Pom Pom Squad

When Pom Pom Squad’s Mia Berrin was 21 years old, she fell in love. Sure, she’d been in love before, but this time, something was different: “It just felt like a switch had flipped inside my head,” she says. “I realized I had been living a life that was not my own, watching myself from the outside.” As a kid who bounced from town to town growing up, and as a person of color in predominantly white spaces, Berrin had become accustomed to maintaining a constant awareness of how others perceived her—a “split-brain mentality” that she adopted as a necessary means of survival. But now, tumbling through her first queer romance—and her first queer heartbreak—some of that self-separateness began to mend: “Suddenly,” she says, “I was in a body that was mine.” The result of this stymying, galvanizing period—of escaping to come back—is their debut album: Death of a Cheerleader. With Death of a Cheerleader, Pom Pom Squad offer a fresh and decidedly queer take on picking up the pieces—from heartbreak, from injustice—and creating yourself anew.

Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.

Events featuring Pom Pom Squad

Mar 16, 2022
10:15pm — 10:50pm
Presented by
Linda Perry and Alisha Ballard Present EqualizeHer
Mar 17, 2022
10:00pm — 10:40pm
Mar 18, 2022
3:00pm — 3:45pm
Mar 19, 2022
1:00am — 1:50am
Presented by
City Slang
Mar 19, 2022
5:00pm — 6:00pm
Presented by
NPR Tiny Desk Meets SXSW
About
From:
Brooklyn, NY
Genre:
Subgenre:
Grunge