SU’s Human Jukebox headed to the Super Bowl - again

It’s Super Bowl time again for the world famous Southern University Marching Band.

The band, nicknamed the “Human Jukebox,” will perform in New Orleans during pre-game activities of Super Bowl XLVII being held Feb. 3 in the Mercedes Benz Superdome. This will mark the fourth Super Bowl performance for the SU marching band.

It will be the fifth time, though, that a segment of SU’s football game halftime show has participated in the Super Bowl entertainment. Just last year, the Dancing Dolls, the 11-member female dance team that accompanies the band, performed with mega-star Madonna during halftime of the Super Bowl held in Indianapolis, Ind.

The nationally acclaimed Dancing Dolls recently captured the Best Overall College Dance Line award from the HBCU Dance Corporation. The Dolls also won in the category of Best Technique and finished in a three-way tie in the Best In Stands category with Albany State and Alabama State universities.

Director of Bands Lawrence Jackson is excited about the Super Bowl invitation from the National Football League. “This is a testament and tribute to the hard work our young men and women put into their practices, performances and their efforts in the classroom,” Jackson said. “I am proud of them and happy for our university.”

SU’s marching band has been featured on national television, profiled in the New York Times newspaper and named 2012’s Best HBCU Marching Band by the Center for HBCU Media Advocacy. 

Jackson, a member of the SU marching band in the 1970s, said he is appreciative of the NFL’s invitation and believes “the experience will be something our students will be able to talk about forever.”

An estimated 111.3 million people worldwide watched the 2012 Super Bowl, more than any other show in American television history.  The Madonna halftime show, according to television industry officials, was viewed by an average of 114 million viewers, making it the most watched Super Bowl halftime show ever.

While the Human Jukebox has been praised for many of its halftime performances, the University submitted a video - http://vimeo.com/8243903 - of its 2009 show at the University of Louisiana Lafayette to the NFL’s event presentation officials as an example of a “Human Jukebox” performance.

Jackson said he selected that video because “it highlighted our marching style, our execution in drill pedagogy and showmanship.” One Internet entry of the performance has been viewed more than 233,000 times.