Dance

Welcome to Dance @ City!

We are dedicated to creating an environment that supports self-expression and critical thinking about the arts and the world around us. We welcome ALL bodies to move with us to grow as dancers, choreographers, performers, and members of our City College community.  

Courses Offered: Modern, Hip Hop, Ballet, Jazz, Tap, Global Dance Traditions, Choreography, Improvisation, Dance History, and Movement for Wellness.

Performance Opportunities: Fall Faculty and Guest Artists production and Spring Student Choreographed Production, both on the Saville Theatre stage.   

Our talented dance faculty focus on designing an immersive dance experience that welcomes beginners and advanced dancers to prepare them for BFA, and BA programs, to transfer, or to set off into the professional world of art, teaching, entertainment, and production. 

Degrees 

Common University Majors Related to The Field of Dance Include: Dance, Dance and Performance Studies, Kinesiology, Liberal Studies, Physical Education, Theater Arts, Visual and Performing Arts. 

Associate in Arts Degree: Visual and Performing Arts 

Certificate of Achievement 

Certificate of Performance: Dance 

Certificate of Performance: Musical Theater Dance 

Program Learning Outcomes

• The history of dance as it relates to Western culture, including Ballet, Modern, Jazz, Broadway Musical Theatre, and Global Dance Traditions.
• Aesthetic perception of various dance forms, and critical analysis and response to performance.
• An understanding of choreographic, technical and improvisational elements of dance.

Course Catalog Description 

 

Faculty 

Full-Time Faculty 

   

Terry Wilson, Professor

Terry Wilson has been performing, teaching, and choreographing in San Diego for 40 years. Her performing years included many dances created by Jean Isaacs and Nancy McCaleb, as well as many other local, national, and international artists. In 2000, Terry received the San Diego Area Dance Alliance Tommy Award for best female performer in San Diego. She has choreographed many seasons of SDDT’s Trolley Dances. In 2015 and ’19, as part of the City College Dance Collective, Terry’s work was seen at the San Diego International Fringe Festival, where the Collective won best site-specific performance and best dance performance respectively. Highly valuing education, Terry earned a BS in Psychology from SDSU and an MFA in Dance on full scholarship from the University of Michigan. Terry is a professor at San Diego City College and lecturer at UCSD, and she moved into the position of Artistic Director of San Diego Dance Theater in 2021. Terry is deeply invested in the dance community in San Diego. Now, as Artistic Director at San Diego Dance Theater, she hopes to create more opportunities for everyone to perform and enjoy movement!!

  

grace shinhae jun, Assistant Professor 

Dr. grace shinhae jun is a mother, wife, educator, and mover. She is the daughter of a South Korean immigrant and a North Korean refugee, and the founder of bkSOUL performance company. Her research and artistic practices are grounded in Hip Hop culture and cross cultural collaborations that honor her ancestral lineage. In 2001, she founded bkSOUL, a performance collective of educators, artists, storytellers, and organizers merging together movement, spoken word poetry, and live music. Their work has been presented in Trolley Dances, WOW Festival, Live Arts Festival, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Dumbo Arts Festival, San Diego International Fringe Festival, and at Link’s Hall. grace has also choreographed for numerous staged plays, most notably for Will Power's The Seven at Occidental College. Her scholarship includes publications in the Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies and the International Association for the Study of Popular Music Journal, and is the co-editor with MiRi Park for Dance Studies Association’s 2022 ​​Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies “Cyber-Rock: A Virtual Hip Hop Listening Cypher”. This past year, she co-organized the Show & Prove Hip Hop Studies Conference and the first Asian American Dance Festival in San Diego. grace received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and her PhD in Drama and Theatre from UCSD/UCI. She is an Assistant Professor of Dance at SanDiego City College, where she also serves on the Sankofa Social Justice & Education Conference committee, She also is a teaching artist with transcenDANCE Youth Arts and has been a continuing lecturer at UC San Diego, where she was the recipient of the 2022/2023 Barbara and Paul Saltman Distinguished Teaching Award. She is most grateful to her husband Dr. Jesse Mills and their two children who keep her grounded and full of joy. You can often find her and her movement classes grooving throughout City’s campus.

 

Adjunct Faculty 

Terri Shipman – Modern, Ballet 

Akayaa Atule –West African 

Marcos Duran – Movement for Wellness, Pilates, Improvisation 

Norma Ovalle - Latin 

Alejandro Barajas –Latin, Hip Hop 

Keomi Tarver –Hip Hop 

 

Events

 

 

Career Opportunities

Amusement Park Entertainer	Athletic Trainer	Choreographer
College/University Educator	Costume/Lighting Designer	Dance and Arts Administration
Dance Company Artistic Director	Dance Company Manager	Dance Historian
Dance Instructor	Dance Medicine	Dance Physical Therapist
Dance Studio Owner	Dance Therapist	Mind-Body Therapy Practitioner
Model	Nutritionist	Physical Therapy
Producer Talent Agent	Production Manager	Professional Dancers
Special Events Coordinator	Stage Manager	Studio Owner
Yoga Instructor

Where our students have gone to study

Our students have gone on to study dance at UCSD, UCSB, UCI, SDSU, CSULB, SFSU, London Contemporary Dance School, Ecole de Danse Contemporaine de Montreal, and St. Mary's College.

Where our students have gone to dance professionally

bkSOUL, San Diego Dance Theater, Patricia Rincon Dance Collective, Somebodies Dance Theater, Disco Riot