Social dance

DANCE 46, Stanford University (Autumn 2014); DANCE 156 (Winter 2015); DANCE 152 (Winter 2016); assorted clubs and events (autumn 2014–present)

Since the fall of 2014, social ballroom dancing has been an enduring interest of mine, both in terms of teaching and performing. I first learned the fundamentals of social dance from Stanford's Richard Powers as part of his course DANCE 46, Social Dance I, which served as a broad overview of many different styles including east coast swing, cross-step waltz, tango, polka, salsa, and nightclub two-step. I continued practicing social dance in DANCE 156, Social Dance III, focusing on more advanced variations of waltz, polka, and the Latin dances.

I later studied the history and practice of improvised dance in an academic context with DANCE 152, Introduction to Improvisation in Dance: From Salsa to Vodun to Tap Dance, a course taught by Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow Rachel Carrico. In this course, I learned about a variety of improvised dance traditions including contact improvisation, b-boying, and swing dancing, and I prepared a final essay on the dance-fighting style of capoeira.

While working with the ATLAS group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, I regularly attended lessons taught by Lindy on Sproul, Salsa@Cal, and West Coast Swing@Berkeley. In addition to being a dancer, I have also taught lessons (primarily in east coast swing) to small groups of 10–15 people in Japan and Thailand, and hope to continue sharing my love of dance with the community at Davis.