Video Transcript

Department of Dance
California State University, Long Beach

Kaitlin Muse (BFA Undergraduate Dance Student): As far as this department goes, I think it really breeds artists. Like how to be a performer, how to create art, and how to be art onstage.

Dana Findely (MFA Dance Student): The audition process incorporated a class: a ballet class and a modern class.

Sam Propersi (BA Undergraduate Dance Student): It was interesting because it was a modern class and ballet, which I wasn’t very familiar with, but because I have such a passion for movement and I really understand inertia and just kind of how my body works, I was excited to know that I was gonna be taught what I was trying to do.

Kaitlin Muse: We came out here and auditioned, and we couldn’t find a better place.

Dana Findely: And I remember the day of the audition feeling very welcomed by the faculty

Katherine Schafer Ostrout (BFA Undergraduate Dance Student):  Well there were a lot of them watching the audition. It made me nervous but it was better that way because there were more perspectives.

Dana Findely: They wanted students that were a work in progress. That they didn’t expect that you know everything already.

Eboni Jones (BA Undergraduate Dance Student): Well I slowly but surely weaved my way into the department. You know I started taking a couple classes here and there and my revolution within my spirits are so to speak were just go for it. You knowyou have the passion for it, so just move forward in your passion.

Kaitlin Muse: And I just fully immersed myself and just fell in love with it. Once you get on the stage, just once you really can’t escape it.

Onscreen: Dance at CSULB is consistently ranked as one of the TOP TEN programs in the Nation.

Kaitlin Muse: My name is Kaitlin Muse. I’m originally from a little German town right outside of San Antonio, Texas and lived there for 12 years and then came out here for school. Depending on who your teacher is, it can get pretty scary. There’s so many different types of techniques and types of teachers and they’re all really demanding but in different ways so they are really gonna push you from semester to semester.

Eboni Jones: My name is Eboni Jones. I’m from Modesto, California. I’m definitely am a modern girl so any of the modern classes have been favorites of mine. West African dance class, that’s like my heart and Latin Jazz is a lot of fun too.

Katherine Schafer Ostrout: My name is Katherine Schafer Ostrout. I am originally from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. I’ve lived in Southern California most of my life. All the teachers are encouraging us to be that super dancer that can do ballet, that can do modern, jazz. There’s all kinds of classes here. I’m planning on taking flamenco next semester.

Sam Propersi: I’m Sam Propersi. I’m originally from San Jose. Came here to Long Beach and discovered the new world of modern and ballet as a good foundation.

Dana Findley: My name is Dana Findley and I actually was a graduate student here at the dance department of Cal State Long Beach for the past three years.  I’ve felt mentored but allowed to have my own voice and for me creating three different pieces that were very different from each other and having amazing facilities, faculty, costume design. Liz (Liz Pelster, Costume Design) is amazing and Andy (Andrew N. Milhan, Technical Director and Lighting Designer) with the lighting and the technical side, Eric (Eric

Ruskin, Director of Music) for the music really kinda created such a professional environment and opportunity to do really anything that I wanted to do.

Kaitlin Muse: I was just really impressed by how they had really really thought about how dancers work and like what we need in our facilities because we’re so used to just going into dark alleyways and having rehearsals and its just really nice to have big wide spaces and just wonderful floors.

Sam Propersi: Our facilities are phenomenal. We have three studios on the bottom floor that are all marley with two story ceilings so you really you have modern classes in there. You dance in a small studio and you feel cramped, you don’t feel like you can expand and really extend your limbs when you’re in the studio there’s no limit and upstairs we have three more studios hardwood floors. One where we have our tap classes and more of our comp classes.

Katherine Schafer Ostrout: We have the student lounge here. We can rest here, there’s couches, there’s always people napping and this is our own space. The teachers don’t come in here so we can hang out with our friends.

Dana Findley: The dance department really focuses on more than just taking classes theres a whole other side of wellness for your body and understanding the way the body works and how to train and how to recover from injury. Not only do we have facilities like the Pilates lab but we also have a wellness center that is run by an athletic trainer (John Siegel, Head Athletic Trainer) His goal is you come in to prevent injury so he’s open for you to work out and grow stronger. He’ll help you build a program. But then also if you are injured you have somewhere to go for rehab and treatment. The wellness center is… I don’t know if there’s another place like it in the country.

Onscreen: The Department of Dance typically puts on 5 fully produced shows and several informal presentations each year

Collisions and Intersections
Spring 2008
Choreography by Holly Johnston
Performed by CSULB Dance Students

Eboni Jones: There are different concerts: Three different concerts. There’s the contemporary, the Faculty and MFA concert, that’s the masters students, the candidates and for the faculty and for the MFA you have to audition like you would in the program.

Beyond the Edge
Spring 2008
Choreography by Sophie Monat
Performed by CSULB Dance Students

Kaitlin Muse: When it really gets hairy is right up till the show time because about two weeks before the show starts you’ll be in the theater pretty much every single night doing tech rehearsals and doing lighting rehearsals so before the show actually starts you probably have 4 or 5 full rehearsals on stage so they make sure you are ready I mean there’s no room for slip ups the crew has practice you have practiced. They never let u go out onstage not prepared.

Eboni Jones: The most recent piece that I did was this last semester in the contemporary concert and it was entitled Ibuki. I thoroughly and entirely enjoyed this piece.

Ibuki – Breathe of Life-
Spring 2008
Choreography by Anna Hosonaka
Performed by CSULB Dance Students

Eboni Jones: And this piece is about breath of life you know what I mean and you can apply it to your spirit and I’m a very spiritual person and I immediately connected to the concept. And so the piece for me was beyond fulfilling because I was dancing with dancers who just love the art of dance, you know. They’re not so consumed in image and looking great you know let’s just explore this art, and not just physically but with our spirits in see where we soar.

Cyrus Parker-Jeannette (Department Chair) I’m Cyrus Parker-Jeannette and I am chair of the department of dance at California State University Long Beach. We’re very proud of our alumni they’re doing all sorts of things. We have dancers doing Broadway touring productions; in fact one of our recently graduated students is now the dance captain for Wicked the touring production. We have a couple of students performing with Cirque du Soleil. Many many teachers and actually students dancing all over the country in companies. Our undergraduate program is by audition only and the students who come here auditioning must be pretty capable already. And the audition itself, though we try to create a supportive and inviting environment is inherently competitive. I really believe that the versatile and educated dancer is much more apt to be the employable dancer.

Kaitlin Muse: First meeting the faculty, you really get this impression that they really really know what they’re doing because I’ve been to auditions before we’ll have somebody teach where you just don’t feel the authority and really here you could feel their experience and them passing it on to you and you just feel like you’re really getting this. It’s not only the technique and the level of academia but it’s also the compassion with the professors.

Dana Findley: As a graduate student you really, they’re not too busy, they’re not too busy

Katherine Schafer Ostrout: They’ve always been so inspiring, they make me wanna do everything.

Sam Propersi: And it’s this kind of great little community where there’s little time and we all work and we all dance and we all go to school but we all find time to rehearse for each others works.

Kaitlin Muse: You’re gonna be living here in this studio so you might as well make friends, make it your own, because you’re gonna... This is your community, this is your family.

Dana Findley: And I feel like Long Beach is my family

Department of Dance
California State University, Long Beach

Kaitlin Muse: We really did our research and there really wasn’t a more prestigious department.

Credits

Student Speakers
Kaitlin Muse
Sam Propersi
Eboni Jones
Katherine Schafer Ostrout
Dana Findley

Student Soloist
Jordan Isadore

Department of Dance Chair
Cyrus Parker-Jeannette

Interviews facilitated by
Bethany Price

Cinematography and Editing by
Gregory R.R. Crosby

Music

“Airtap”
written and Performed by
Erik Mongrain
Courtesy of Prophase Music
www.erikmongrain.com

Original Music by
Eric Ruskin

Concert excepts taken from

Collisions & Intersections
Choreography by Holly Johnston
performed by Erin Butkivich, Emily Edgell,
Erin Longhofer, Tara McArthur,
Andrew Merrell, Stevi Novakovich,
Sam Propersi, Angelina Schneider,
Shoko Tamura
Music by Apparat, Ellen Allien

Beyond the Edge
Choreography by Sophie Monat
performed by Sandy Brown, Jennifer Fitzgerald,
Jordan Isadore, Katherine Ostrout,
Annie Foucault, Yumi Nakatani,
Emma Storey
Music by Handel, J.S. Bach

Ibuki -Breath of Life-
Choreography by Anna Hosonaka
performed by Hannah Carlsgaard, Elizabeth Espindola,
Anna Hosonaka, Eboni Jones, Amber King,
Danae McWatt, Kaitlin Muse, Roxanne Onofre,
Elizabeth Payumo
music by Yoshida

Special thanks to:
Donald Para, Dean
Jay Kvapil, Associate Dean
Karen Clippinger
Colleen Dunagan
Lorin Johnson
Dori Levy
Susan McLain
Sophie Monat
Cyrus Parker-Jeannette, chair
Andrew Vaca
Nzingha Camara
Regina Klenjoski
John Pennington
Dorcas Roman
Steve Zee
Sylvia Rodriguez-Scholz
Andrew N. Milhan
Liz Pelster
John Siegel
Bethany Price
Gregory R.R. Crosby
Erik Mongrain
Josee Dufour
the Student Body of
California State University, Long Beach