morris said. “They are also so open. You don’t even have to have experience dancing. You could go and freestyle the entire time if you wanted to. It really is a judgment free zone.”
The Sweeney Sisters will have three to four minutes on stage to perform before headliners Sean Kingston and DJ Pauly D at the 2019 Spring Concert on April 10.
“I love performing and the hype and adrenaline rush that comes with it, but the bottom line is we really just love being on stage together and showcasing something that we put our time and effort into creating, practicing and growing in,” Taylor said.
