“Who here is involved in WAC Smash!?”
“We are!” shouts a group of students in unison, sprawled around the first floor lounge of Kaufman Hall waiting for their rehearsal time.
It’s with this enthusiasm and excitement that World Arts and Cultures students keep coming back to partake in WAC Smash!, a showcasing of dance, film, art and spoken word created, produced and performed by undergraduates in the department.
Part of what’s exciting is that WAC Smash! provides a unique experience for its participants.
“It is one of the only opportunities for undergraduates to perform in a fully-produced setting,” said Mackenzie Powell, a fourth-year world arts and cultures student and co-producer of WAC Smash!
Powell has participated in the show since her freshman year.
“It’s specifically for the undergrads. Some students might have worked with (masters of fine arts) students in MFA shows, but this is our undergrad thing.”
Another undergraduate taking advantage of this unique experience is fourth-year world arts and cultures student Chelsea Moore. The piece she choreographed is about human resilience and the ability to spring back from hardships and turmoil in life.
“I want (the audience) to be inspired and just appreciate the beauty of dance because I think that’s very lacking in today’s world,” Moore said.
Moore said she recognized that some of the pieces people see are abstract and might seem scary to a new viewer, but she has some suggestions for anyone who might be apprehensive.
“Interpret it in your own way … come with an open mind, appreciate the movement, our quality, our rhythmic abilities, the formations, how we use space.”
Some performances, however, may be easier to swallow, as their themes are easily recognizable in everyday life.
Second-year worlds arts and cultures student Flannery Gregg, for instance, choreographed a piece about bananas.
“I know here at UCLA we under-appreciate the banana and I know that in the dining hall we just grab it and just eat it and we don’t think about it. So, at first I kind of play with the banana and see the role it has had in pop culture and then in the second half, it’s about the banana as … a piece of the earth,” Gregg said.
Gregg found inspiration in the dining hall while second-year world arts and cultures student Eliza Pastor had to travel a bit farther to find hers.
Pastor was inspired by a summer trip, where she stayed in the rainforests of Brazil.
“I came back and went through culture shock,” Pastor said. “I was noticing how people are so disconnected from each other in the city and then that developed into how we are so focused on what we want as individuals. … I just found it interesting coming back that we really, as Americans, try to transcend our everyday lives. We fear that place of the everyday.” Pastor’s describes her piece, which includes dance, film and music, as being about the American value of freedom.
The students, who have been working on their pieces since fall quarter, are anxious to present their final products. But the students are not just spreading the message for the sake of their own pieces; they are also eager to shed misconceptions about their major through the performance.
“So many people outside of WAC have so many misconceptions about what the major is and what we do. This is an opportunity to show the depth of what our education is,” Powell said, “We’re not just dancers.”
Moore shares her sentiment in hoping viewers of WAC Smash! will come to gain an understanding of the world arts and cultures program.
“Over the years I’ve gotten a lot of crap about “˜Oh it’s so easy being a WAC major. You don’t have to do anything, you don’t have finals.’ But it’s actually very hard. … Sometimes it’s like we’re not taken seriously,” Moore said.
“I think WAC Smash! gives us a time to shine and show what we’ve been working on and what’s inside our minds and how we’re feeling. I think that’s something a lot of us struggle with: being taken seriously, because we love what we do.”