By Jason Middlebrooks
South Campus will host Paradigm, a dance concert featuring students, faculty and guests at 7:30 p.m. May 4-5 in the Carillon Theatre.
The concert will feature multiple dance styles: hip-hop, jazz, ballet, contemporary and modern-era dance.
“We try to cover all of our bases as much as possible,” South dance instructor Kiera Amison said.
Two guest dance companies will perform at the event: Muscle Memory dance theater and Ballet Folklore Hispano de Dallas.
“The instructors of Folklore Hispano have been doing this for years and years.” Amison said. “They are really well known and do fantastic work.”
Amison said the staff and faculty members involved in the show will perform a “fun piece.”
She appreciates her students’ involvement in the concert. Some of her students enter her class as non-dancers and leave as dancers.
“They sign up for a dance class not knowing what to expect and not knowing that they are going to perform,” she said. “They are so excited at the end, and they say, ‘Wow, I did not know I could do that. I was part of a show, and I felt good about my part.’ I think that is one thing that I appreciate the most.”
South dance student Clara Howard said dance is a good way for students to express themselves.
“I see dance as a way to communicate as well as being an art form,” she said.