Gotta dance!
By Breajna Dawkins
For dance major and junior Erin Soko, 2023–24 was a decision year.
Growing up in Tampa, she joined a dance studio in elementary school. Tap was her first love, and she soon added hip-hop, jazz, modern, and other styles to her repertoire. By the time she got to high school, she was taking a different dance class almost every day and performing in Grease, Cats, 42nd Street, Hairspray, and other musicals.
When applying to college, Soko chose Northwestern, intending to follow her dreams to major in dance and also pursue the musical theatre certificate. “Opening that acceptance letter, I felt wanted, happy, and proud,” she shares. “I followed that happiness, but over time I realized that I only loved musical theatre because of dance. I have truly found happiness in the dance program, so this year I decided to delve deeper into that love.” She now focuses on contemporary dance, concert dance, and choreography.
“I’m a creative person, and the dance program is perfect for fostering my creativity in dance performance and choreography,” Soko says. “I’ve really enjoyed being able to dive in and explore my creativity in all aspects.”
Also pursuing a business institutions minor, Soko is the outgoing development director of Tonik Tap, Northwestern’s student tap dance group, and the incoming president of the New Movement Project, a cocurricular dance board that works closely with the dance program. Looking ahead, she hopes to teach in and lead fine arts programs.
“I enjoy leading a room, watching people succeed, and feeling like I maybe had something to do with it,” Soko says. “There’s always a certain point where it’s out of your hands and in your dancers’ hands. It’s a special moment to see people take your work and do things with it that you couldn’t even imagine.”
The School of Communication’s dance program is currently in the midst of a reboot. Program director Melissa Blanco Borelli, associate professor of theatre, is decoupling the program from its emphasis on Western traditions and instead encouraging students to “conceptualize dance as both a measure of culture and a means of exploring the breadth of human experience.”
Blanco Borelli hopes that students will do this by “expanding their awareness and proficiency in diverse dance forms,” and Soko’s latest campus experiences have given her the confidence to forge this new path. “One class that stood out to me was Professor Blanco Borelli’s Theorizing the Choreographic Practice course,” Soko explains. “In dance, sometimes the process and practice of choreography can feel ambiguous. You can’t answer why you did something; sometimes it is just an instinct. But in this class, we put reasons behind those choices. I have a methodical thought process, so I appreciated the clarity.”
A real-life example of “serious play,” Dean E. Patrick Johnson’s school motto, Soko has used her coursework to inform her work outside the classroom—for instance, teaching contemporary choreography and tap technique classes for the New Movement Project. She has also been selected to choreograph a piece for its 2024 fall dance concert.
Detailing her process for developing the piece, she says, “I’ve created a set of words and phrases to use as an improvisational score to lead my creation of movement. From there I will find a piece of music. Sometimes I find music first, but in this instance, I want the movement and the dance to define the piece rather than taking emotional ideas from the music. Only then will I start to work with the dancers.”
Soto’s dance immersion isn’t limited to campus. This summer she took three dance intensives to hone her craft: in New York City with the Joffrey Ballet School and in Chicago with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and the Gus Giordano Dance School.
“Right now, I see keeping dance and arts leadership in my life,” Soko says. “After graduation, I would like to try to dance professionally for a year and see where that goes. If not, I will come back to school, get a master’s degree, and become a professor or a choreographer.”
No matter where she ends up, she will cherish her Northwestern years as a time for exploring her creativity and falling more deeply in love with dance and her dance community. “I’ve made lifelong connections through the student groups here and with my faculty, so I will feel comfortable reaching out to them in the future,” Soko says. “The dance community at Northwestern is such a wonderful family, and that has become really important to me.”