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Get into the groove

At a University boasting 10 undergraduate and graduate schools, it is not unusual to hear that students on Grounds can be whatever they want to be.

Well, make that almost anything. Up until this point, students have had the opportunity to major in virtually every form of visual and performing arts, except for dance. Campaign for Dance (CFD), a new student coalition, is trying to change this once and for all. By mixing technique with a historical and cultural perspective, several students are working to create a majors program for dance. Students would take classes ranging all the way from traditional technique classes to electives such as Politics of Body and Gender or Dance Experience for Children.

Last spring Sage Blaska, a professional dancer who works as an educator in the medical department, sent out an e-mail to student dancers voicing her concerns about the need for a dance program at the University. A number of students responded, including third-year College student Jen Sager and second-year Architecture student Yvi Nguyen. Sager and Nguyen took on increased responsibilities, obtaining Contracted Independent Organization status this summer and serving as president and vice president, respectively.

With an organization established and a new co-vice president, second-year College student Brooke Bakun, the CFD's next goal is to increase student, faculty and community awareness of the issue. The CFD came just in time, as the Virginia 2020 Commission for the Fine and Performing Arts enters its final days of planning. The 2020 Commission, composed of faculty, students and community members, is focused on creating a vision for the arts at the University by the year 2020. On October 1 the group will submit to President Casteen 12 recommendations for improving the arts, all the way from music and drama to architecture and studio art.

Nguyen, the CFD representative to the 2020 Commission, managed to place the dance program proposal among the 12 recommendations being reviewed.

"The fact that [the commission] has even agreed to hear our concerns and include us among the 12 recommendations is a big deal," Nguyen said. "Before we came along a dance program wasn't anywhere in the picture."

The mission statement up for review is a simplified version of the goals CFD hopes to achieve. Included in a roughly 300-page document composed by Blaska is a much more specific outline for a new program. The current CFD leaders envision a program called Cultural Studies in Movement and Dance, noting that a new program needs to be established before a new academic department is formed.

"With the research that I have done, along with the needs voiced by students and most faculty, we envision a program similar to UCLA's World Arts and Cultures, which is multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural," Blaska said. "We do not see ballet, modern or jazz being the focal point of study."

Sager also emphasized the connection between dance and other areas of study, mapping a program that is more abstract as it involves the social sciences with dance.

"The program is both academic and performance related," Sager said. "If a student was studying African dance, he or she would learn not just the movements but the theory behind the movements."

Rather than taking a strictly Western approach to the subject matter, the proposed program is deeply rooted in cultural awareness and diversity.

"Ballet is a beautiful art form, but it is too Western, too confined," Sager said. "Dance is broader than just that -- just like literature is broader than Shakespeare."

The CDF leaders hope to add to the diversity of a dance program by showing the connection between dance and other existing areas of study, including such fields as anthropology, religion, education, music, and psychology. In addition to presenting dance technique in a historical and cultural framework, the CDF leaders hope that their focus on the interconnections between dance and other fields will help increase the chances of starting a new program.

"We talk about these other disciplines to show that there are already existing things in place that fall into our program," Sager said. "Obviously a new program is going to require money, but we are not trying to start from scratch."

Currently, however, there are not many dance classes offered at the University. Besides the ever-famous short courses such as prep-step organized by the University Programs Council, there are only two dance classes, Beginning Ballet and Beginning Jazz, offered for credit. Both classes combine all levels of talent.

"There are people in these classes who have been dancing all their lives and those who are just getting started," Nguyen said. "The instructor can't really focus on anyone with the unbalanced class, and the spots fill up very quickly."

The difficulty of securing one of the 20 spots in each of the classes is just one indication that a dance program would be well utilized here.

"We have over 350 students involved in dance programs, all the way from the Virginia Dance Company and the University Dance Club to Mahogany and short courses," Nguyen said. "There are so many dance groups because there is so great a need."

Blaska recognized the need for a program here long before she left high school. Throughout high school she hoped to attend the University for undergraduate work, but was turned off by the lack of a dance program. After pursuing a BFA in dance and choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University and a Masters in Fine Arts-Dance at Temple University, she came here to make the idea of dance a reality so others wouldn't be faced with the same dilemma. The over 300-page document she composed was just the beginning of the battle.

"I primarily wrote [the document] to show the administrators how a dance program could look, how it intersected with other disciplines, and why it would be important for this university," Blaska said. She also hoped the work would "show them my continued commitment to this project."

Blaska's work with the dance effort has shifted from rousing student interest to serving as a mentor in the student endeavor.

"Sage is really dedicated, with her heart and soul in dance," Sager said. "She is a great advisor and has done so much work voluntarily that others would have to be paid for."

The coalition of students with Blaska as their advisor now faces the task of raising awareness of the need for an established dance program. Prior to last week's Activities Fair, over 800 students, faculty, alumni, parents, and community members had signed the CFD's petition for instituting a dance program. Many more were gathered last week and the support effort will continue into the future. The CDF leaders hope to further gain support through an upcoming letter-writing campaign targeting alumni and community members who support the arts here.

Before any more work can be accomplished, however, the CFD leaders stress the need for more students to take a stand and help out in the campaign. The group will have their first general interest meeting this Thursday where they hope many more will join the force.

"This is a student-governed university," Sager said. "If we really are student-governed and there is a demand for dance here, then we should have a dance program. This is all about students having a say in their education"

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