Starting with those first moments after the sun rises and stretching long after it sets, Montclair State’s dance majors can be seen through Life Hall’s windows. A dance major’s schedule is rigorous and brimming.
This reality resonates throughout the history of one of Montclair State’s most esteemed programs — one that has emphasized dedication and skills for many years.
Adjunct dance instructor and Montclair State alumna Karen Love can attest to this. Love grew up in Montclair and earned her BFA in Dance from Montclair State in 1993. She was the first to be admitted to the program with a full scholarship and the only black student in her class for three years.
While the dance department was strong during Love’s time as a student, her memory of the program reflects many differences from what it is today.
Karen Love performing at Montclair State as a student in 1993.
“We had ballet and modern [dance] Monday through Friday,” Love recalled. “Fridays were our guest teachers. Each semester, we had an artist in residence and they would work with us for our modern classes.”
While modern and ballet courses remain crucial to the dance program, today’s Montclair dancers are able to take courses like hip-hop, jazz, tap and more. Love remembers her required course load as “sort of set.”
“No hip-hop, no jazz, no African, no Latin,” Love remarks. “So if you wanted that, you had to go out and take classes, which is what I did.”
Today, Love is the founder and artistic director of Umoja and Usaama Dance Company in Vauxhall, NJ. She created the Wofabe Dance & Drum Festival, the only African dance and drum festival in New Jersey, in 2006.
Karen Love at Umoja Dance Studio. Gianni Closeil | The Montclarion
Love teaches West African dance on Tuesdays — a class that was unheard of while she was a student is now part of the “Worlds of Dance” courses at Montclair. This program has courses like Latin Ballroom, Capoeira, Cambodian, Kathak and Native American dance. They’re open to all majors.
This aspect of the Worlds of Dance classes played a large part in attracting junior dance majors Sarah Inez Jaskowski and Jumai Boxton.
Dance students Jumai Boxton and Inez Jaskowski pose after Love's class. Gianni Closeil | The Montclarion
“It’s such a different environment,” Jaskowski said of the dance program. “It’s hard as a dance major. You get out of classes really late and I feel like I can’t meet other people.”
20-year-old Jaskowski is from Northern Michigan. She chose Montclair State for its proximity to New York City.
Boxton is also 20 and from Newark, NJ. She chose Montclair State due to its nearness to home and family. While Boxton and Jaskowski hail from different areas, they now have a lot in common.
Both students get out of bed at 6:00 a.m. to prepare to attend ballet and jazz classes in the mornings. Both students often leave Life Hall late at night. Both students are proud of their work in the dance program, but hope for more.
Boxton believes there could be improvement within the technical aspects of her classes. She emphasizes the value of codified techniques. The program currently requires eight semesters of technique courses, two days a week.
“A lot of our classes are [our teachers’] interpretation of a technique,” Boxton said. “I appreciate that, but I wish there were more we could take.”
Jaskowski and Boxton state that while they see the benefits in everyday technique courses, they’d love to experience more diversity in their classes. Boxton feels that more exposure will help her and other dancers to “know how to adapt to different movements.”
“I see it reflected in my own choreography,” Jaskowski said. “I wish we had more perspectives on more types of dance, because I think it would add to us as artists.”
This sentiment is shared by the director of Montclair State’s dance program, Dr. Elizabeth McPherson.
Dr. McPherson first joined Montclair State in 2008, when a course titled “Ethnic Dance” was on the books, but wasn’t taught. Around 2009, she introduced “Worlds of Dance: West African.” Soon after, the program added Capoeira and Latin dance.
“I wanted [the dancers] to have the experience of different dance forms than what was being offered in their technique classes on a regular basis,” McPherson said.
Dr. McPherson believes that the students are the strength of Montclair’s dance program and makes room for diversity and community to thrive. An impressive start is their new “Fabulous, Fun Fridays.”
On Fridays, the program offers many diverse courses for dance majors, from Irish dance to West African. Dr McPherson remarked that “the students really enjoy it.”
She has also expressed hope to bring more communal activities to strengthen connections within the dance program.
“We try to make sure that the students feel like they’re people in the room,” Dr McPherson states. “And the teachers see them as not just dancing bodies. That they’re responding to their human needs [and] helping them be the best dancers they can be.”
