In recent years, reality TV has shifted its focus to telling the stories of courageous people facing tall challenges. On April 18, in the Mickey L. Burnim Fine Arts Center, it wasn’t an organized team of students who excel at dancing, but students who took their routines from the classroom to the stage. Approximately 40 students from the Modern Dance and Step Aerobics classes joined a university dance team on stage.
It’s the second year Dr. Faye Gallop has challenged her students to show their audience how well they’ve progressed with a semester or two of instruction. Based on the cheers of friends and family in the audience supporting this “reality class routine,” the production is a hit. It’s part of the requirement for modern dance and step aerobics class students.
“It helps to give students new opportunities they have not had—performing in front of a large audience. They are learning how to tell messages through dance,” Gallop explained. “Each team represents a category or a concept and they must develop it through dance.”
For the finale, Gallop brought out Team Gala, who performed to the hit tune, Joyful Joyful, made famous in the 1993 comedy Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. Just like the infamous scene in the movie, the students took their audience by storm. The students presented a routine- Gallop describes as a combination of modern dance, hip-hop, aerobics and free-style dancing–in recognition of the university’s 125th anniversary.
