What I Learned Taking Dance as an Elective
by Alexis Peters ‘20
I am not a dancer.
I mean, I took ballet for a few years when I was 10, and a couple of tap classes, but that was about it. I am the girl with a teensy bit of rhythm (meaning maaaaaaybe I can shake my hips at a dance party) but I’m mostly awkward flailing limbs.
However, this semester I decided to take an elective dance class.
Why would I do this to myself you ask? Well, USC offers a ton of different dance classes to non-dance majors, and I figured it might be nice to take advantage of everything this school has to offer. So, I enrolled myself in Jazz A with the goal of dancing like Maddie Ziegler by the beginning of May. (Obviously, that did not happen, but 10-year-old dancer me definitely came out of the shadows.) I decided that I should finally learn how to dance so that even if I couldn’t bust any moves on the dance floor, I could at least to do some cool jumps and turns.
We actually learned about some of the history behind jazz dance: how it came to be, why it came to be, and the culture it reflects. It was something I had never really considered before, but it genuinely did make the dancing more fun and more meaningful. I learned that every dance is inherently expressive of every culture, and when you participate in that dance, you are participating in the culture and history of the people who created it. Plus, the professor is amazing! Professor Saleemah Knight knows her stuff, not only is she an amazing dancer who’s performed with Beyonce (Queen Bee, people!) and on Broadway in The Lion King musical, but also she genuinely wants you to succeed by trying your very best to groove to the music.
The Kaufman school has been advertising itself as teaching the “new movement,” and they certainly do. In my jazz class, I definitely learned to do a pirouette, but surprisingly, I also learned how to freestyle boogie. Okay, honestly, I didn’t magically gain all the rhythm in the world after just a semester, but I am considerably less awkward. This is different from the classes I took as a kid: those were all about pointing your toes and learning choreography, but the Jazz class I took was so much more than that.
This class was about feeling comfortable in your own body, and learning how to improvise.
Besides getting in a good cardio workout twice a week, I got to increase my flexibility, rhythm, and cultural awareness. I had a lot of fun being apart of the new movement and dancing my heart out.
Maybe jazz isn’t your thing, but the Kaufman school also offers ballet, tap, hip hop, and more! (Check out all the classes offered here!) I often peeked into the ballroom dance classes to see what they were doing, and it always looked like fun. I even got the chance to have a crash course Bollywood class which was insanely amazing, and I definitely plan to take it in the future!
Non-major dance classes at Kaufman are just two units, so if you’ve got space in your schedule, I would highly recommend taking one! You don’t need any experience to get started in the level 1 classes, so sign up for next semester, and Dance On!
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