Rams Cheerleaders head to Hong Kong for New Year Celebration
Listen to this articleWe are heading into the Year of the Roster in the Chinese lunar calendar. It will be celebrated around America, especially here in Los Angeles. But one group won’t take part in the Los Angeles celebrations: The Los Angeles Rams Cheerleaders.
They were selected to represent the United States, along with the Bluecoats Drum and Bugle Corps, in the Year of the Rooster celebrations in Hong Kong. The celebration begins January 27 with a parade and then there will be two more celebrations where the Rams Cheerleaders will perform.
In an exclusive interview with Claudia Gestro, choreographer John Peters said, “There will be thousands of people watching the parade live [in Hong Kong] and but we’re told that millions of people watch this on television over there.”
Peters said he doesn’t know how the L.A. Rams Cheerleaders were selected this year, but said and NFL team’s cheerleaders are selected every year. Least year the squad from the Indianapolis Colts made the trip and the St. Louis Rams Cheerleaders went in 2012 to celebrate the Year of the Ram.
The choreographer said the parade is 1.5 to 2 miles long and the cheerleaders will stop four times to perform a two-minute routine, Then, in the following two days the cheerleaders will perform at two other celebrations with a 20-minute routine. Then they will be able to enjoy a fireworks display over Victoria Harbor.
Twenty minutes is a long time to perform, “That’s a lot of cardio,” Peters said. Two of the cheerleaders, Aubrey and Brittany were unfazed by the length of the routine. Aubrey said, “Well, it’s kind of second nature to us now because our games here in L.A. are four hours long and we’re constantly dancing, whether it’s on the field or on the sidelines. So, our bodies are used to it.” She added, “We’re excited to do be able to do a 20-minute [performance], rather than a four hour …”
The Cheerleaders will wear their sequined blue uniforms fans have seen them in during the Rams’ home games. They will be accompanied by members of the Rams staff, including cheerleader director Keely Fimbres, her assistant, the choreographer John Peters, other team officials and of course Rampage, the team mascot. “He’s kind of our head honcho,” Aubrey said. “He’s the one that leads us out and gets the crowd ready for us.”
Brittany said, “I really love the part where we’re gonna be able to dance all together and do the parade part of it. There’s 22 of us that are going to be there so that’s exciting to just be able to dance as one because at games we would always be broken up into groups of six or seven.”
The cheerleaders will be leaving on a 15-hour flight Tuesday evening and arriving in Hong Kong on Thursday — they will lose an entire day, due to the international time line. They will gone for a week.Fans will be able to watch their videos on the teams website and can follow the cheerleaders on their trip with their Twitter and Instagram accounts, which are at @LARamsCheer.
Below is Claudia’s complete and exclusive report with John Peters and the Los Angeles Rams Cheerleaders.
Photos by Claudia Gestro
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