• email: avaca@csulb.edu
• office phone: 562.985.9224
• office: DC-F101
  
  
  

Andrew Vaca has been teaching at CSULB for eight years after teaching at UCLA, Scripps College, California State University, Sacramento, and the Orange County High School of the Arts.  He holds a B.A. degree in Communication Studies from CSUS and an M.F.A. in Dance from UCLA.  In the Dance Department, Professor Vaca is known as the “jazz dance specialist”, teaching jazz technique classes regularly.  Other courses that Professor Vaca regularly teaches include Creative Dance For Children, Improvisation, Composition, and all levels of Modern Dance Technique.  He is the director of the department’s annual Dance Showcase, an evening of dance performed by the non-major students of the department. In the spring of 2007, Vaca will premiere his 13th original dance for the CSULB Dance Department.

A native of Sacramento CA, Vaca began dancing with Dale Scholl in the Jazz-ee Dance Company, and later in Jazzworks and Dale Scholl Dance/Art.  Since leaving Sacramento, Vaca has danced with the UCLA Dance Company, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Keith Johnson/Dancers, Bodytalk, and Roman DanceTheatre.  Dance teachers who he has been greatly influenced by include Ronald E. Brown, Pat Catterson, Sharon Kinney, Doug Nielsen, Dale Scholl, Risa Steinberg, and Dan Wagoner.

As a choreographer, Vaca is known in the worlds of both entertainment and concert dance.  For over 15 years, he has choreographed dance material for NBA and NFL dance teams across the country including the Los Angeles Laker Girls and Clippers Spirit, the Portland Trailblazerdancers, the Pro Bowl Cheerleaders, the Sacramento Kings Fastbreak, the San Diego Charger Girls, the Indiana Pacemates, the Boston Celtic Dancers and the San Francisco 49ers Gold Rush.  He has also choreographed halftime shows seen on FOX television including the 2001 Thanksgiving Day NFL show featuring Enrique Iglesias. 

Vaca has choreographed award-winning material for dance teams in California, Idaho, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah, presented at numerous professional dance team conventions, and has choreographed for the Texas All-State Dance Team and the Drill Team Directors of America All-Star Dance Team.  Vaca has been professionally associated with the United Spirit Association for 22 years as a head instructor, adjudicator, and director of dance, and has taught the USA Pro Camp since 2004.

In 2004, he was Assistant Choreographer on two episodes of Molly Shannon’s sitcom, “Cracking Up!”  In the world of concert dance, Professor Vaca has worked as assistant to Tony Award winner Twyla Tharp, and has choreographed material for Bodytalk and Roman DanceTheatre, as well as the Orange County High School of the Arts, Scripps College, and UCLA. Since 2005, he has received commissions from the Nannette Brodie Dance Theater, the Pulse Dance Company, and the University of Utah Modern Dance Department, where he did a week long residency.  His choreography has also been produced at the Dance Under the Stars Choreography Festival, the South Coast Dance Arts Alliance Festival, and the WAC is Back festival at UCLA.