Tag: teaching playlist

USC Assistant Professor Tiffany Bong Uses a DJ in Hip-Hop Class to “Create Art in Real Time”

Two years after hip-hop professor Tiffany Bong arrived at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, she asked to bring a DJ into the studio. “That’s a huge part of hip-hop culture,” she says. Just like most university-level ballet classes have a pianist and contemporary classes might have a percussionist, Bong’s classes rely on a […]

How Jean Freebury Challenges Students to Trust Their Ideas About Rhythm

During the 11 years that Jean Freebury danced for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, she discovered the value of being specific not just with your movement but also with your rhythm. “Merce had metered phrases, and also unmetered phrases where the rhythm would come out of the movement itself,” she says. Sometimes, there were even […]

How Tracie Stanfield Teaches Dancers to Be Partners With the Music

Tracie Stanfield doesn’t want students to just dance to music. She wants them to partner with it. “It should be a duet,” says the contemporary lyrical and contemporary jazz teacher. “I want it to look like they inspire the music—not that they’re dancing to the lyrics.”  Dancers of all backgrounds take Stanfield’s fusion classes at […]

How Popin Pete Teaches Students to Groove to Any Kind of Music

When it comes to choosing music for class, Popin Pete has one rule: “It’s always going to be something groovy,” he says. That’s because he doesn’t want students to just hear the music—he wants them to feel it. “It’s a difference,” he says. “That’s on any level, whether emotionally or spiritually or physically. That’s what […]