Occidental’s largest club, Dance Production (Dance Pro) is hosting its annual spring performance at Thorne Hall March 22 and 23. According to one of the club’s two co-presidents, Siana Park-Pearson (senior), the club has over 210 members this year, and all of them have been working hard to prepare for this show since the start of the school year.
Before the performances, Dance Pro will be hosting Arts Week from March 18 to 22 in order to build up anticipation for the shows at the end of the week, co-president Mary Ferris (senior) said.
“We want to use that week to uplift other art clubs or artists on campus who maybe don’t have as many members as we do and give them an opportunity to perform, to sell their art and just bring the dance and arts community together,” Ferris said.
Park-Pearson said that in addition to the many performances, artists and vendors that will be on the quad during student lunch periods as a part of their Arts Week celebration, Dance Pro will also be selling tickets to their show.
According to Park-Pearson and Ferris, the show itself will be full of diverse dance styles and that is part of what makes this year’s performance so special and unique.
“The two main genres that always have really high representation are hip hop and contemporary/modern/lyrical,” Park-Pearson said. “But this year is really exciting because we have more fusion pieces. We always try to make a space for people to do literally whatever kind of dance they want and I think this year especially has been really diverse, so just look forward to lots of different vibes.”
Pooja Bansiya (senior), Raina Pahade (senior) and Radhika Patel (sophomore) co-choreographed a fusion piece that mixes several different South Asian dance styles with elements of hip-hop.
According to Bansiya, Dance Pro has had Bollywood pieces in their past shows, but not for the past four years, so the group aimed to bring the style back to Occidental this year.
“One of the biggest struggles was trying to include as many different South Asian dances as we could in a way that made sense,” Patel said. “They’re all so different from each other, so trying to fit them all in one piece and having them flow is a difficult process. I think we’ve figured it out now, but there was a lot of planning that had to go into how things would work together.”
Pahade joined Dance Pro for the first time this year, and said they are very passionate about bringing South Asian dancing back to the club.
“For me, it’s something that’s so important to my life,” Pahade said. “I’m really excited to have this big piece that’s unapologetically South Asian and introduce it to people who maybe don’t know anything about it and motivate more people to join more South Asian dances and keep the tradition going.”
Additionally, Pahade said Dance Pro hosted a Dance Your Style event at the Green Bean on March 1, which was open to all Occidental students to attend in anticipation of the upcoming shows. According to Ferris, Dance Pro has been steadily building their presence and membership back up post-pandemic and they aim to have an even larger audience this year, with hopes of selling out shows.
“[Park-Pearson and I] both did our first Dance Pro online,” Ferris said. “When we got to campus a lot of the freshmen didn’t know what Dance Pro was, since we didn’t do a show the year before in real life. Last year, the presidents did a really great job of hyping everyone up for the show since it was our 75th anniversary, so I think this year we just want to build off of that and get even more people to come.”
Addie Fabel (sophomore) said she had never danced before joining Dance Pro this year, and said she is excited to get on stage for her first-ever performance with her friends and family in the audience.
“It’s going to be so fun to be on the stage and perform something that we worked so hard on,” Fabel said. “We’ve been practicing for so long for a dance that is only a couple of minutes long. So that makes it feel so rewarding when you actually do it in front of people.”
One of the struggles that came about when preparing for a performance as big as this one was finding ways for the members of the club to meet together, Park-Pearson said.
“Trying to find a time when everyone can meet isn’t possible, so we sort of had to figure out how to balance that, how to split it up and how to make sure the people who weren’t able to be there still have all the information they need,” Ferris said.
According to Ferris, something that Dance Pro prides themselves on is their openness to all students, regardless of experience level.
“The best part about Dance Pro is that you can join if you’ve had fifteen years of dance experience or if you’ve had zero dance experience, it does not matter,” Ferris said. “Everyone’s just there to have fun, bond, dance together, hype each other up. The support within the community as a whole is so heartwarming to see.”
Fabel said that she felt comfortable with her choreographers because of how accepting they were of her, despite her lack of experience.
“I’ve never danced before in my life, this is my first year ever dancing or performing,” Fabel said. “[The choreographers] are so good about going through the dances slowly, they really emphasize no experience necessary. That’s why I love it. I can do something that is really cool and is such a big part of campus, and not need to have any experience whatsoever.”
According to Park-Pearson, the members of Dance Pro are all excited to perform for their friends and family on March 22 and 23, and they want as many people to come to the show as possible.
“I like that we keep the show very secretive for the whole year so everything is a surprise,” Park-Pearson said. “It’s an overall very exciting time and people should get excited.”
Dance Production shows will be on March 22 at 7 p.m. and March 23 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. at Thorne Hall.
Contact Izzy Shotwell at shotwell@oxy.edu
