Finding Your Place in Dance

The latest issue of Dance Major Journal explores identity, artistic growth and the experiences shaping today’s dance majors.

The latest issue of Dance Major Journal (DMJ 14) continues to explore the questions and experiences shaping the lives of dancers at university, the only publication focused on issues from their points of view.

This year’s issue returns again and again to a central question: How do you find your place in dance? Contributors write about artistic confidence, professional choices, cultural belonging and the histories that continue to shape contemporary practice. Together, the essays reflect the many ways dancers define who they are and where they fit within the field.

Founded in 2010 by Dr. Jennifer Fisher, a professor in the Department of Dance at UC Irvine’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts, Dance Major Journal gives dance students a place to share research, advice, and personal perspectives while also helping readers outside the field better understand dance education and the lives of emerging artists.

“Dance Major Journal continues to reflect the many realities of studying dance and how that practice relates to the rest of the world,” said Fisher. “I always say it reveals what isn’t always clear about dance experiences, and in that way it’s also for readers who want to know what studying dance at university is all about. Dance is about physicalizing what sometimes can’t be said; it relates to who you are and how you can move through the world, developing empathy and understanding of the human condition. That’s why other fields like medicine and science often look to dance to expand their approaches. DMJ can help answer the often-asked question—'Why major in dance?'”

Several essays in Volume 14 look closely at what it means to develop an artistic identity within environments that can come with strong expectations. In “Who gets to be fluid in dance?,” Cierra Torres considers how gender norms in the studio can influence a dancer’s willingness to take risks. Sabrina Huang’s “Full-time college dance major + commercial dancer = choices only you can make” examines the tension between pursuing a university dance education and building a career in the commercial dance industry. Choreographer Haihua Chiang reflects on migration, identity and artistic voice in “Both sides now...dancing through life,” an excerpt from her M.F.A. thesis.

Other contributors consider how dancers respond to the pressures of training. “The choreography of apology” looks at teacher feedback and the culture of shame that can sometimes emerge in the studio. In “‘Decyphering’ the importance of artistic play,” Alexis Morris explores how the creativity of hip hop’s cypher can help dancers move beyond insecurity and rediscover confidence in improvisation.

The issue also asks dancers to consider where they stand within a much longer artistic lineage. A group of essays under the heading “Inspired by history in the studio” looks at how the past can deepen present-day practice. Writers draw inspiration from figures such as Ruth St. Denis, Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova and Josephine Baker, while others examine the histories and aesthetics of forms including ballet, modern dance, tap, jazz, and hip hop.

Across the issue, finding one’s place in dance emerges as an ongoing process rather than a fixed destination. It can involve questioning assumptions in the studio, understanding the history behind a movement practice or discovering how personal experience shapes an artistic point of view. It can also mean deciding what kind of dancer, artist or professional one wants to become.

DMJ welcomes submissions for future issues that have personal approaches, conversational writing, lively prose, and experimental formats, which often include academically grounded research. Contributors traditionally include undergraduate as well as graduate students in dance, with occasional contributions from professionals in the field.

By centering students’ own questions and perspectives, Dance Major Journal continues to offer a space for emerging artists to reflect on what it means to study dance and build a life within it.

Read Volume 14 of Dance Major Journal on UCI eScholarship. 

To read more volumes of Dance Major Journal, visit https://www.arts.uci.edu/dance/dance-major-journal

To learn more about programs in the Department of Dance, visit https://www.arts.uci.edu/dance/programs