Envy is a club who prides themselves on their performances and the development of their dancers. Their practices embody that, the environment is very team friendly and everyone is focused, but they are also having a grand time while doing so. 

Envy is a student-run hip-hop dance club at Chico State, they are focusing on modernized rap/hip hop for this year. In prior years they were more of an old school and sassy hip hop club.  

The club has a board of six members: Mari Francisco, Skylar Trostinsky, Xenia Valdivia, Breanna Sepulveda, Natalie Delgado and Monique Miley. They all play prominent roles in helping the club stay together. 

Trostinsky handles public relations for the club. She said the club’s inclusive environment is what has made her experience great. The club accepts people of all races, genders, disabilities, sexes and sexual orientations. 

The pandemic has hit everyone hard. Clubs that depend on in-person interaction like Envy were impacted the most. 

“It was really hard,” Trostinsky said. “I am not going to sugar coat it.” 

That didn’t stop the team from trying to keep all of its members active.

“We just had Zoom meetings. We got close personally, but the dance part was being affected,” said Miley, president of the club.

Over Zoom the club members were able to get to know each other more personally, but couldn’t practice dancing over Zoom. Envy needed an in-person environment to help achieve their goals.

Due to paperwork issues, Envy wasn’t able to send out dance videos to their members during the pandemic. The team kept their heads held high with the hopes of returning to in-person activities.

Multiple members mentioned how the pandemic caused some students to lose interest in the club. 

“We definitely lost some people,” Miley said. “They came here to dance and we were over Zoom. It didn’t feel the same for them.” 

Even with these obstacles Sepulveda, the secretary of the club, said turnout has been amazing considering the uncertainties. 

“This is the most people we have signed up at tabling,” Sepulveda said. “We did have a larger turnout during our second day of practice than we have had in past years.”

For their first day of tryouts Envy had about 40 people show up and for the second day roughly about 25-30 people were there.

The club practices at the WREC on Mondays and Wednesdays from 8-10 p.m.

The team was practicing three times a week prior to COVID-19 but now practice twice a week because the WREC is closed on Sunday. 

“We are being a little more strict and are being well practiced within ourselves keeping a better time structure,” Sepulveda said. “This year we have to be very manageable with our time.” 

Being a student-run dance club, Envy wants everyone to know them for their inclusivity and their ability to perform. The goal for this club is to perform when the opportunity is there. With these uncertainties, the club plans to be ready for when their name is called upon. 

“We just want to show everyone we are not just some dance team. We are the Envy Hip Hop Dance Team,” Trostinsky said. 

Javier Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] or @jhm1226 on Twitter