Harrison began social dance lessons just three years ago, but is already assistant-teaching social and ballroom dance classes at Hillsdale and competing with other non-professionals (those not paid to teach). After graduating, she plans to study dance therapy and become a professional competitor or dance instructor.
“Ballroom dance captures the beauty of human relationship in a way that no other dance can,” Harrison said. “It gives a connection and a communal aspect to dance that you don’t get in ballet or modern, which tend to be very individualistic. There’s something very significant in creating that human bond connection.”
Harrison never took lessons in ballet growing up. Though Harrison said the lack of experience poses a challenge, she said she believes she can still become an instructor simply through hard work. She believed Mozart and Van Gogh succeeded more because of their intense dedication and time than through simple natural talent.
When she first began, Harrison did not immediately want to pursue dance. It wasn’t until she began taking private lessons that she grew to love it. When she arrived at Hillsdale in fall 2014, she temporarily stopped lessons.
“I really missed dance and I felt like a part of me was dead without it,” Harrison said.
In the spring of 2015, she took time off school to study with professionals. She came back to school in the fall of 2015, but continued to take private lessons in Ann Arbor, and is now considering transferring to University of Michigan where she would continue her exercise science major and dance minor while cutting down on drive time to and from private lessons each week.
“There’s a lot to lose if I leave,” Harrison said. “I’d be losing a community. There’s not very many places in the world that are willing to ask questions and delve deep into the past and the present. But for me, I don’t think the friendships here won’t be something I keep.”
In the meantime, she assists with the ballroom dance club. She also voluntarily helps teach the social dance classes—avoiding receiving payment for them so that she may be considered a non-professional and therefore compete with the non-professionals.
She compared the dance competitions to an English essay. Just like an English essay will be graded on how well it adheres to the format and content required as well as the individual style, so a dancer will be judged on how well they perform the dance and the style, costume, make-up, etc., in which they do it. Already, she has had some success in these competitions.
Meanwhile, her students at Hillsdale appreciate the time she devotes to teaching them dance and caring for them personally.
“She is very helpful since she recently just learned it all herself,” Jackson Bergenquast said. “She uses the same exercises her teachers used on her to practice form and get it down.” He is a member of the ballroom dance club and has taken some lessons with Harrison. “You can sense her love of the dancing, and you can see that she really enjoys watching you get it.”
She cares for the students outside of the classroom as well, junior Abigail Akin said. Akin took Social Dance I with Harrison last year and is now in Social Dance II.
“She has a lot of wisdom when it comes to the movement and the theory behind the dance moves,” Akin said.
She wants us to actually know how to do the dances properly, so she teaches us proper footwork and things to practice during the week so we can get the move down the proper way.” In dance therapy, Harrison will work Alzheimer patients and obese patients among others. Though she doesn’t know whether or not she will ever become a professional competitor, she will continue to do what she loves.
“Life is always a journey and you’re always taking steps,” Harrison said. “I don’t think that this is the end.”
