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diversions
Gutierrez makes
her mark at CSULB
By Katrina Frazier
Special to the On-line Forty-Niner
Sandra Gutierrez
has taught ballet and modern dance for the past year at Cal
State Long Beach. She received her bachelor's degree in dance
at the University of California, Irvine. Gutierrez's dance
career started at the age of 16, when she was accepted into
the Los Angeles High School for the Arts.
She never saw herself as a dancer until a junior high teacher
saw her dance and suggested that Gutierrez apply to the high
school. Gutierrez said that once she attended high school,
she knew exactly what she wanted to do.
"All I wanted to do was dance," said Gutierrez.
And she hopes to instill this same inspiration in her students.
Being a student herself, a third-year graduate, Gutierrez
knows how much impact a teacher can have on a person. Through
constant encouragement and correction, Gutierrez hopes to
see improvement and growth in the students' technical performance
and the ability to transfer positive energy to other dancers.
Gutierrez also wants to see her dancers conquer the use of
their dance space. Most of all, she said she wants her students
to enjoy themselves.
"It's wonderful...especially when a student wants to
learn," Gutierrez said. Gutierrez said she especially
likes when non-dance majors take her dance classes.
"The fact that these students practice for hours a week
and do the required concert reports when they don't have to
is very encouraging," she said. "It is encouraging
that students take the art of dance seriously."
All though Gutierrez loves teaching, she also has another
love.
"My true love and dream is to perform," she said.
Gutierrez hopes to perform and choreograph contemporary ballet
after she receives her Masters of Fine Arts degree in dance.
Gutierrez said prefers ballet and modern dance due to the
technical skill that is involved. "I like modern because
it is boundless, there are no restrictions, and you can do
anything," she said. But if an opportunity performing
in jazz were available she said she would not pass it up.
In the dance MFA program students are required to perform
in four concerts and choreograph three concerts. The most
recent concerts Gutierrez has coordinated are "Breaking
Through" and "Before Your Eyes" earlier this
year. She is also coordinating a performance in February 2002.
The concert has not yet been named, but is about the women
that are raped in Mexico and how they survive passed the rapes.
She likes to portray women as fighters rather than victims
in her concerts and performances.
Gutierrez encourages everyone to pursue his or her dream as
she did.
"For anyone who wants to pursue dance, it takes lots
of time and dedication," she said. "It takes a lot
of physicality and is effort-oriented."
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Keith
Polakoff
Sandra Gutierrez, displays her prose. Gutierrez
recently choreographed the MFA dance concert, 'Before your
Eyes.'
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