My daughter Dulci is in her junior year as a dance major at the University of Hawaii Manoa. I am exceedingly proud of her and love to watch her dance! Her journey, however, has been peculiar and unexpected to me, even taking COVID out of the picture. I imagine her as a freshman, bright-eyed and excited—the thrill of learning dance at a university level would surely be exhilarating.
My daughter’s greatest dance love is hip hop. Of course, she loves and dances in the other genres, but we all have our favorites. The university faculty was happy to accept her. Hip hop representation in their program was scarce and they said she would add great diversity to it.
Once Dulci started the dance major, she was a bit disappointed that there was so much ballet and modern dance involved. But obviously she would do her best because she wanted to be a well-rounded dancer. Yet as she continued to mull through the curriculum, it became equally obvious that very little outside of ballet and modern dance was being taught. The university puts on shows throughout the year and when Dulci would suggest any hip hop, it was not met with enthusiasm.
It would appear they wanted to add a diverse person to their program but not add any diversity to their shows.
Dulci trained in Polynesian dance in high school. So in her freshman year of college, she auditioned as a luau hula dancer for a Honolulu cruise line. She got the job! She was thrilled! I was thrilled! At the age of eighteen, she was a professional dancer; something some dancers never achieve.
When Dulci shared this news with her dance department at the university, the faculty was discouraging, to say the least. They called it “commercial dance” and thought that it would negatively influence her other forms of dance. I was stunned! How does the University of Hawaii have such little respect for Hawaiian dance?!
Throughout her school years, when the dance department spoke of hip hop or Dulci’s job on the boat, “commercial dance” was used derogatorily. I do not understand the condescending implications of this term. Commercial dance just means you get paid to do what you have been trained to do. When did that become a bad thing? No one calls someone a commercial plumber or a commercial mechanic. For some crazy reason, I thought I was sending my kids to college to get a job that they could actually make a living doing. Duh.
By no means do I want to belittle their focus on ballet and modern dance. It is difficult, and, yes, a person can make a living at it; but such opportunities are few and far between. People get paid for commercial dance. It is popular and entertaining and brings a lot of joy. And commercial dance is far from easy… I dare to think most of the ballet and modern dancers could not do hip hop or Polynesian dance with ease, if at all!
What is the goal of this university dance program? To produce unemployable dancers that look down on other forms of dance? Again, I don’t get it. My daughter will muddle through and get her degree while continuing to be a luau hula dancer (once COVID restrictions lift).
It just doesn’t feel right when your marketable skill is not respected by your place of learning.
What can we do? I suppose we’ll just continue to let them sit in their ivory dance studio, patting one another on the back in their perceived artistic superiority while producing statistically unemployable graduates.
What is art anyway? It is an age-old question. Art is considered to have aesthetic appeal. Quality. If more people are aesthetically happy with something, they are usually willing to pay for it. So, who is the true artist here?