USC Kaufman students reflect on culture and creative expression through dance.

By Rhaine Marquardt ’26

How has being a member of the AAPI community at Kaufman empowered your student experience?

Emma Marcellana ’28: The AAPI community at Kaufman is one of the most beautiful embodiments of Asian culture and values that I’ve known. Generosity, ambition, care for each other and our art run deeply here, and have impacted my Kaufman experience from the very beginning. Growing up in a large multigenerational household, the choice to pursue a collegiate education in dance felt daunting, at times even selfish. But the AAPI community here shows me every day that being an Asian American artist is perhaps one of the most selfless things you can be. Getting to help tell Asian stories through student works has been a highlight and privilege of my time at Kaufman, inspiring me to move and lead with empathy. Learning from Asian American faculty like Professor Tiffany Bong, whose joyful spirit leads initiatives like Kaufman Connections and Cypher Summit, has shaped how I view arts education and advocacy. 

Dance aside, the Kaufman AAPI community is, at its core, just that. Our community is equal parts for fun and for everyday survival. We bond over our upbringings. We celebrate each other constantly. Connecting with culture is difficult while away from home, but it becomes easier when a vibrant group of people hosts Lunar New Year celebrations, floods the group chat with Asian restaurant recommendations, and becomes a second family. These incredible people inspire me to show up in every space, bringing my full self – a lesson that personally resonates as a Vietnamese-Chinese-Filipino-American dancer whose professional aspirations lie in the ballet world. Thankfully, I have countless role models in the AAPI Kaufman alumni and students, who move authentically and unapologetically through professional spheres every day. It’s one of the many things that makes me proud and endlessly grateful to be part of this community.

How has identity shaped your artistic & choreographic pursuits?

Faith Aguilar ’27: Growing up, I was always surrounded by unconditional love from my family. In Filipino culture, one of the ways this was shown was through food. No matter what type of day I was having or if we were struggling as a community, we always made time to cook good meals and eat. It was a way for my family to proudly say “keep choosing to live and love” without having to physically speak it. Food is a love language that has been ingrained within me as I navigate the many experiences of adulthood, continually choosing to eat well, to live and love with a good heart. As a proud Filipina American, my artistic pursuits are heavily influenced by this way of living that is fully driven by my heart, my culture and my family.

With the creation of my fall 2025 Advanced Composition piece, ading ko, look at you, I wanted to capture a moment in time when my siblings and I felt something pivotal within each of our lives. Their perspective on life means a lot to me, and using their voices along with my own as music shaped my perspective on the movement during the creation process. It is natural to feel unsure or lost during life, but I was always taught to lean on my family and draw strength from my community. I wanted to showcase how much pride we take in resilience within Filipino culture as we create meaning with what is in front of us. This piece was an ode to where I come from, where I am presently and where I am going as I carry the love of my people beside me. To Eloise ’27, Jadon ’29 and Christian ’29, maganda kayo at mahal ko kayo!

How has AAPI representation in the performing arts inspired your own journey as a dancer?

Lucas Go ’29: A significant AAPI role model of mine in the dance world unexpectedly passed away just a few days ago. Coming from Virginia, I was the only Asian dancer at my studio and often the only Asian male at local conventions. A huge inspiration of mine is Sam Javi, a Filipino hip-hop dancer who greatly influenced my aesthetic and my approach to training. My only introduction to him has been through social media, but he has had an incredibly profound impact on my outlook as an Asian male dancer. Watching him take over the hip-hop scene made me feel a sense of inspiration and security, knowing that someone I could relate to on a cultural level could reach such peaks in the dance world. His influence reached so many people beyond just myself …

How did you use dance as a medium within your Senior Capstone project to share stories focused on your experiences? 

Jaelin Born ’26: This project was inspired by unfortunate tropes that plague Asian-American households. Fuelled by a desperation to escape, reclaim, and drown out the negative experiences of the past, this project aimed to make sense of the past’s unavoidable nature, exploring how those kinds of experiences manifest in ourselves today.

Throughout the process I continued revisiting these core themes, and allowed my feelings and thoughts to resurface after having avoided them since childhood. I used my internal negotiation as the fuel for this work, letting my emotions paint an extremely candid piece. My director, Jimin Hong, and I prioritized the raw human emotion of the work over everything else, wanting to make sure it would resonate deeply with audiences, specifically Asian-American viewers.

Dance served as a great medium for my story given how difficult it can be to verbally articulate my particular Asian-American experience. Through movement, I discovered new ways to express the complex feelings that came up for me regarding this topic. It was extremely cathartic to be able to physicalize things that I have not been able to externalize otherwise. I remember the tears that started to fall after the last take of the last scene in the film, feeling like I had somehow dislodged something that I had buried so long ago.