Dancing Through Tufts
Dancing has always been my biggest form of communication and outlet for expression. I started dancing at the age of four to connect with my Chinese culture. I learned different styles and techniques of classical Chinese dance, and it really made me gain an appreciation for my heritage. As I got older, I learned about how dancing could be used for storytelling and emotional expression, which made me absolutely fall in love with it.
Tufts, thankfully, has a thriving dance program that allows me to keep dancing. Within my first year, I’ve taken “Dance Movement and Creative Process” as well as “Modern 3,” and they were both amazing courses. Through my high school years, I took dance classes that were very structured. There was a strict “right” and “wrong” way of how the movement was supposed to look, and they focused primarily on unity amongst dancers rather than individual expression. These Tufts courses, on the other hand, completely changed my perspective on dance by introducing a new angle on how we can perceive movement. They emphasized the importance of how your body feels when you dance, not how you look. This not only changed and improved my quality of movement, but helped to deconstruct previous negative preconceived notions I had about dance, helping me to build a healthier relationship with the art form.
I was also lucky enough to participate in the Spring Dance Concert. It was amazing not only to attend rehearsals every week, build a community, and perform in a final end product, but also to be able to tell the stories the choreographers wanted to tell through dance and experiment with dance styles that I’d never anticipated practicing before!
One of the most unique aspects of the Tufts Dance Department is how much it values interdisciplinary learning. Our director, Jaclyn Waguespack, did her entire college capstone project on combining math and dance! I’m also taking a course soon called “Creative Dance for Children,” which views dance more from a psychological perspective, analyzing how dance plays a role in child development. With this class, I'll be taking a teaching assistant position, where I get to teach children in-person at our Eliot-Pearson Children's School here on campus, which is something I’m extremely excited to take on, as I’m also a psychology major!
Dancing has always had a presence in my life–whether it’s dance parties alone in the dark to relieve stress, taking a dance class to learn from mentors or professors, or creating my own choreography to improve my creative process. Now, after taking college courses, I'm also confident in knowing that dancing will stay in my life forever. And thanks to Tufts, I’ll eventually be able to say that I have a dance major too!