Expressions, a student dance company on campus has recently managed to become recognized as a recreational sport by USC. This new status, which allows for increased opportunities for funding, provides a huge relief to its members. Matt Chen has the story.
USC student-powered Xpressions Dance Company lands the leap in securing their name as an official recreational sport on campus.
After being voted in by the recreational council, Xpressions is now eligible for financial support from the university. Under the fearless 6-director leadership team, the company is meeting financial and creative goals this semester. Here’s Matt Chen with the story.
Until this month, the Xpressions Dance Company secured all funding themselves by collecting $75 in dues per semester from all 35 dancers. However, booking USC’s Bovard Auditorium for their semi-annual showcase calls for $3500 -- leaving the group about $900 short each semester.
Additionally, Xpressions does not charge USC students to attend their shows, making finances even tighter for members.
In previous semesters, the company resorted to fundraising through the sale of various baked goods, along with scouring USC’s Undergraduate Student Government’s Judicial Board for more support.
However, the cha-cha for cash may finally come to an end.
Now that the team has the foundational support of the recreational council on campus, its leaders are hopeful that more funding will enable a seamless showcase and a decrease in overall angst for members.
Junior Xpressions Dancer Kate Hammond spoke about the grueling process of becoming a rec sport.
Kate Hammond: we struggled with obtaining rehearsal rooms, and we’ve been able to rent Kaufman but sometimes that doesn’t work, so you’d have to be a minor, and then we’ll go into PED, but you can’t rent those rooms out unless you’re in a rec sport, I’m pretty sure, so we’d get kicked out of rooms all the time.
Usually the money Xpressions saved throughout the semester would waltz its way to renting out the auditorium, but this will change with the new funding.
Kate Hammond: Normally it goes towards renting out Bovard for the show because it is a few thousand dollars to rent it out. And I’m pretty sure now that’s included in being a rec sport is that they’ll rent it out for you for one or two semesters.
Hammond also touched on some benefits that Xpressions will gain from joining rec sports.
Kate Hammond: I think it just allows us to first of all perform without having the huge stress of having to rent out Bovard with our own money and company money, and also just like, obtain rooms to rehearse in, and practice in without like being stressed that they’re like, kick us out or like, we don’t really have like a space to practice.
This semester’s showcase will be held April 8th in Bovard Auditorium, featuring 13 choreographed numbers as well as a full-company piece to close the show. What’s more, this step may pave the way for USC’s other dance groups to achieve better funding underneath Rec Sport’s umbrella.
For Annenberg Media, I’m Matt Chen.