Foundations Choreography
"Foundations Choreography was founded in 2014 to address a gap observed by our founders in UCLA’s dance community. The dance community was primarily dominated by competitive teams, and there wasn’t a space for beginner and intermediate dancers. Initially, the organization focused on hosting workshops and teaching fundamental hip-hop choreography to interested students. Then, the organization expanded to include beginner/intermediate training teams, allowing anyone interested in dance to grow, train, and challenge themselves in a safe space. This soon led to the introduction of Wintensive, an annual event where professional choreographers come to teach the UCLA community for free, fostering greater cultural and dance awareness. Now, the organization has quarterly training teams and celebrates their achievements during our quarterly showcases. We also host workshops every quarter to continue to inspire and educate more dancers with various cultural dances and techniques."
1st Year Spring Quarter (General Member)
I joined my very first quarterly Foundations Team, JUICY! I attended biweekly practices which consisted of dance workshops and learning, casting, and blocking pieces for the set which we would perform at the end of the quarter. Having no prior dance experience, this was my introduction into dance at UCLA, and I got a lot better at perfecting technique while learning how to best learn dancing. This led dance to become a creative outlet that I utilized as a form of self-expression.
3:18 to get straight to the dancing!
2nd Year (Events Chair)
This year, I joined the admin staff of the organization as an Events Chair. My committee was responsible for organizing leadership socials, retreats, "choreo" showcases (for all the members to get the chance to try to make their own choreos), and our main responsibility was organizing our quarterly showcases. Each dance team is created on a quarterly basis (see JUICY), and after lots of practicing, they dance at the showcase we organize! For this event, we also communicated with other UCLA dance organizations to have them as guest acts within our showcase, and were responsible for organizing the lighting, audio, visuals, and keeping the whole show running.
Our LSHIP Set Spring Quarter! Skip to 1:55 for the dancing!
2nd Year Winter Quarter
This quarter, I joined my second quarterly foundations team, FOMO. I attended biweekly practices which consisted of dance workshops and learning, casting, and blocking pieces for the set which we would perform at the end of the quarter. This quarter allowed me to delve into the styles of dance I liked, focusing more on my technique in isolation and alternating tensed and loose movement.
Our LSHIP Set Spring Quarter! Skip to 1:50 for the dancing!
3rd Year (Workshops Chair, External Director Shadow)
The External Director is the person who oversees both the Events committee and Workshops committee. As I was interested in taking this position and already had experience with the Events committee, I decided I wanted to move to the Workshops committee to understand our role more. While our organization allows for people to learn choreographies and learn various dance sets, there are too many styles of dance to be able to cover solely by being on a team. The Workshops committee helps ensure we are constantly learning more about dance and exploring the various facets of dance through our triquarterly workshops. Different UCLA students and Alum who danced competitively at UCLA and outside were reached out to and we helped organize these workshops. Our main event, however, was our annual Winter Intensive. For this, we had to reach out to various renowned dancers in the community to help teach back-to-back workshops over a weekend, allowing people at UCLA the chance to learn from truly competitive dancers who do this work as a profession. This year, we had Mikey Dellavella, Marcus Paolo Pe Benito, Miss Lauren, and Clay Boothanakit. We helped make sure the sound, stage setup, and actual workshops were running smoothly. As External Director Shadow, I got to help guide both committees at a more supervisory level and ensured deadlines were met.
