Nearly five years ago, professors Alisa McCool and Mark Castle created a proposal for a dance major. This year, the program launched a soft opening, becoming available to current Samford students. This semester, they have held auditions for the first class of incoming freshman dance majors.
Samford is the only college now offering a dance major in Birmingham, where there had been none for the past several years. The University of Alabama is the closest college with a dance degree, but one which is geared more toward commercial dance rather than the classical form.
“There’s a big dance community in Birmingham, so we knew that it would be a successful program, it just took some time to get it approved,” said Alisa McCool, director of Samford Dance Company and visiting assistant professor of dance.
In Samford’s newly renovated Seibert Hall, two new dance studios were built with the pursuit of creating a dance major in mind.
McCool played a role in looking at the accreditation requirements for the studio in a dance major. One such requirement is a 2400 square foot dance studio.
“I said, ‘Hey, if you’re going to build a dance studio, let’s look ahead and let’s do 2400 square feet’,” said McCool. “The studios are large, of course, beautiful with the windows. I mean, it’s wonderful. The sound system is awesome.”
The two separate spaces allow multiple classes to run at the same time, increasing the number and flexibility of dance classes.
However, the dance studios were built with a wood laminate floor, which is not ideal for dance. It can be slippery and restrict the type of dancing they are able to practice.
Haley Roberts is a member of Samford Dance Company and a dance minor. She acknowledged that the new dance studios are a large improvement from the dance space they have used for the last few semesters.
“This is a huge upgrade,” she said. “I would say, with the exception of the floor, it is a great space for dance.”
However, because the studios don’t have the proper Marley dance floor, it can be too slippery for pointe and tap dancing.
“We’ve had a couple people fall, which is always really scary because if you roll an ankle or break something, you can’t really do anything as a dancer if you’re injured in that way,” Roberts said.
McCool also noted the limitations that accompany the floor.
“It’s slippery with shoes on, but it’s sticky with like bare feet, so it’s just a weird surface that’s dangerous, primarily, and affects the dancers’ safety,” she said.
Mccool hopes that the proper Marley flooring will be eventually installed, and that in the long term, there will be dance rooms built in the theater buildings.
The program currently has five dance majors, who either changed their major or added a double major this year. About 13-14 potential dance majors will join in the first full incoming freshman class.
“Honestly, I was really impressed, just with the amount of talent that we’ve attracted the past couple of years,” Roberts said. “A huge portion of that is due to the director, Alisa McCool, and all of her hard work and the hard work of everyone in the Arts department to make this come to life.”
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