By Sofie Schachter
Allison Larsen, a junior who is majoring in dance with a certificate in Pilates, transferred to UW–Madison from UW–Milwaukee for her sophomore year. In addition to keeping up with her schoolwork, she also dances for the Milwaukee Bucks and is choreographing a musical for a high school in her hometown.
Following is a Q&A with Larsen, where she shares her experiences as a Bucks dancer and as a student in the School of Education’s Dance Department. She also discusses what it’s like navigating between school and professional dance.
What musical are you choreographing? I’m choreographing for “Fiddler on the Roof” at Appleton North High School. I hadn’t seen the musical before but now I’m very familiar with it. I’m very excited about it because it uses a bunch of traditional Jewish dance moves, so it’s very different from anything I’ve choreographed before. It’s been a fun challenge!
How often are you going to Milwaukee for work? I go to Milwaukee every Monday and Wednesday for practice. Since I have class the next day I just drive there and back on the same day. Some weeks we have extra practices where I go there on other weekdays as well. I also have to go there for games, so I drive to Milwaukee anywhere from two to five times a week.
How long have you been dancing? I started dancing when I was two, started competing at age four, and then began working professionally at age 11. So I’ve been dancing for almost 19 years now.
I started with the Bucks when I was 11 years old on their junior dance team, the Young Bucks. I danced on that team for four seasons and now I’ve been on the adult team, the 414 Crew, for two seasons. We’re a coed team, so we’re no longer just females; anyone can audition. And we primarily do hip hop, which makes it super fun and exciting.
What’s your favorite style of dance? My favorite style is definitely hip hop because it’s the most crowd pleasing. It gets everyone hyped and I feed off of my audience’s energy. For me, dance is entertainment. I love dancing when I’m able to see that my audience is happy and enjoying the performance. If someone is coming to the game and for just the minute-and-a-half to five minutes that we’re performing we can take their mind off of the negative things going on in their life, that’s what’s rewarding to me.
What is your favorite part about working for the Bucks? My favorite part is probably the amount of people that I get to meet. My team is absolutely amazing. We are super close knit and practically a family. It’s amazing. I also get to meet so many fans and work with other people in different departments of the Bucks. On top of that, I get to meet and make connections with so many professional singers. I have had the opportunity to back-up dance for Coolio, Naughty by Nature, Run-DMC, Montel Jordan, and more! So it’s super cool getting to meet all these different people and create personal connections whose friendship we will value for the rest of our lives. But then also making professional connections and being able to network through that web.
What’s the hardest thing about working for the Bucks? I think the most challenging thing for me is just balancing school and work and driving. It’s definitely a challenge. Some days are harder than others but once I get to the practices or the games I think, “This is so worth it!” I have such a good time. It’s the highlight of my week.
What does a typical practice look like? On practice days we start with a workout or weight training, and then usually we get right into either learning, cleaning, or setting a routine. We also do fun things like a monthly themed rehearsal, or every Monday someone on the team will bring a snack for everyone. Three-and-a-half hours is a long time to hip hop dance, so a lot of us feel super drained before the last hour and it’s nice to have five minutes to chill, eat some food, and then get back to it. We have fun the whole time as well. You make jokes with each other, you know, tease each other. It’s so much fun.
How did the dance program at UW–Madison influence your decision to transfer from UW–Milwaukee? I wanted to do commercial dance, which is like what I’m doing for the Bucks. It’s being in music videos, back-up dancing for artists, anything that’s entertainment. Milwaukee focuses on modern and ballet, which is great training but I wasn’t really being challenged. I heard that UW–Madison had more of a contemporary focus, which is a little more in the realm of commercial dance. I also heard they had a really good ballet program here, so I wanted to come and experience what that was like. In the long run, after I’m done dancing professionally, I hope to come back to either Madison or Milwaukee to teach and create a clearer commercial dance path for the Dance Department. It has really helped me see exactly what I want to do with my career path.
What do you like most about the UW–Madison dance program? There are really good professors here, like Jin-Wen Yu. I love his work — he creates this really, really cool, very flowy, yet still very advanced dance. I also like that here at UW they have what’s called the Kloepper Concert and the H’Doubler Concert. Anyone, in any class (as long as you’ve taken the first comp class, which you usually take as a freshman) can choreograph a solo, duet, trio, or group dance that others can audition for to be put in one of these concerts. Coming into college, I felt like I was very well trained physically, but didn’t have a lot of experience with choreographing. So I like that not only seniors can have the opportunity to choreograph. There are also a lot of performance opportunities here.
Why did you decide to add the Pilates certificate? Having the chance to get Pilates certified through the School was a perfect opportunity for me to add a second career option that could support both me and my training.
Is there anything else you want to add about the dance program at UW–Madison? Yeah actually, UW has a lot of dance opportunities and dance classes for people who are non-majors, which I think is really cool — like ballroom dancing or hip hop classes. So for beginners, there’s a lot of opportunity at UW–Madison, and it’s so nice at a high-end university like this to have a break from mental work and take a fun dance class.