MY BACKGROUND
As far back as I can remember, performing has been my favorite passion. Some of my earliest childhood memories include dancing in my living room to Michael Jackson’s music videos on TV, singing along to pop songs on the radio during early-morning drives to school with my mom, and being awestruck while watching the Nutcracker ballet every year.Â
My love for singing and dancing, regardless of whether I had an audience, inspired me to start taking a variety of classes at my local dance company during elementary school.Â
After a couple of years, dance lessons unfortunately became too expensive for my family, so I started strictly doing musical theater through my K-8 school for free and left dance lessons behind. Over time, musical theater became a great outlet for me to express myself creatively through singing and acting, but I also began dancing less and less. I continued participating in musical theater throughout high school, but I had never taken on dance-heavy roles and wasn’t taking dance classes through my school or a company, which inadvertently drove me away from my performing origins. Until my freshman year of college, when Cal Poly Merge Club brought me back to where I started.
WHAT IS MERGE CLUB?
Cal Poly Merge Club (or MERGE) is a non-committal contemporary and jazz dance club that offers workshops every single week on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday evenings in Cal Poly’s Recreation Center. Cal Poly students who are passionate about dance teach the workshops, and each week, a different teacher leads a new dance to a song of their choosing. Merge also performs in the Illuminate Dance Concert each year alongside other dance clubs, including United Movement, Andaaz 4.0, and SLO Breakers.Â
MY JOURNEY WITH MERGE
I discovered Cal Poly Merge Club on social media before my freshman year, and after meeting members in the WOW Club Showcase, I knew I wanted to join. Before attending my first Merge workshop, I was incredibly nervous because I hadn’t danced in a long time, but every upperclassman I met in Merge was so welcoming, and every other freshman I met was just as excited as I was to be dancing again.Â
Performing in the Illuminate Dance Concert during the winter quarter has embedded me in a community at Cal Poly that I never would have discovered without Merge. While weekly workshops during the fall and spring are optional for members of Merge, rehearsals for the Illuminate Dance Concert are mandatory, which brought me much closer to all of the members of Merge I rehearsed with every single week.Â
Participating in Merge during the 2025-2026 school year has introduced me to so many friends I most likely would never have met otherwise, because we either live in different dorms or have different majors. It has absolutely reignited my passion for performing and dance. I’m so excited for the MERGE 2026 Banquet on May 30th and to perform in Illuminate 2027.