After rolling her leggings up to her knee, assistant professor and head of dance Sandra Parks looks out at the assembled dancers with a determined smile.
“Yes! Very good!” she yells. “And one and two and three,”
Bodies flow across the carpeted floor, weaving a pattern of limbs to the rhythm of the drum set at the back of the room.
The atrium of the Design Building, and later the lobby of the Communication across the Curriculum room, was the scene of Open Dance Night. The free contemporary dance class is just one of Parks’ attempts to grow dance at the University.
The Fall Dance Concert, on Nov. 22 and 23, is going be different than usual said anthropology junior and dance minor Alix Achée. There will be live music for at least one piece, with dancers moving around and through the musicians on stage.
The whole Theatre department will be involved in the concert, Parks said.
Students and faculty alike will perform a variety of pieces, including modern, contemporary and ballet.
Though she is bringing dance to the University, teaching dance wasn’t Parks’ original plan. After finishing high school in her native Taipei, Taiwan, she moved to New York to dance. To get a work visa so she could dance professionally, she went to NYU’s Tisch School for her bachelor’s degree.
“That’s how I am,” Parks said “I have a goal for myself, for the program and I figure out how to get there.”
After touring internationally with “The King and I” and performing in Boston and New York, she taught for an outreach dance program for inner-city schools.
“That’s when I kind of jumped in to teaching,” Parks said “I never thought I would be teaching so soon.”
Parks received her Master’s of Fine Arts from Smith College and taught in many schools around Boston and in Atlanta before a spot opened at the
University.
“It was a natural step for me to design my own program,” Parks said
When she got to Baton Rouge in 2013, Parks jump-started the program. Molly Russell, English education senior, dance minor and co-president of Dance Ambassadors at LSU, was there during the transitional year.
“She wanted to make a ton of changes,” Russell said.
Initially it was hectic, she said, but it’s turned out well.
“She’s made [the dance program] more professional and given us more opportunities,” Russell said.
Russell and a group of students performed in New York for the NYC Dance Arts Festival last year and are organizing another trip in December.
Parks said performing in front of an audience gives them more of a sense of self-satisfaction than simply learning the routine.
“I can’t tell them they’re wonderful. They have to feel it for themselves,” Parks said.
For now, Parks said she’s staying in Baton Rouge to see where she can take the program.
Her goals for dance at the University are two-fold. First, she wants to serve as many students as possible and build an appreciation of dance and
different dance forms.
Parks was baffled by the disconnect between all the dancing she saw at parades and festivals in the state, but the relative lack of professional dance.
Macy Dunne, communication studies sophomore, dance minor and Dance Ambassador, said the biggest goal of the Dance Ambassadors is to get the dance major reestablished. Students also want to add new classes.
“We want to add a hip-hop class” Dunne said, “Something more students might be interested in.”
Flamenco Rouge has also helped bring diversity in the kinds of dances. They are planning to bring University students to Spain to study under a Flamenco master in Seville.
Parks’ other goal is to allow those who want to devote a great deal of time to dance to be able to do so, despite it only being a minor at the University.
“We’ve been lucky to have support from the community,” Parks said.
Organizations like the Manship Theatre, Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre and Of Moving Colors have given the dance program support to carry on and grow.
Both Parks and students are optimistic about the dance program moving into the future.
LSU english education Molly Russell prepares for the Fall Dance Concert at the Reilly Theatre on November 22 and 23.
