Dance honorary organizes first philanthropic event for community

Home Culture Dance honorary organizes first philanthropic event for community
Dance honorary organizes first philanthropic event for community
Hillsdale dancers are organizing an event on Sunday for children in the community to experience dance. Anders Kiledal | Collegian
Hillsdale dancers are organizing an event on Sunday for children in the community to experience dance. Anders Kiledal | Collegian

Hillsdale’s chapter of the National Honor Society for Dance Arts, newly formed in November, is hosting its first philanthropic event Sunday.

Members of the honorary are presenting “Discover Dance,” a day of free classes and dance demonstrations, from 10-11:30 a.m. on April 30 as an opportunity for children of the community to explore the art form of dance. Children ages 5-12 will gather in the Quilhot Black Box in the Sage Center for the Arts for a morning of classes with members of the honorary and demonstrations in different kinds of dance, such as ballet, tap, and jazz.

According to junior President Priscilla Larson, this event is a way for kids to “just explore dancing a little bit.”  

“This is our new philanthropic event that we’re doing for the honorary,” she said. “It’s just kind of a way to serve the community, and help make the community and campus more aware of the community and the dance honorary.”

Children will be split into two groups of ages 5-8 and ages 9-12 for a basic dance lesson, taught by members of the honorary.

“At the end of their class time, they’re going to come together and we’ll have a demonstration for them,” Larson said. “We’re going to have several girls from the honorary give an example of ballet, we have two other girls who want to do jazz demonstrations, and we have another girl who might do a tap demonstration, just so the kids can see that dance can be many different things, and see that dance is more than just one thing.”

Senior Vice President Rachel Watson will be an assistant teacher for the older class and participate in the jazz and modern dance demonstration.

“We were trying to figure out what we had time for, and figured this would be a good way to be impactful,” she said. “Studio 55 is great, but there’s not really that many opportunities for the community.”

Sophomore dancer Annalise Harrison is in charge of promoting and marketing this opportunity to the off-campus community.

“Part of being in a given community is to nurture and build relationships for mutual growth,” she said. “At Hillsdale College, we have been blessed to be in an institution which values well-being of both soul and body, but rarely do we reach beyond our campus lawn.”

“This is just a way to say ‘Hey, we really care about you,’” Watson added. “We just want to reach everywhere around us, whether it’s at the college or community at large.”