By: Julieta Hernandez Photos by: Aaron Garcia
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When Jenny Espino first assembled the CorpusbrChristi Dance Collective, a community dance school and arts movement, she knewbrshe wanted it to become an award-winning company.
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Serious dancing can be compared to standardizedbrtesting. There’s an evolving way to do both — with gain rather than strain –brand that comes from a well-stretched mind and body. With instructors JennybrEspino, James Vargas, and Carlos “Los” Cano, the collective has given dancersbrin the Coastal Bend area ownership of their dance education instead of anbroverload of techniques to absorb. A lot less to carry makes these dancersbrlighter on their feet.
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Like any other artist and their art, dancing becomesbran outlet for the dancer. That’s Espino’s vision of the program: hardwoodbrstudio floors for a (well-stretched!) artist to develop healthy coping mechanismsbrand forms of expression. The art of dance in its many forms has let Espinobrwitness breakdowns in a dancer as well as breakthroughs.
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“My teaching principles are guided by PaulobrFreire and Bukovsky, people who have developed more collaborative learning,”brsays Espino. With a background rich in training and teaching, her decade ofbrteaching dance in both private and public institutions has not been limited tobrhip-hop, jazz, contemporary, and lyrical dance styles.
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“As any educator, it is your responsibility notbrjust to teach the discipline or the field you know you’re teaching, but also tobrget learners closer to figuring out the things that make them feel the mostbrhuman and live their most purposeful lives,” Espino explains.
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“It willbrbe different for everyone. While it’s not necessarily in my interest tobrdetermine what that is for each dancer, my hope is that through dance andbrthrough the type of learning environment we create, dancers are able to getbrcloser to the things that make us feel the most human and the most purposeful.”
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Curriculum at the CC Dance Collective partnersbrknowledge of dance with knowledge of self. Developing muscle memory and workbrethic and then translating those lessons inward doesn’t happen overnight. Inbrterms of competitive dance, students will spend all season training and go tobrfive, seven, or as many as eight competitions in a year where they’re judged onbrvery specific criteria.
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“We try not to pressure dancers who are justbrlooking for a creative outlet or a physical outlet,” she explains. “But we dobrhave some dancers who are incredibly invested in what they’re doing at thebrmoment and have this deep interest in what the future of dance might hold forbrthem, whether it’s in college or professional commercial business.”
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Those dancers, for instance, usually take aboutbrthree or four hours of dance a day.brThe collective also works towards annual showcases and recitals inbrCorpus Christi as a way to let the community know what’s going on inside thebrstudio walls.
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“Live dance is really an important thing, andbrit’s such a dying art form, and it horrifies me,” Espino says.
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In addition to learning light turns, leaps, andbrstretching and strengthening techniques, the dance collective’s mix ofbrcompetitive and non-competitive dancers also practice video and music videobrwork. These projects will aid them in their journey going into academia orbrcommercial professional dance.
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“There is something we’re offering and trying tobroffer. Development, creativity, all of the stuff you should be trying to fosterbrin young artists. But I think the approach to developing those things isbrdifferent for different studios,” Espino says about her collective, where shebrhelps dancers achieve their goals on their own terms.