If you’re involved in dance at Occidental, you’ve probably heard of (or even performed with) this week’s Campus Celebrity! An economics major and music minor hailing from Boston, Mass., senior TJ Chang’s passions for dance and performance have shaped many of his experiences at Occidental. Read on to learn a little more about TJ and his dance crew, Hyper Xpressions!
“I originally wanted to sing,” TJ said when asked about his choice to move from Boston to L.A. However, although he’s sung in Glee Club, Cadence, and College Chorus, it was his love for dance that really started to flourish at Occidental. In his senior year of high school, he had felt inspired to start dancing after watching Danny and Lucy from season three of “So You Think You Can Dance” perform a samba routine. Soon afterwards, he began taking classes on Latin ballroom.
When he got to Oxy, TJ started participating in Dance Production and Oxy’s hip hop club Pulse and served on the E-board for both organizations. For Dance Pro, he’s choreographed salsa, a Latin/ hip hop fusion number, and pop jazz. “Junior year I started taking dance more seriously,” said TJ. He then began training in jazz and just started taking up ballet this past summer.
While Pulse and Dance Pro gave him a dance foundation, TJ realized that there wasn’t a dance outlet available to students that wasn’t oriented towards the programs at Occidental. He wanted to start a dance crew that would not only perform at venues throughout Los Angeles, but also encourage people to take classes outside of Oxy. The crew could also bring in professional choreographers that have worked on Broadway and music video sets. And so a year and a half ago, Hyper Xpressions was born!
“I wanted it to be sustainable and long-lasting,” TJ said when asked about the crew he’d founded with Oxy students who’ve also had extensive training in dance. “We needed a quick start.” Unfortunately, the crew was forced to start from nothing. “It took a long time for us to get support and get people interested.” Finally on September 14, Hyper Xpressions held their their first open auditions, which ended up having a great turn-out of candidates coming from all kinds of dance backgrounds.
Although the leadership of Hyper Xpressions consists of students who’ve danced at more advanced levels, TJ’s goal for the crew is for them to take in people of different levels and train them. The group encourages a diversity of dance styles, so there is no one type of dance around which they center their performances. “We cater to what we have,” said TJ, although currently, they usually do hip hop and contemporary group pieces.
Besides his role as executive director for Hyper Xpressions, TJ is also involved in The Occidental Agency, Phi Kappa Psi and works for the Economics department. Keeping true to his passion, though, he continues to pursue a dance career beyond Oxy. TJ currently teaches ballroom in Pasadena at Havin’ a Ball dance studio, owned by reknown choreographer Christian Perry. He occasionally substitutes for jazz and hip hop classes as well. In addition, he dances with hip hop/ contemporary group Evoke Dance Company.
You can watch TJ and other members of Hyper Xpressions dance in the videos that they release to CatAList every week! But Oxy students should definitely watch out for live performances to come, and you can check out their Youtube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7VWPp_8tHn5WfDYBsii_lw/videos?flow=grid…
Photo Source: TJ Chang