Music booms from the speakers. In perfect coordination, dancers perform a choreographed routine in the studio. It seems more like a group of friends getting together. After all, most teams have more than five members.

Despite their extremely small roster, the five participants in Dance Troupe seem like they’re enjoying themselves. They aren’t the only small team at Lab, though they are the smallest. The girls basketball team has only 10 members. While Lab’s smaller teams face different obstacles, they have still found silver linings in their small size.

Dance Troupe captain Yael Rolnik, junior, attributes the decrease in members to the quantity and popularity of winter sports. While the winter and fall quarters both have seven teams playing, boys basketball and squash have high participation, that can mean people are often committed to other activities. The numbers for girls basketball aren’t a decrease but actually higher than last season’s.

“It’s generally around this size,” girls basketball captain Roxanne Nesbitt, senior, said.

“We had a JV team my freshman year and part of my sophomore year, but not many people sign up.” She said she hoped next season the team would have more people.

With so few members last year, the girls basketball team wasn’t able to practice as well as their competitors.

“Last year our team was even smaller, so we’re pretty used to having a small team,” Roxanne said. “It’s good that this year we have enough people to scrimmage in practice, because last year we had eight or nine, so we couldn’t get any in-game experience.”

Despite Dance Troupe’s participant decrease, Yael sees advantages, including how quickly a smaller group can learn routines.

“It’s definitely strengthened our team dynamics,” Yael said. “Having a team that’s so small helps us bond a lot off the court, which makes it a lot easier to act as a team. Since it’s so small, everyone knows each other really well, and we can all joke around.”

While there are advantages, the pressure is on every member to participate fully.

“At the same time, it’s kind of hard to work with only five people on the team,” Yael said. “When someone doesn’t come to practice, it’s a lot harder to coordinate without them. When someone doesn’t come to a game, we can’t perform because with only four people it ruins formations.”

Luckily, usually all of the members show up to the practices, according to Yael. This contributes to the collaborative, music-filled atmosphere that pervades the dance studio when Dance Troupe is practicing. Rather than losing hope, the troupe’s size has only convinced them to bond more as a team and create more routines.