"OSA’s dance program is known to be the most difficult sub pathway at the school because of how tough the teachers are, but what is the actual experience?"-- Naomi West, 6th Grade
OSA’s dance program is known to be the most difficult sub pathway at the school because of how tough the teachers are, but what is the actual experience? Dance Chairs, Kim Davagian and Jalen Preston are both new to OSA Dance this year. Davagian’s experience with dance consists of a 17- year teaching career and over a 20 year performance career. She has been on faculty at three universities instructing dance techniques and the fundamentals of dance. Davagian received a Master of Fine Arts Degree (MFA) in 2019 in choreography. “I enjoy exciting students about technical training as well as movement exploration and each individual's artistry," she said.
Davagian decided to relocate from Los Angeles to Oakland because while she was enjoying teaching and rehearsing on a more freelance basis., “I was searching for a special program,” she said, where she could invest herself fully and share her knowledge and passion for movement with an “amazing student base.”
Davagian found that when she visited OSA, and was excited to work together with the students and all of the arts departments to build “beautiful, strong and well-rounded artists, as well as human beings.”
“My vision for the program is to bring joy into the dance studio, joy to exploring movement, joy in the creative process while continuing to instill a strong technical foundation in the dancers at OSA,” Davagian said. She is seeking to create an environment where the dancers are excited to come to class, and give their fullest selves to the process of building strength, building character and cultivating an artistic spirit which translates to each individual as well as the OSA community at large.
In their dance studio, you see precision, elegance, and balance. When Dance students dance across the floor, they move in unison, and all their moves complement each other perfectly. Their speed is incredible. How quickly they travel across the floor, and how precise their movements are—it all , shows that they have lots of training and experience. In their classroom, there were observations of contractions and flexibility. Some of the dancers could stretch so far that they folded their bodies in half.
Both Davagian and Preston train the students, but students say Preston’s workout days are the hardest. Sa'Nyah Jones-Hampton, a 7th grader in the OSA Dance pathway says that Preston “makes us do workouts on his days of teaching and less of doing dances like with Davagian.” Jones-Hampton continues that, “we work on our core a lot and the workouts are very tiring.” Sydney Watson is an eighth grader in the dance program. “ A typical day in the program is work, work, and more work,” Watson said. Brendan Isla, another eighth grader, pointed out that, “We focus a lot on posture and vocabulary words.”
Last year, there were different dance instructors, Reginald Ray Savage, and Allison Hurley . Watson described their last instructors as, “Strict teachers, who pushed their students to be their best.” Isla said their former teachers “put up a lot of a challenge,.”, yet he loves them all.
Both agreed some parts of this new process with different teachers have been more put together than others. Watson says that, “for the time we had to process everything and all the changes with teachers, style etc, that it was pretty put together.” Isla thinks that the students have gotten “more mature” since Davagian and Preston have been on them more, and that the students have “gained integrity from them because they are professional dancers.”
As for what’s next? Isla’s goal this year is to master his challenges and get better at anything he possibly can. Watson’s is to “focus on what is happening to her right now, and not focusing on the future.”
Davagian decided to relocate from Los Angeles to Oakland because while she was enjoying teaching and rehearsing on a more freelance basis., “I was searching for a special program,” she said, where she could invest herself fully and share her knowledge and passion for movement with an “amazing student base.”
Davagian found that when she visited OSA, and was excited to work together with the students and all of the arts departments to build “beautiful, strong and well-rounded artists, as well as human beings.”
“My vision for the program is to bring joy into the dance studio, joy to exploring movement, joy in the creative process while continuing to instill a strong technical foundation in the dancers at OSA,” Davagian said. She is seeking to create an environment where the dancers are excited to come to class, and give their fullest selves to the process of building strength, building character and cultivating an artistic spirit which translates to each individual as well as the OSA community at large.
In their dance studio, you see precision, elegance, and balance. When Dance students dance across the floor, they move in unison, and all their moves complement each other perfectly. Their speed is incredible. How quickly they travel across the floor, and how precise their movements are—it all , shows that they have lots of training and experience. In their classroom, there were observations of contractions and flexibility. Some of the dancers could stretch so far that they folded their bodies in half.
Both Davagian and Preston train the students, but students say Preston’s workout days are the hardest. Sa'Nyah Jones-Hampton, a 7th grader in the OSA Dance pathway says that Preston “makes us do workouts on his days of teaching and less of doing dances like with Davagian.” Jones-Hampton continues that, “we work on our core a lot and the workouts are very tiring.” Sydney Watson is an eighth grader in the dance program. “ A typical day in the program is work, work, and more work,” Watson said. Brendan Isla, another eighth grader, pointed out that, “We focus a lot on posture and vocabulary words.”
Last year, there were different dance instructors, Reginald Ray Savage, and Allison Hurley . Watson described their last instructors as, “Strict teachers, who pushed their students to be their best.” Isla said their former teachers “put up a lot of a challenge,.”, yet he loves them all.
Both agreed some parts of this new process with different teachers have been more put together than others. Watson says that, “for the time we had to process everything and all the changes with teachers, style etc, that it was pretty put together.” Isla thinks that the students have gotten “more mature” since Davagian and Preston have been on them more, and that the students have “gained integrity from them because they are professional dancers.”
As for what’s next? Isla’s goal this year is to master his challenges and get better at anything he possibly can. Watson’s is to “focus on what is happening to her right now, and not focusing on the future.”
