USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance Commencement, Friday, May 16, 2025. (USC Photo/Michael Baker)

Remarks by this year’s Distinguished Speaker. Full transcript below.

Good morning, dancers! How awesome is this to be celebrating you today alongside your faculty, your family and your guests. Today, your graduation day, is a big deal! I am honored to be here and share this moment with you.

Over the years, I have been fortunate to orbit around this fabulous USC Kaufman program. Many of you I have worked with in class or workshops, some have auditioned for me, some I have hired on jobs, and I have observed all of you at some point in the many showcases and performances I have attended here. Each time I come across a USC student, I am impressed by your technique, your artistry and the variety of movement and styles you are exposed to here at Kaufman. You are graduating from a passionate program that cares for all things dance. Your dance eyes are wide, and you have learned to be curious and respectful of many styles. I am excited that you are the next contestants on THIS IS YOUR DANCE LIFE! You are armed with an incredible amount of dance knowledge and that, my dear dancer friends, is going to be what sets you apart from so many of your peers as you start to navigate this big, bad business of art making.

I moved to Los Angeles in 1994 with the classic story of $500 and a suitcase. I was a kid from a small town in Colorado. On paper, I had no business moving to La La Land. I knew nothing about the industry, I knew nothing about the big city, I just LOVED to dance. Little did I know that I had a superpower that would start to reveal itself as I evolved and grew as a dancer, teacher and choreographer.  

My first classes as a young dancer were breakdancing and ballet. That’s right, I was in a breakdancing crew with my purple parachute pants and red, double Velcro Reeboks. I was obsessed with back spins and pas de bourrée’s. I couldn’t get enough, I guess I was much like an early version of AI, I just kept getting smarter. I soon signed up for tap, then belly dancing, then modern, Graham and Horton. Then came improv classes, jazz classes, folkloric classes, lyrical classes, flamenco classes, partnering classes, acro classes, clogging classes…I didn’t know it at the time, but being exposed to all those different styles of dance would eventually allow me to be very successful in many different mediums and spaces. I was armed with knowledge.

As I grew with dance, I found that I loved being a dancer as much as I loved teaching a dancer and equally as much as I loved creating on a dancer. Cue the IDENTITY CRISIS! I really struggled with needing to define what I was…was I a dancer, a teacher or a choreographer? Was my style Jazz? Was it Contemporary? Was I better at Commercial work or Concert work? Was I better suited for film, TV or stage? Should I make teaching my career? Did I have to choose one thing? Couldn’t I be all these things and couldn’t I do all these styles? I felt like I knew a little about a lot, and for a long time, I thought maybe that was a bad thing. Maybe it wasn’t cool, because I didn’t put all my eggs in one basket, I wasn’t necessarily incredible at any one thing.

I was good at lots of things. Had I found it? Was THAT my superpower?

No, that was NOT my superpower! All that knowledge about lots of different styles and enjoying teaching, creating and performing would certainly help me along this art making path, but it wasn’t the thing that came in clutch in just the moments I needed it, it wasn’t the superpower.  

In the last four years here at USC Kaufman, I am rather certain you have taken lots of dance class, right? You have spent countless hours in front of the mirror, showing up when you didn’t feel like it, or when you were so sore, you thought your hamstrings had shrunk seven inches overnight. You showed up when you weren’t sure if you even liked to dance anymore. You felt your cracked feet on studio floor when you were stressed about the paper you had due and procrastinated in writing. You watched yourself warm up over and over and over again. You started to enjoy a great plié and you giggled to yourself when you nailed the frappé combo and hoped anyone else was a witness. You experienced little victories when you finally coordinated your body and pulled your life together across the floor. You also felt many a defeat when you couldn’t quite find the rhythm you were sure you felt in your bones. You cheered for your peers when they flew, and you secretly hated them when that little jealously monster reared its ugly head. Those times in class, in front of that mirror, under the watchful eye of your professor were preparing you for so much more than your dance career. Those moments prepare you for life. It’s the showing up that matters. Show up for your life, it’s yours and the cool part is that, like a great dance class you get to share the space with other humans who are showing up. Show up for each other, make plans and keep them, just the same as when you told yourself you were going to stick that triple pirouette or else…it’s the same thing. We seem to be in a time that it’s easy not to show up, not to be present and not to commit, but we know better as dancers, it doesn’t work like that for us. We can’t fake it; the result is directly tied to the effort and time put in.

We, as dancers, also know what it feels like to fail, to not get it, to keep working for it. I find myself so thankful for those failures in my life and I have had lots. In fact, I think I had most of them in front of millions of people each week on a little show called So You Think You Can Dance. I started choreographing on that show in Season 3 and I basically grew up in front of that audience for the following 14 seasons. One week I would have an amazing, show stopping number and the very next week, I would have the worst number, and my couple would go home. Then I would have a week where I loved my number, but the judges hated it and then I hated my number and the judges loved it. All the while so many critics in the comments and loads of people who passionately thought I was the worst choreographer of all time. Wow, it’s hard to keep showing up, but I did, and I kept listening, learning and trying to get better at my craft. There is no formula for choreography, at least for me, there isn’t. Sometimes what comes out of my heart, head and body is awesome and other times, I am not sure what is coming out and even other times, it’s just bad … and that is ok, because I am human. Dang, I am not AI as I previously thought. Even though I don’t like it, I allow myself to fail. I hope that you also fail, lots, many times over and that you have the courage to allow other people to fail too. I think we can all have a bit more grace with the idea of failure both in ourselves and others.

Many people ask me about what I think makes me successful as a choreographer. I think it’s simple, I say yes, and I show up. Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” and that is #truth! Sometimes all you have do is say yes and give it a shot. Also, Google says the origin of that quote is debated, so don’t quote me!

I realize that it’s not so easy for some people to show up and take the shot. I don’t find that hard and for a moment thought maybe showing up was my superpower. That must be it! I just show up! No, that’s not it. It goes deeper than that. It goes back to the beginning; it goes back to the young girl who would make up dance shows with her sister and make her mom and dad watch. It goes back to the middle schooler who would play the Debbie Gibson cassette and make up solos on the back deck of her house. It goes back to the high schooler who used to go to the dance studio for an hour before school to practice. It goes back to the young teacher who was wild with the idea of sharing with her students. It goes back to the young woman who asked people to dance on cars on a freeway. It goes back to the fact that I LOVE dance. That is my superpower. My love for dance has been with me since the start and I have drawn it like a sword in the moments that I doubted myself, in the moments I celebrated myself and, in the moments when I danced by myself. I am most certain that you and I share the same superpower. That thing you feel inside when you move and when you express through shape and texture and technique. It’s yours and yours alone, wear it like a cape and it will be with you through the whole journey.

Now you are ready for the adventure ahead of you, and you are armed with knowledge, you will show up and you know your superpower! Make sure to find the fun, don’t be afraid to seek the sadness and always hover over the happy. I wish you all the best out there and I look forward to seeing you along the path.

Congratulations Class of 2025!