On Feb. 5, the DePaul Dance Company jazz team rehearsed their upcoming show. They opened the practice dilly dallying and stretching in a circle. They discussed how things are going in their life, then they started the music and focused on practicing their dance and making it second nature. 

Dancing through life is harder than it seems. Envisioning a dance and then practicing it numerous times uses up a lot of mental and physical energy, like it does with any other sport. 

The dance company is performance-based. Despite requiring auditions, students of all skill levels are a part of the team. The company has seven different teams: hip-hop, modern, jazz, lyrical, tap, ballet and musical theater. Each quarter, they have a dance show that ranges from solos to group dances.

Aakanksha Mukherjee, a sophomore and the treasurer of the company, is on the ballet and jazz teams. She began dancing when she was 4 years old because she was “obsessed with the Barbie movies and the way they danced.” She then went on to train at a ballet school for 15 years. 

Mukherjee said that joining the company has been a nice shift in dancing, going from training to more lenient. 

“I love that it has given me the space to discover other forms of dance in a fun and supportive environment,” Mukherjee said. “I’ve always had to take dance really seriously but DDC has given me an outlet to just enjoy myself and not always have to worry about my technique.”

On average, the company spends about two to three hours a week rehearsing. But members of the company vary in how much time they dedicate to dance. 

Anna Wilkinson, a junior and co-captain of the hip-hop and jazz teams, says she spends most of her time dancing. Wilkinson is a part of other teams outside of DePaul, so she dedicates around two to three hours a day to dance — some days it can be more. She wants to be a professional dancer someday.

“Dance is very life-consuming, and if you want to go somewhere with it, you have to have nothing else going on,” Wilkinson said. “From a professional stance, (two to three hours a day) is not that much time. A lot of professional backup dancers train everyday for multiple hours in different styles. With school, it’s a bit hard to do that.”

While the company isn’t competitive, it still takes a lot of commitment to learn a dance, especially if you are the one assembling the choreography. Mukherjee believes that dance is a sport because it requires a lot of training to keep your body fit.

“You train like an athlete,” Mukherjee said. “You dedicate hours of your life to perfecting a routine, it doesn’t just stop when you leave the studio either. You have to keep your body at a level of fitness that’s able to perform … (like) stretching at home (and) working on your stamina.” 

Elizabeth Roessler, a senior and co-captain of the lyrical team, is passionate that dance is a sport — she even made a speech in high school arguing just that. Though she thinks dance is an athletic pursuit, she also believes it’s an art.

“With the amount of training and physical activity you have to do, especially when it comes to competition, I think the scoring format is there and the competitiveness is there,” Roessler said.

While dancers put so much time and effort into the final product, the final product is short-lived.  Many dances don’t last more than five minutes.

“You get to see a final project and some sort of showcase,” Wilkinson said. “You get to see all that work go into one performance … but it’s over in a second and you have to move on.”

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