Forget the days of forced country line-dancing lessons in the elementary school gymnasium with partners plagued by two left feet and country music crackling through an outdated stereo system. The John Wooden Center and the world arts and cultures department offer cultural dance classes that provide students with an alternative way to work out and learn about world cultures through movement and music.
“When I look for a class, the first thing I’m looking for is something that’s hot, something that’s different, and something that is definitely cultural,” said Derrick Baker, the instructional program coordinator at the John Wooden Center, who researches and chooses the recreation center classes available.
While the Wooden Center and the WAC department offer a variety of world dance courses, the formats of the sets of courses differ. At the Wooden Center, world dance courses and social dance courses such as ballroom, salsa and swing dance do not offer students academic credit. Instead they provide a structured format for beginning dancers to learn once a week. Through online enrollment or by signing up at the Wooden Center’s front information desk, students pay $17 per course for a full quarter, and do not need to have any past experience to take courses.
“Me and my roommate and my suitemate wanted something that was exercise that we could all do together, but that would also be fun,” said Sarah K. Brown, a second-year psychology student who is enrolled in a Wooden Center hip-hop course. “It definitely feels like more of a way to have fun than to learn a routine and get it perfectly.”
The most popular classes at the Wooden Center, according to Baker, include hip-hop, salsa and belly dancing. Multiple sections of these courses are often offered, depending on the demand each quarter, so that students can find a time that works best for their schedule.
While the popular classes at the Wooden Center can grow large, with classes like salsa and ballroom sometimes hitting enrollment of about 100 people, students still have a chance to interact with the instructors, who are often also undergraduate dance students or WAC graduate students.
“I like a very low-key, very fun class,” said Mala Tejwani, a third-year history and political science student who teaches hip-hop. “We make jokes; we laugh. I’m not serious; I joke around. We talk about life, if someone has a story or a good professor. It’s just a fun environment and a good way to release our tension for an hour and a half.”
Ethnic dance classes can create an equally laid-back atmosphere. Tribal fusion, a blend of basic belly dancing movements with hula, is offered, as is Bharata Natyam, a type of Indian classical dance. Hip-hop classes and modern dance courses set to rock music provide upbeat dance outlets.
Instructor April Rose Wilson, a second-year world arts and cultures student, studied tribal-fusion belly dance in a professional dance troupe throughout high school and wanted to bring the form to interested students.
“It’s surprising how it looks really difficult, but because I break it down to the bare-bones minimum of the movement, you really start at just the total organic structure of the movement, and then we build and build. So, before you know it, the class is doing things that they never thought they could do because it’s been broken down and they understand it,” Wilson said.
With the tribal-fusion belly dance class comprised of about 15 students, dancers get to know each other well.
Third-year music history student Mary Collins, who has taken dance classes at the Wooden Center since her freshman year, enjoys the sense of community.
“You see the same people quarter after quarter and you get to know them. You make friendships with certain people,” Collins said. “(Courses are) really readily available and they’re pretty cheap, and they’re just really fun and they have exercise in mind.”
Beginning dance courses through the world arts and cultures department, on the other hand, give students two units of academic credit and offer not only an instructional dance component, but also stress the cultural and historical background of the dances.
D. Sabela Grimes, the instructor for a section of WAC 9, “Beginning Hip-Hop Funkamentals,” said she believes in giving students a well-rounded perspective on the dance form they choose to study.
“At the rec center people just want to move, sweat, and exercise a bit, and they’re not really there for the history and the philosophy behind it or the contextual ideas that go along with the classes,” Grimes said. “We have a blog (with) the philosophy behind the funk music and the idea of what it means to be funky.”
Fifth-year psychology student Michelle Lee enjoys Grimes’ course for its serious treatment of hip-hop dance as well.
“The instructor really emphasizes the importance of coming to class. He made it a point to say that it was like equivalent to a math class. I appreciate it a lot that he holds such high expectations,” Lee said.
While courses offered through the WAC department tend to consist of about 40 to 50 percent WAC students, Lee said non-WAC students do not to feel intimidated by their trained peers.
“The instructor really levels it out,” Lee said. “He’s really helpful and helps micromanage the class at different levels.”
While world arts and cultures courses may offer a more directed, academic approach to dancing, community building within the 20-person classes still lends them a laid-back atmosphere. While the students who enroll in the WAC courses tend to seek a more intensive atmosphere than the students who choose the Wooden dance courses, the WAC courses provide a community format similar to that of the Wooden Center.
Dance may seem like something potentially intimidating, but deciding how to learn dance and what format may work best can make the process of learning a new art a little less difficult.
“You can come out and learn this dance form and take it with you,” Baker said. “It’s an opportunity to express yourself with this dance form that you feel comfortable with, so that you feel confident in your ability to do it and just go from there.”