Dale Mohammed has been a synchronized swimmer since her early
teens. Now she coaches a high school team that's headed to a national
championship tournament and regularly performs her own award-winning
solo routines. Synchronized swimming, or synchro, is not for the
weak. It's a combination of gymnastics and dance maneuvers slowly
performed to music. Mohammed has been choreographing routines
for years now and finds all types of music to be a divine source
of inspiration.
What's the best kind of music to perform to?
It's easier to cut a song [usually, music needs to be edited to fit the performance]
if the beat is steady, so rock music is the best.
What about R&B?
Not a lot of R&B is around. A woman in Indianapolis last year
swam to Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise." It was a little controversial
because most of our judges are older and there are a lot of little
kids around.
Do swimmers ever pick something really awful like Celine Dion?
Yes? One of the kids I coach suggested "Macarena." You want to
stay away from the trendy music because you work to the music
for about a year. It takes that long to learn the routine. There's
always a trade-off between having audience appeal and getting
sick of a song.
What has been your favorite piece of music to perform to?
I like really dramatic pieces for solos. My first solo was to
the theme for On Golden Pond. Every movement went exactly to the music - you felt the music.
You could see the music without hearing the music. Synchronized
means precision [swimming to music] rather than two people doing
the same thing at the same time. My first duet was one my coach
- who's now my partner - wrote to a Siouxsie and the Banshees
song. This year we're going to do something off of the Kids soundtrack, and maybe Elastica. Their songs are really short.
We usually have to cut the music, but theirs have a really steady
rhythm to them. Oh, and the Breeders - "Cannonball." When I first
heard that song, it screamed synchro to me. The first 45 seconds to a minute of the music
has so many changes, it changes like five or six times, and that's
very good for synchro. Each time it changes it tells you a new
piece of choreography. It's easy to write a routine to it because
the music basically tells you how.
- Alex Richmond
listen to you
The Sounds of Synchro