SOUTHEAST DANCERS MAKE BIG STRIDES

Four young women at Parker Dance Studio move to the funky rhythms of a Rickie Lee Jones tune. One is majoring in sociology, another in nursing.

At a daytime class, you might find Southeast quarterback Travis Blevins learning about dance theories. Basketball center William Eley is taking dance appreciation.

What's going on here?

Something new: dance fever at Southeast Missouri State University.

In its second year of existence, the university's dance program is offering classes and performances never before seen on the Southeast campus.

The Fall Dance Festival will offer a peek at what's going on.

Beginning at 7 p.m. Saturday at Parker Dance Studio, the dancers will present an evening of lessons in ballroom and country line dancing before DJ Jazzy Marquee Marc begins spinning rock 'n' roll discs.

SEMO students, faculty, staff and community members are invited.

On Sunday, DanceXpressions will present their first full stage performance. The show at 2 p.m. at Academic Auditorium will run the gamut from jazz dance, modern, ballet, Tae Kwon Do, Tai Chi, country, ballroom, tap, and folk to include stage combat.

Soon, Dr. Marc Strauss, head of Southeast's dance program, will begin choreographing the university's upcoming musical, "The Music Man."

A recent performance called "Swingtime," which incorporated the University Jazz Band and the Music Theatre Workshop, illustrated the growth occurring within the program and in the direction of establishing a musical theater major at the university.

Last year, Strauss became the first full-time dance instructor in the university's history. A Department of Physical Education minor in dance has been established.

About 10 students currently are minoring in dance or are in the process of declaring as a minor. But others are taking dance because it's gotten into their blood.

"It's exciting to work with students who love it," Strauss says.

Sandy Yochim, a senior from St. Louis, is a member of DanceXpressions, the university's performing group. For her, dancing is an expression of being alive.

"I think there's a spirit that lives inside everyone," Yochim says. "In dance it can come totally alive."

Yochim is a social work major who hopes to use dance therapy in her profession. In fact, nursing major Brenda Alfermann and sociology major Suzanne Rudolph also think dance therapy will play a role in their future careers.

Alfermann, a senior from Washington, Mo., took dance classes from the time she was 6 through high school. She choreographed musicals and was a cheerleader.

"It's an emotional release for me, a good way of expression."

Rudolph, who is from Arnold and is one of the university's first dance minors, wants to work with problem children and family violence.

She recently wrote a paper refuting the notion that there's anything effeminate about males who enjoy dancing. She points out that men have been dancing in rituals since antiquity.

"Males danced before women did," she said.

Traditionally, males have not flocked to dance programs. "It helps having a male teaching dance, which may be a first for this area," says Strauss, a New York native.

The university dance club has two male members and there are a few men in the jazz class. A course in the theory and practice of dance is now a physical education requirement. That's where Blevins has been learning how to teach and perform various dances.

"...The two fields (athletics and dance) are moving toward each other," Strauss says.

Dance is taught through the university's Department of Physical Education. Strauss also is qualified to teach women's gymnastics.

Dancers and gymnasts are among the best students at any school, Strauss says. "That's because it requires tremendous discipline to do it well."

For now, a dichotomy remains between dance as a physical activity and dance as an art form.

"Dance is a stepchild," Strauss says, "but we hope that it can continue to grow."

His goal is to develop a program with more stability. Right now, classes in ballet, jazz and ballroom dancing are offered every semester. Also offered, but not every semester, are classes in modern dance and aerobics.

In the spring, the university will offer for the first time a dance appreciation class called The Aesthetics of Movement. A class in country line dancing also has gotten an OK.

Strauss says his students can't wait until the university has a class in tap dancing.