William Forsythe & Jodie Gates

This month, the University of Southern California's Glorya Kaufman School of Dance launches an innovative and multidisciplinary Bachelor of Fine Arts program. The fall 2015 semester will also be the first featuring world-renowned choreographer William Forsythe as the artistic advisor of USC's Choreographic Institute, a research center dedicated to exploring and expanding the boundaries of choreography. The World Dances spoke with Professor Jodie Gates, Director and Vice Dean of the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, about the vision and content of this exciting BFA, advice for potential students, the value of a university experience for dancers, and more.

Everyone has his or her own path. That said, if you graduate with a BFA from USC, that speaks volumes. You'll have a highly intense program that will be building on your technique, performance skills, and professionalism. If you choose to be a professional dancer when you leave here, you'll be ready to be competitive. Most importantly, our model is to mentor young artists. If you look at our faculty who will be your mentors--and we did this deliberately and very well--think of the network you'll have to support you. Our faculty can help you network and connect you to companies that will be interested in hiring you. That's really key.

Can you please describe the curriculum you developed for this BFA program?

On top of the academic rigor, the requirement of conservatory-style training is going to be intense. The first two years of the core curriculum, our students will be incredibly busy. That's purposeful to free them up in the second half of their education to explore.

We're creating a new language and new tools to master dance literacy. One of the very first courses students will take is called What is the Meaning of Dance Today? This is a lecture course that specifically targets where they stand in the historical context as young artists and how can they help transport the field forward. From the very beginning they're going to be asked to be constantly driven by curiosity.

Students will dance here at least 5 or 6 hours a day, doing the repertory of William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Paul Taylor, George Balanchine, and other key master choreographers that they need to know.

These days, to be a successful dancer you have to be a hybrid artist. Students will have ballet every day, hip-hop every other day, contemporary every other day, and partnering once a week. That's on top of the repertory requirements, improvisation, and composition. The idea that hip-hop is required in the major is a bit revolutionary at this level. It will be really interesting to see the results--to see the articulation and rhythm and counterpoint that will be learned from hip-hop with the foundations of ballet, layered with the improvisational skills of William Forsythe and the technique and musicality of George Balanchine. It sounds like a lot of information--and it is--but the body is smart.

Even if students don't decide to stay in dance, the tools they'll have learned will help them for life.

What advice would you offer to students hoping to enter the program?

First of all, come visit the campus. It's about 10 minutes away from downtown Los Angeles. My advice would be to focus on their technique so they're coming in with a strong core, but also to find their signature self. We're looking at individual artists. We're looking for artists that can come in with an opinion, young dancers who are open-minded and very curious. Having a good sense of musicality is also important.  Read more here.  

Megan Preston

Art has the power to alter perspectives and change the world, but dancers rarely take this potential to heart so strongly as Megan Preston. Just in her twenties, Preston is the Founder and Director of Awareness Through Dance, an organization that uses dance to foster global awareness, engagement, and empowerment and to support education and development initiatives in Ghana. The World Dances spoke with Preston about Awareness Through Dance, her vision, and the importance of cross-cultural artistic exchange.

What happens on an Awareness Through Dance program?

It's a three-week program and each week has a different theme. The first week is cultural immersion. It's about exchanging dance styles, connecting with dance companies we partner with in Ghana, connecting with the community there, and getting to know the group. The second week is self-discovery and personal development. We take ourselves out of our comfort zones, trekking in central Ghana and then going down to the coast, which is where the slave trade was centralized. There we learn more about the history of Ghana and the impact of the slave trade on their and our traditions and cultures. It's a heart-wrenching experience but it provides crucial context. On the third week, we delve into social impact. We do workshops in schools using arts to explore communication and personal development with students. We also work with a local dance company to put on performances in the community. We showcase our styles of dance, they showcase theirs, and we do some collaborative pieces. About 300-400 people come to watch.

Can you please describe your path toward founding Awareness Through Dance?

I was lucky to have the opportunity to travel a lot as a kid with my parents. Experiencing other cultures gave me a deeper sense of who I am in the world, though I never fully appreciated it until I was in my older teens. The second thing was that dance is my passion. I wanted to be a professional dancer since I was 14. I went to the Hammond School in the north of England and studied there with every intention of being a ballerina. But when I graduated when I was 19 I decided I wanted to diversify and learn other styles. I did the international student visa program at Broadway Dance Center in New York and it was amazing. I got to learn all these different styles and was encouraged to achieve what I wanted to become, which I think is more of an American ethos than a UK ethos (we're more conservative.) I finished that year in New York feeling really empowered and went back to London. I was successful as a professional dancer, but I always had this sense of not being totally fulfilled. I felt like something was missing, and I realized that it was because I didn't feel I was making an impact. I wanted to combine my passion for dance with my desire to make a difference. All these ideas fed into Awareness Through Dance. It's all about understanding yourself, different cultures, leadership, community, and hoping the impact that will have on you will encourage you to impact others.

What makes dance a good conduit for this kind of cross-cultural exchange?

I spend a lot of time going to social entrepreneurship events and you hear about all these amazing ideas about tackling climate change, human trafficking, and these immediate, dire issues we need to figure out. At first I would sort of shrink, think "but all I do is dance! It's just about expression and connection." But then I realized the basis of everything, what has caused all of these issues is a lack of connection and lack of ability to express. One thing dance does so well, whether you're a professional or a child, is get you to break down boundaries, gets you to be honest with each other, touch each other in a respectful way. Especially when you're traveling, dance has a great ability to connect people across cultures. There's no language barrier; everyone can dance. Play some drums in Ghana and everyone's up dancing and connecting immediately. Read more...