Starting in the fall of 2022, the dance department rolled out a significant new policy requiring students performing in showcases to be enrolled in either academic or co-curricular dance in any of the three terms. This was largely decided by the adults of the dance department, including Dance Department Director Jennifer Whitcomb. Her main focus? To maintain the safety of the students performing while also ensuring their fullest commitment to the program.
Ms. Whitcomb shared that her primary intention when founding the dance program was to maintain a flexible schedule and make the program as “user-friendly as possible.” This way, students can try new things while also honing on specifics that they want to specialize in.
Over the years, Ms. Whitcomb has witnessed countless injuries sustained as a result of non-dancer students participating in dance showcases and has decided to enact this policy as a way to alleviate the possibility of future injuries. She stated that “dance involves a specific set of muscles,” and that dancers without training are “in danger of getting hurt when performing.”
Technical dances like ballet, jazz and modern require more training, which is why more common and accessible dance forms of dance like hip-hop have been very popular amongst students who wish to perform in showcases. According to Ms. Whitcomb, “For hip-hop pieces, we were getting inundated with kids who [wanted] to just perform without training for it.”
This idea of safety has been reflected in other aspects of the dance program this year, for example, as Ms. Whitcomb pointed out, auditions for the winter production of “The Nutcracker” were pushed out a week to guarantee that the dancers auditioning could be physically prepared.
Although the bottom-line of the policy is safety, the second reason for the dance policy is commitment. The dance program values fidelity, and the expectation of being a part of the program means being engaged in a part of the program, whether that be academic or co-curricular dance. Ms. Whitcomb’s intention was to align “our performance requirements with those of other programs on campus, as they exercise a stricter policy regarding playing in games, and performances.
Dancer Ana Holmes ’23, presented her own opinions regarding the new policy. She acknowledged the intention of injury prevention, but brought up the point that the policy might not prevent injury for students who audition for earlier showcases but plan to dance in a later term, stating that “it doesn’t make sense because people are not dancing at the time.”
Holmes sees the policy as less about addressing the injury problem and more about addressing the dedication problem, agreeing with Ms. Whitcomb’s focus on making sure that the dancers performing in showcases are committed to the dance program as a whole.
Regarding the diminishing size of the dance program, Ms. Whitcomb doesn’t necessarily believe that the program will become smaller, acknowledging that pieces in showcases still contain a large number of dancers. As mentioned previously, hip-hop is a popular option amongst students hoping to “dabble” in dance, to which Ms. Whitcomb replies by proposing the reinstatement of the hip-hop club if students can’t find the time for academic or co-curricular dance.
As for opportunities to perform on campus, Ms. Whitcomb presented ideas such as dancing at school meetings, or even at sporting events. She is open to helping out if supervision or ideas for performances are necessary, but she thinks that the club could act as a great opportunity for non-dancer students who wish to perform.
Overall, Ms. Whitcomb hopes that the new dance policy will promote positivity in the coming dance year, stating that “the main thing for me is for people to understand that the dance program has aligned its performance requirement with that of other programs on our campus and that our reasons are safety first and foremost, and secondly commitment.”