Monique Chilcutt is a woman who has grown up to be exactly what most little girls dream of.

“The curtains are opening,” says Chilcutt as she makes the sound and motions of curtains being pulled apart by a rope, “and you?re onstage by yourself, and you?re waiting for the music to start, and your heart?s beating so fast, and you?re wondering, ?Am I going to be able to do it?? and then the music starts and all of a sudden??whoosh??you?re off, and you?re doin? it, you?re dancing, and it?s just the most wonderful feeling.”

With her unruly red hair and infectious smile Monique says, “I?m a performer throughout, and there?s no higher high than to get up and perform for an audience.”

Chilcutt is the freshly appointed face behind Sacramento State?s dance team, formerly known as “The Stinger Girlz.”

A graduate of Sac State with a minor in dance, she traveled nationally and internationally dancing and choreographing before returning to Sacramento this year to become the new dance team director.

“I wanted to be closer to family, have that support group there, you know, it?s been really hard living away from all of my family and friends,” Chilcutt says.

Chilcutt?s former nomadic lifestyle was in part due to the career of her husband, who is a retired NBA basketball player. As a free agent, Monique?s husband took them from Detroit to Italy, then Houston, British Columbia, Utah and Los Angeles.

With the birth of their new little boy, Chilcutt and her husband made the final decision to move from their current home in Salt Lake City, Utah, back to Chilcutt?s hometown.

Now that she is back, Chilcutt is ready to form a dance team with a new name and a new style, incorporating a trick or two she has learned from her 13 years of experience.

“I just want a fresh new start, a new look,” she says.

The girls will choose their new name together as a team after chosen from auditions being held from April 20 to April 29.

Chilcutt has extensive auditioning experience including three times for the Sacramento Kings? Cheerleaders, whom she performed with for three seasons, as well as various commercials and music videos.

“The audition process is, well, it?s a bit unnerving. You never are fully, fully prepared.”The advice Chilcutt has for the girls trying out is to get plenty of rest, come in with a positive attitude, and focus on the movement.

“That?s how I work. I like to get inside myself and really decide how I?m going to perform, how I?m going to present myself,” she says.

The biggest key, Chilcutt says, is “Showmanship! Showmanship! Showmanship! Show me all that you have…I want to see a Broadway show, I want to see you show me everything in your facial expressions. That?s my background, I come from lots of expression, and that?s the kind of team I want to assemble, people who really want to get out there and perform it to the optimal level, not just technique-wise, but showmanship…Ham it up.”

Chilcutt would like to see her team compete this year in national competitions, namely the United Spirit Association and the United Dance Association competitions, so she?s looking for dancers with intermediate to advanced technique with preferably some performance background.

“I?m looking for good dancers, enthusiastic, positive people, and people with a good technical background in dance,” she says.

Coming to assist her with auditions is fellow Sac State alumni Andy Vaca, who obtained his master?s in dance and is now teaching dance at Long Beach State.

“He?s just phenomenal,” Chilcutt says of Vaca. “We did a lot of duets in the Modern Jazz Company, ?Dale Scholl Dance Art.? He was my partner, we were paired up quite a bit because we have a similar dance style. We really work well together.”

Along with her experience studying under Dale Scholl, who is the dance director for Sac State, a highlight of Monique?s career is choreographing for two children?s jazz productions in Vancouver, British Columbia.

“The couple of kids productions that I put on were really, really, really amazing, they turned out wonderful, and the kids just had a wonderful time and that was really nice,” Chilcutt says.

Monique got her start in choreography during her years at Sac State with the student company, “Jazzie.” Since then, she has choreographed for NBA?s Houston Rockets Dance Team and Vancouver Grizzlies Dance Team.

Chilcutt has taught dance routines at jazz dance camps in Utah, Texas and California and held dance clinics in high schools in Alabama and South Carolina, along with teaching all levels and styles of dance in various studios across Canada and the U.S.

Chilcutt has learned through her teaching experience that performing well takes a lot of practice, something she wants her future team to expect.

“Once you reach that level of optimal performance and you feel good about what you?re doing, good about yourself, it shows in your performance,” she says.

The team will practice about two times a week for three to four hours. In addition to practices, the girls will perform two to three times a week whether it is a game, fund raiser or promotional event.

“The girls will get a lot of opportunity to perform, which every dancer wants,” Chilcutt says.

The audition process is a total of three days. The first day is a mandatory clinic where the girls will learn two routines, a short pom routine and a jazz routine.

The girls will go home and practice, and come back the next week for the preliminaries, where they will perform the routines in front of a panel of judges.

From that point, the girls will be eliminated to about 20 girls, and the finals will determine who will make up the final team of about 12 to 14.

Auditions will be held in Yosemite Hall 183, and girls will have to show proof of full-time enrollment at Sac State with a grade point average of 2.0 or above.

Along with her position at Sac State, Chilcutt will be teaching adult jazz at the Step One Academy in Sacramento on Wednesday nights.

” Dance is the passion of my life. I?ve been dancing since I was five, and teaching is so rewarding because you see your students improve and enjoy what they?re doing. You come away feeling so full…you think, ?Wow, I?ve given my students a part of me,? and that?s a really wonderful feeling,” Chilcutt says.