I joined my first dance team!

When I was young, I’ve always found dance to be so cool and wished to learn it but didn’t know how. And it was also sort of embarrassing to get through the beginners phase of learning how to dance especially when you have no clue what to do! But in my junior year of high school, my friend, Kate, introduced me to dance. It was my first time performing on stage and also filming a dance video. I wish I could find videos from that time!

I would like my dance journey timeline here as much as I can recall:

• 2003: Probably when I was in kindergarten, my class had to perform for school for an event I don’t remember. There were pictures of us in cute outfits and I think the song we danced to was Lou Bega’s Angelina. LOL

• School Year 2014-2015: Kate introduces me to dance in high school

• School Year 2015-2016: I decided to switch my PE class from Judo to Dance for my last PE credit. I took two semesters of dance, where I was exposed to basics of jazz, ballet, hip hop. I think this is where I learned basic warm ups and stretches. I got my splits for the first time!

• Summer 2016: I think I took one class by Gina Hong at In the Groove studios for the summer.

• 2016: I moved to NY and joined NYU Breakdance Club. I started taking classes every once in a while at House of Movement (HOM) NYC, but seldomly.

• 2017: I took Rie Hata’s class in May. I still took classes here and then from HOM NYC and also started looking at EXPG. I’d usually take one or two classes per month on an irregular basis. Plus whenever I go home in California or the Philippines, I didn’t take classes at all.

• 2018: This is when I started taking dance regularly. I spent my summers on internships so I was heavily invested in them and hanging out, so I didn’t take classes in the summers. When I was back in NY for the school year, I would try out classes at EXPG NY and PMT House of Dance. In the Fall, I took a beginner workshop by Dev and Mo at PMT with my friend Callia! I also took Pavan Thimmaiah’s Intermediate performance workshop.

• 2019: I took Mini Zhang’s advanced beginner classes about once a week. I took the Fall performance workshop by Rich James and I enrolled for a hip hop dance class at NYU with Alan Watson. In December of 2019 I performed at Barclay’s Center for Brooklyn Jets!

• 2020: I think I went to Synchronic’s auditions in January (?) with my friend Lucy. Then the pandemic hit and I had to go back home in March. I took zoon classes once a week with Mini Zhang and I also joined the online workshop. When I started full-time work in June, I stopped dancing altogether.

• 2021: I don’t recall dancing much for this year. I travelled to the Philippines twice and I visited Korea. I wanted to take class in Korea but I was underprepared and exhausted for the trip, so I focused on spending time with family and touring.

• 2022:

  • I took classes for a few weeks at On One Studios early in the year. In September or so, I signed up for a Performance Workshop at OOS for their 5th year anniversary, under Erika Tyrell-Gomez’s direction. It was fun and it went well!

  • Then, OOS hosted a week full of beginner’s classes in August, so I tried to take as many classes as I could.

  • The last week of August, Commonality hosted their auditions which was FREE. I joined without feeling any preparedness so I went with a mentality of taking it as a class, and staying at the auditions for the experience. I believe more than a HUNDRED people went. 52 members were chosen from the audition, me included! I think training with Commonality is the most regular practice I’ve done in terms of dance, and I regret being a couch potato for about a year beforehand as going from no physical activity at all to dancing at least 6 hours (up to 20 hours) a week is a HUGE lifestyle change for me.

  • In September, SnackPack hosted their auditions which I attended with my coworker Jeanette. I also attended the makeup auditions and was able to convince my other coworker, Tian, to join.

Commonality SJ Retreat!

SnackPack Dance Collective photoshoot!

I have projects and performances that I have been preparing for on both teams. I’ll be posting them real soon!