All semester long, eight of USC Kaufman’s BFA student choreographers collaborated on a piece entitled “Waistcoat” for presentation alongside works of Living Legends at USC Kaufman’s Spring Dance Performance, co-hosted by USC Visions & Voices.

The new work is a choreographic experiment led by junior-year dance majors in USC Kaufman’s choreography concentration — a program designed to guide students who are interested in the field of dance for the stage, motion pictures, television, digital media and animation.

By Matthew Perko

The hit reality television show So You Think You Can Dance took the world by storm when it premiered in July 2005.  I remember the day vividly, for it was the empowerment I needed to start dancing in the first place. In particular, seeing other male dancers moving with so much passion inspired my heart and spirit.

By Satori Folkes-Stone

A momentary cloud of sadness fell over the juniors when word spread that Kyle Abraham could no longer teach his scheduled master class after spring break—so you can only imagine our excitement when this dazzling opportunity was returned to us last Thursday. Exhausted from shows and crawling to class with aching bodies, we all pulled it together for an hour and twenty minutes with one of the leading contemporary choreographers of our current dance world.

By Rachel Walton

The rehearsal process for West Side Story has been a long one – but something magical happens as tech week begins and all of the theatrical elements of a performance come together. Beginning with our first sitzprobe rehearsal on Sunday, our musical director, Parmer Fuller, led the orchestra in transforming and filling the theater space with sound.

By Kaylin Sturtevant

At USC Kaufman, we are fortunate to have the opportunity to train closely with artist in residence Victor Quijada, where he teaches us his RUBBERBAND method, developed with his diverse background of breaking, hip hop, classical, and contemporary styles. After working with him for a month at the start of the semester, we actually got to see Quijada’s method translated onto the stage when his Montreal-based company, RUBBERBANDance Group, performed in a USC Visions & Voices concert in Bovard Auditorium.

Performance days are treated just like any other school day for students at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. The school’s most recent show— the second-annual “Choreographers and Composers” performance, which is a collaboration between the sophomores at USC Kaufman and the USC Thornton School of Music—provided one such packed ending to the week before Spring Break.

BFA student choreographer, Kaylin Sturtevant, worked all semester alongside fellow dance majors Whitney Hester and Lillie Pincus to create a piece set to an original sextet by USC Thornton’s Victoria Vasta. But before she could take the stage on the first evening of the Concert, Sturtevant had to make time for all her regularly-scheduled classes and activities— from pilates, to her upper-division writing course, to rehearsal with guest artist Dana Caspersen. She walked us through how she made it all happen:

By Alyssa Myers

There is a journey in collaboration that is uniquely humbling. I am so glad that my fellow colleagues and I were able to experience this journey through a project with composers; for the sophomores’ Choreographers and Composers showing, we were given the opportunity to work alongside composition majors from the Thornton School of Music.

At the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, students are working to get ahead of the game when it comes to ensuring their future professional success. Recently, several dance majors, such as junior Brandon Carpio and sophomore Rachel Harris, secured agents who will help them to book jobs in the entertainment industry— Carpio specifically for acting, Harris for dance.