Members of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders perform during Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Live!, the kickoff of a nine-show tour, at the Winspear Opera House on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, in Dallas.
Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News
The first choreographer for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders was a chain-smoking dynamo named Texie Waterman, who’d made a run at New York stages before returning to her hometown to teach dance. She wasn’t sold on the Cowboys’ novel concept for the young women on their sidelines — cheerleaders who danced, instead of clap-stomping as they yelled “de-fense!”
“I told them they were crazy,” she said, according to Decade of Dreams, a book about the DCC. “There’s no stage, no light, no illusion.”
Article continues below this ad
This was 1972, and Texie’s world of jazz hands and pirouettes wasn’t an obvious fit for the rough-and-tumble NFL. But the cheerleaders she invented, along with early directors Dee Brock and Suzanne Mitchell, would change sports entertainment so thoroughly that on a Tuesday night in April, the Winspear Opera House filled with audience members who paid to see those cheerleaders perform. Texie would have loved this: stage, light, illusion.
The audience was mostly women, college-aged girl clusters and moms in happy-hour mode and the occasional dad carrying his little girl. One of the great ironies of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders is that an enterprise designed to lure male eyeballs became a spectacle beloved by women, drawn to the sparkle and status of 36 high-kicking Miss Americas on the side of the field. Part of the allure also has to do with dance and how rarely it crosses streams with sports.
Zavannah Arias-Ramirez, 6, looks on from the front row during Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Live!, the kickoff of a nine-show tour, at the Winspear Opera House on Tuesday, April 7, 2026, in Dallas.
Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News
The cheerleaders represent so many things in the collective consciousness — glamour queens, sex bombs, goodwill ambassadors, old-fashioned Americana — that it can be hard to remember they’re primarily dancers. That comes as no surprise to fans of the reality shows; CMT’s Making the Team and, more recently, the Netflix hit America’s Sweethearts have become showcases for solo auditions with the kind of charisma and power that reach through the screen.
Article continues below this ad
Make Dallas News a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.
Add Preferred Source
“The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Live!” is yet another showcase for that talent. The roughly 90-minute set was a variety-show mix of glittering costumes, pop medley, insider chitchat, one audition (I’ll get to that part), but mostly it was dance. A dozen group and solo performances found 16 cheerleaders pulling off eye-catching formations and gravity-defying leaps as they traded their famous blue and white uniforms for hip-hop street glam, Fosse-style black sequined leotards, dazzling electric outfits with white lights that glowed in the dark and my personal favorite, a Western-style silver lame jumpsuit with cut-outs at the hips and fringe at the legs, worn with black cowboy hats, very ’70s bombshell meets space cowgirl.
Short videos introducing us to the cheerleaders played between performances, so we met a New Zealander named Faith, who explained that being double-jointed gave her a preternatural flexibility, before we saw her in a stirring solo dance to Sia’s “Helium,” where her long legs reached impossible angles. Another highlight was a lyrical dance duet between Charly and Kelly, two squad members familiar to viewers of America’s Sweethearts, who know them from the saga of their auditions — cut from training camp in season 1 of the docuseries but returning the next year to make the team.
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Live! at the Winspear Opera House on April 7, 2026.
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Live! at the Winspear Opera House on April 7, 2026.
“They’re what we call comeback girls,” said director Kelli Finglass, who acted as emcee for the evening with a mix of polish and off-the-cuff chattiness. She wore a sparkly pink pantsuit to match choreographer and co-host Judy Trammell’s sparkly black pantsuit, so the pair looked a bit like a Nashville singing duo.
Article continues below this ad
Finglass has steered the cheerleaders for 35 years, essentially since Jerry Jones bought the team, and part of her mandate is to make the cheerleaders profitable. The Cowboys, after all, are three decades from a Super Bowl, but they’re the most lucrative brand in sports. Finglass’ enterprising mind has brought us swimsuit calendars and workout DVDs and, perhaps her biggest coup, DCC Barbies. She also launched spectacles like the annual Christmas extravaganza at the Star in Frisco, 20 minutes of family-friendly entertainment where the cheerleaders warm up the crowd for Santa’s arrival.
Senior director Kelli Finglass, left, and head choreographer Judy Trammell watch from the wings as four candidates audition live on stage during Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Live!, the kickoff of a nine-show tour, at the Winspear Opera House on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, in Dallas.
Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News
“The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Live!” is a more ambitious undertaking, the kind of centerpiece production the Rockettes can pull off, but I’m hard-pressed to think of any other NFL cheerleading squad who could. The live show debuted last year, as the cheerleaders rode a massive swell of popularity, thanks to Netflix, and this year expands the tour from five cities to nine. In spirit, the production feels aligned with the USO shows the DCC have been performing since 1979 (87 tours, 42 countries, according to a video played during the show), although DCC Live! adds a reality show gimmick in the form of an audition.
By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy.
Ugh, that audition. Four exceedingly brave women, hoping to make the squad, danced in a line, and the audience voted by QR code to decide who went to training camp, where the final 2026-27 squad is chosen. This was my least favorite part of the show, mostly because I experienced a florid secondhand anxiety, particularly after one candidate tripped and fell. (It happens!) I suppose the voting is a way to make the audience feel involved. Maybe it’s a draw to legions more familiar with watching auditions on Netflix than game days at AT&T Stadium. Anyway, the winner was Ashley, captain of her pom squad at Southern Methodist University. Her high kicks were killer.
Article continues below this ad
Members of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders take a bow during Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Live!, the kickoff of a nine-show tour, at the Winspear Opera House on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, in Dallas.
Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News
The evening’s finale was a performance of “Thunderstruck,” the pounding AC/DC anthem that’s the DCC signature. A montage video shown before the cheerleaders took the stage was a series of TikTok clips with random folks imitating the arm thrusts and hair-flips of the dance: a bikini-clad surfer girl, a woman in Amish garb, someone in a bigfoot costume, Kacey Musgraves.
“Thunderstruck” is unique in American culture, a dance designed to cover a football field that became a living-room phenomenon. Unlike sports, whose uncertain outcome is part of the draw, the joy of “Thunderstruck” is that it’s clockwork. This is what the cheerleaders offer: reliable, crowd-pleasing entertainment. The DCC has performed that dance approximately five billion times; they’ll perform it five billion more. Each time, they slay.