No more skimpy uniforms and provocative routines. The Dallas Mavericks announced big changes to their dance squad Wednesday.
This comes as the Mavs are trying to revamp their image, following a sexual harassment and misconduct scandal in the front office. NBC 5 spoke to young dancers and a former Mavs dancer about the new look.
Inside Lifesong Studio in Grapevine, young girls are learning the steps to becoming dancers, and young women.
"Little girls look up to big girls and everything that the big girls do they're trying to emulate and be just like them," said owner Carolyn Franks.
So, Franks is glad to see some of their biggest role models making big changes.
"I remember watching when I was little because I wanted to be a dancer and I would kind of get uncomfortable because I was like, "Oh, am I going to have to wear all that?" said 13-year-old Lifesong student Kaley Hudak.
When the NBA season opens this fall, Mavs dancers won't be wearing the skimpy two piece uniforms of the past and fans won't see some of their more provocative moves either.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
Dallas Mavericks Dancers
It's part of the 100-day plan new CEO Cynthia Marshall put in place when she took over the organization post-sexual harassment scandal in the corporate offices. She sat down with NBC 5’s Deborah Ferguson in April.
"We are going to transform," Marshall said at the time. "We are going to have a different culture than the one that was talked about in Sports Illustrated, and I already see that."
Marshall told NBC 5's media partner at The Dallas Morning News that while the dancers themselves are doing nothing wrong, "we want the focus to be on the dancers as artists and to highlight their skills, not be eye candy or sexualized."
Hunter Blackwell spent the 2014-2016 seasons as a Dallas Mavericks dancer.
"I see a correlation," Blackwell said. "I see where they're coming from. But from my standpoint, I feel like we're entertainers. We're here to dance and dance is dance at the end of the day."
Hunter said dancers work hard to look and move the way they do and she thinks it's up to parents to explain what's age-appropriate.
"It was never something that I was uncomfortable with doing," Blackwell said. "And I love children, I love the thought of a little girl looking up to me the way I looked up to them and I never felt like I was letting anybody down."
This is just one piece of CEO Cynthia Marshall's overall plan, focused on a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior, mentoring programs for women employees, and hiring more women into leadership positions.
Marshall also met with the head of the Mavs Maniaacs, the team's male dance squad. She told The Dallas Morning News they also discussed that squad's look.
