After a bumpy first season last semester, the San Jose City College’s dance team, The Roar, is back this season.

The Roar started in the fall semester of 2012 with high hopes of being able to create some school spirit and perform at events such as the halftime shows at SJCC sports games. The team began with about nine girls.

They started to lose steam before it was able to do a performance.

Daisy Martinez, 20, business major, said some of the factors that led to this were “a lot of the girls started missing practices, and we barely got a key to the dance studio halfway through the semester.”

Martinez was passed the torch as the new president of The Roar at the end of last season. She has taken three semesters of hip-hop dance at SJCC and has performed twice in the SJCC Dance Concert, which is held once every semester.

“I try to put in at least one dance class a semester because that is the way that I relieve stress from having to sit in classes three to four hours a day,” Martinez said. “That’s (dance) what I look forward to at the end of the day.”

Martinez said she is enthusiastic and hopeful about this upcoming season. She plans to run things differently than last season and is dedicated to getting this dance team off the ground.

The Roar’s vice president, Heidi Garcia, 18, business major, and Treasurer Jennifer Thom, 20, business and communications major, have come back with Martinez from last season. They have been proactive this semester by setting up advertising posters all over the campus in hopes of finding new recruits.

The Roar already has some performances booked. They have been invited to perform at the Cosmetology Hair Show and the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Azatlan Low-rider Show in April.

They plan to do hip-hop and jazz style dances at their shows but are open to ideas from their team-mates.

At the preliminary auditions, Princella Woods, 29, liberal arts major, said she wants to be a part of The Roar. “I’m trying to come out of my shell and stay focused.”

The preliminary auditions were held on Feb. 5, and they had a turnout of nine people, seven girls and two guys.

Official auditions were held on Feb. 14. The students who came to inquire about the dance team at the preliminary audition said they are excited about joining The Roar.

Business major Jazzmin Ramirez, 20, said she wants to join the team “to show school spirit and make new friends.”

Martinez says that the reason she is so motivated to get this dance team going and off the ground is to create school spirit and to create a place where SJCC students who want to dance can perform.

“I’m trying really hard to get this dance team going so that even after I graduate this will still be here,” Martinez said. “It can be a legacy to leave so that other dancers will want to come to this school because they know we have a really good dance team and that we have dance programs.”