10 Things Only an OCU Dance Student Will Understand

By TeNeil

TeNeil at OCU

  1. Good luck is preparation meeting opportunity.  Successful performers take control of both.  One of ballet professor Jo Rowan’s famous quotes – All dance majors at OCU know this phrase, and most (if they are wise) still live by it.
  2. Flibbles are the enemy. Any self-respecting ballet dancer knows the value of a comb and some hairspray to keep all flibbles in check. For everyone else……flibbles are the uncontrolled hairs sticking out around a bunhead. No flibbles, people.
  3. Red lipstick is the cure all. Feeling down? Red lipstick. Looking pale? Red lipstick. Extension not so great? Red lipstick. Besides, onstage, all other shades pale in comparison (or look black if they have purple undertones).
  4. Here, have a peanut? Take that, you dirty rat. Only one of several seemingly crazy metaphors used by Jo Rowan to enable her ballet students to grasp ballet technique. (BTW, this specific one is the slight movement of the hand and shoulder to torque before doing a pirouette turn.)
  5. Weigh – ins. Still drives fear into my heart. Yes, dancers at OCU are required to weigh-in once a month. And your grade in ballet goes down a letter if not “ballet weight”.
  6. Always set two alarms. Possibly three. No excuses for being late. Ever.
  7. Dance majors are easily recognizable on campus for two reasons:  bun and baggy clothing. Except on testing Thursdays once a month. Once a month, ballet dancers do vocabulary quizzes and get evaluated by the faculty, which meant we got to wear REGULAR clothing that day. Yay for no tights!! (at least this was the schedule circa 1990s)
  8. Dancers can create and fix anything with a little whip stitching and a hot glue gun.  Three words: dance costume lab. This fact has benefitted me and my children for going on 18 years.
  9. Jo Rowan is not human.  I was her assistant once for the OKC Philharmonic Christmas Show.  During tech rehearsal day, she did not eat ALL day. Therefore, neither did I.  Enough said.
  10. No better dance/arts management school in America than OKLAHOMA CITY UNIVERSITY’S ANN LACY SCHOOL OF DANCE AND ENTERTAINMENT.  http://www.okcu.edu/dance/home

OCU Instructor Jo Rowan

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