In an effort to create equal opportunity within the community, sisters Britney and Ryiesha Howard created an affordable dance team for girls of color, an opportunity they were not granted when growing up in Mountain Pine.
Ruby Red Diamonds Dance Team began in March along with the event center it practices out of, Main Event, 123 Albert Pike Road. Britney said it's Hot Springs' only hip-hop-style dance team.
"I didn't grow up in dance," Britney said, "and I didn't grow up in dance not because I didn't want to, but because my parents couldn't afford it, and that's what made me want to do this, to give them this opportunity."
"When we were growing up," Ryiesha said, "we use to always dance in our room and we never could find a place that was affordable for us to dance, so we decided to do this and make it affordable for kids who love to dance. ... The two oldest (team members are) my cousin and goddaughter, and (dance is) all they do, so we were basically like 'Yeah, we're going to get them somewhere to dance at,' so we got this (event center) and we were like 'Yeah, we can make a team,' and then it started just slowly growing."
The team currently has about 17 members.
"There's a lot of kids who wanted to dance, but some places you go it's like $60 a week for a one-hour class a day," Ryiesha said. "We charge $25 a week, and they practice twice a week for now. We just do fundraisers to try to raise money for the costumes and stuff. The money we get from (fundraisers) is just to pay for the building and keep it open; we don't make any money off of it."
The dance team also benefits financially from events booked at the center.
"We do other things in the event center," Britney said. "We let people rent it out for birthday parties, we let people rent it out for receptions for their wedding, we even had a couple of rappers who came through and rented it out over the last couple of weekends to do some of their performances (as well as some) of the local artists here in Hot Springs; we do poetry, comedy. ... We've only been advertising it for about two months and it's been booked out every weekend ever since.
"It's predominantly our event center. We'll be doing warming centers and stuff like that as the cold months come where we can give out jackets, socks, things like that. So (the dance team) was actually just something else to add to the event center to try to help bring the community closer."
With not seeing anywhere in the community for young GOC to dance, Ryiesha said the team strives to be a place accepting all colors while remaining affordable.
"That's probably why we have so many people and have a lot of African Americans, because they have been wanting their kids to dance, and they said 'Yeah, we didn't have this when we were growing up,' and we didn't; we definitely didn't have that opportunity to go dance anywhere," she said. "We got an instructor; she's versatile, so she's able to do ballet, she's able to do jazz, tap, lyrical -- all the stuff that all the other companies do."
Ryiesha noted that a dance team that is predominantly made up of GOC also eliminates a situation most girls of color experience when joining a predominantly white team and feel like an outcast.
"(This team) also give non-people of color an opportunity to come and experience what it's like," she said.
Britney said her goal for the team is to "gear girls up" for the future.
"We try to get girls who are interested in dance, girls who are interested in possibly being dance instructors, future cheerleaders; some of them are too young to be cheerleaders at their school, so we're basically just kind of gearing them up and getting ready to be able to do that," she said. "The young lady who we have (choreographing) she's fairly young, but her dream is to be an instructor, so we hired her with no experience, just to give her that experience, and then she's able to pass that knowledge down to our younger girls because she's not much older than they are; she's 20."
Ryiesha said the team also instills confidence in the girls.
"My niece was very on the quiet side, shy, timid, wouldn't do anything," she said. "Since we started doing dance, she's started doing so much more. Even this year, she was like 'I want to do basketball, I want to do cheer,' and we've been trying to get her to do cheer and basketball and she just would sit at home on her laptop."
She said they treat the team as a sisterhood.
"We address them that they're all sisters and we're all best friends in here, and everybody has friends when they come here," she said. "Some kids may feel like they don't have friends and when they come here, everybody is friends. We all get along, there's no arguing or fighting. We call them queens, because they are, just to uplift them. They don't have to look like the average girl."
"I think," Britney said, "that it gives them a place to express themselves in dance because, granted, we do teach them different dances, but we also allow them to come up with their own dances as well. So they're able to express themselves and showcase what they can do without our help.
"What's so special about the dance team, to me, is that each one of our girls brings a different person out, and they bring a different spunk to our dance team. They're very friendly, they help one another. When they line up and if they see one of the babies not in the position she's supposed to, I can probably expect five of them to go over to her and try to make sure she's where she needs to be; so I love that, the unity in there."
The team members are also held to a high standard with a demerit system that grants or takes away "rubies" for grades received in school.
"Our grades have to be good to be on our team," Ryiesha said. "If your grades are not good you're going to be on probation or kicked off the team, depending on how bad they are."
To show off months of hard work in the midst of a pandemic, Ruby Red Diamonds Dance Team will make their first official mark on Hot Springs and have a showcase free and open to the public on Sept. 30.