Winterdances: Perfectly Wild opens on Thursday, January 30, and features the work of PSOA Dance faculty members with a special piece from Los Angeles-based guest choreographer Jackie Lopez.
Lopez has been a practitioner of Street Dance and Hip Hop for the last 25 years and is currently a lecturer at UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, where she is building and teaching Street Dance and Hip Hop curriculum. During the fall semester, Lopez visited UWM to work with PSOA dance students and choreograph her Winterdances piece, “Her-Story Her-Spirit.”
“All of them really spoke to me”
Lopez choreographed a Street Dance-style piece while engaging with PSOA students during a week of intensive masterclasses. Despite Street Dance’s popularity on social media and in the mainstream, there are still many who do not understand the genre in-depth, something that Lopez tries to work on with her students.
“[Street Dance] is still very new,” said Lopez. “As popular as it is, people do not get the sense of foundation and technique and the historical context that comes with it.”
In collaborating with Milwaukee students, Lopez found that a House Dance piece was the one that “captivated [students] the most.”
Throughout her time at PSOA, Lopez was able to form lasting bonds and connections with students.
“I think I was able to gain really genuine relationships and connections during the week,” said Lopez. “The hardest part is that it’s just a week… This cast in particular is really special to me. All of them really spoke to me.”
On the final day of Lopez’s week at PSOA, Daniel Burkholder (Chair, Department of Dance) alongside faculty and community members watched the final rehearsal. The opportunity to perform the material for a live audience proved powerful and essential to the success of Lopez and her dancers, according to Lopez.
“I knew whatever we put together worked with the reaction of the audience,” said Lopez. “Something clicks when there’s an audience watching you and the girls really went into character with intention… I remember getting chills. I was so proud of them.”
“We were able to grow together”
Lopez credited her work with students as being an important and emotionally charged experience. This same sentiment was reciprocated by her students.
Phairra Jones (Dance BA, Junior) is a Hip Hop-based dancer who responded well to Lopez’s style of choreography. Jones described how Hip Hop can be represented poorly in modern times, feeling that Lopez was instrumental in bringing the communal foundation of the style to PSOA students.
“Since the early 1970s, Hip Hop has been an outlet for a lot of oppressed people to release their emotions,” said Jones. “[Lopez] really brought the historical type of Hip Hip to UWM. It focuses on the community part of Hip Hop, which is my favorite part.”
According to Jones, Lopez was honest about her life as a Latina mother, using her life experience to teach the meaning of Hip Hop.
“She teaches through her story of being oppressed,” said Jones. “She tells her story as she teaches Hip Hop… It’s such an inspiring way to teach. Jackie makes you want to work harder because she worked so hard to get to where she is now, and she still loves it.”
Many other students, such as Abigail Knueppel (Dance BFA, Junior), did not come from a Hip Hop background but found Lopez’s history, work, and motivating attitude instrumental in pushing themselves further as dancers.
“It really brought us all closer with that extra motivation to be a unifying group of women,” said Knueppel. “Not a lot of us had traditional Hip Hop backgrounds… We were able to grow together.”
Like most of Lopez’s all-female cast, Knueppel responded to the themes of women empowerment that are apparent in her choreography. Knueppel noted how the effort students put into Lopez’s piece serves as a parallel to what the dance is conveying.
“I’m really proud of how all of us have worked together,” said Knueppel. “It’s truly a testament to women’s empowerment and the power in working together to get to a specific objective.”
For some students, working with Lopez was their final chance to interact with a guest choreographer while at UWM, including Charlotte Reynolds (Dance BFA, Senior).
Reynolds described how working with Lopez was fulfilling, serving as a reminder that dancers, like all artists, should strive to be multifaceted in their work.
“This was my first experience with a Hip Hop choreographer who choreographed a piece meant for the stage,” said Reynolds. “It was really great and a big reminder to everyone in the program that to be professional you need to be versatile… She was so knowledgeable and so inspiring throughout the whole process.”
As Reynolds and other senior dancers finish their undergraduate education and head into the professional world or graduate studies, Lopez offered to be a resource and contact to keep in mind for the years ahead.
“Working with guest artists is great networking and experience working in a different style,” said Reynolds. “I’ve been blessed to be in lots of guest artist pieces and every time it just opens up a new opportunity.”
Winterdances: Perfectly Wild opens January 30 and runs through Feb 2 on the Mainstage Theatre. Tickets and more information can be found on the PSOA Events Calendar.
Story by Jason McCullum ’25
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