Sophomore Sandy Ellis was a 2013 Mustang Coral leader when someone asked her if SMU had a hip-hop club. She had asked the same question the year before. Ellis figured it was about time for SMU to have a hip-hop crew.
By the time the Oct. 6 Family Weekend Talent Show came around, Ellis, with four others, put together a Disney hip-hop routine that intertwined songs such as “Little Mermaid’s” “Under the Sea” and the “Lion King’s” “Krol Lew” with Drake’s “Started from the Bottom” and Jay-z’s “Crown.” The red Mickey Mouse shirt clad group of five placed second in the talent show.
That’s when fellow SMU student Uche Ndubizu saw them. He asked Ellis and Zoe Filutowski to collaborate and they choreographed a 15-minute routine.
About six weeks later, Ellis, Filutowski and Ndubizu, along with a group dancers, were opening for B.o.B at the Nov. 14 Program Council concert.
“Best experience of my life,” Ellis said. “Getting that close with the crew and dancing with the professional equipment and the crowd’s energy was incredible.”
Toward the end of November 2013, the hip-hop crew was getting ready to start the next semester open for anyone who was interested in joining. Now, halfway through the spring semester, Co-Presidents Ellis and Filutowski have submitted an application to begin the charting process for the club. Their Facebook group has more than 90 members and the club has held two meetings.
Their goal is to create a recognized club where the SMU community can come together, learn, dance and have stress-free fun with no prerequisites.
“I wanted to create a place where everyone had an opportunity to dance,” Ellis said. “The performing arts majors here are audition based and there are so many people that miss the arts that aren’t [performing arts] majors.”
Ellis and Filutowski emphasis that the club is opened to dancers at all skill levels.
“I think when people see their friends in the videos from our classes, friends who don’t normally dance, they think, ‘Well if they’re doing it, I can,’” Filutowski said. “That’s exactly what we want to encourage. People who wouldn’t normally dance, to dance.”
Neither Ellis nor Filutowski are dance majors. They both noticed lack of hip-hop dancing on campus.
“Although I didn’t come to school for it, dance has been, and will always be a part of me,” Filutowski said.
Dance has been part of her life since she was 4-years-old when she began dance lessons. Filutowski began competitively dancing at age 8. She competed for 10 years in contemporary, lyrical, jazz, musical theater and tap.
“Dancing is one of my true loves,” she said. “I can’t go very long without it. Every time I listen to a song, I see choreography.”
Ellis, a journalism and public relations major, started dance lessons when she was 3-years-old.
“I’ve been bouncing up and down to sounds since my parents could hold me up to stand,” Ellis said.
The group has been meeting once a week Tuesdays in Studio 2 at the Dedman Center for Lifetime Sports. They have been focusing on the basics of hip-hop: footwork, body movement, isolation and musicality.
“It’s just a fun way to learn some moves,” Ellis said.
For now the group doesn’t plan on competing anywhere.
“It’s another place for people to get involved and it’s active,” sophomore Jessica Cho said. “It seems just like a bunch of kids that like to dance.”
The first meeting the group had 12 attendees and at the second one they had 16. In one week, their open Facebook group managed to increase by 65 members. Ellis and Filutowski post videos of each routine along with the meeting details.
“So far participation has been great,” Filutowski said. “More than we could have dreamed of.”
During the club meetings, structured as an open, commitment-free workshop, the group warms up and learns a combination choreographed by Ellis and Filutowski.
“We joke that we partly started it because people were always asking us how to dance when we went out,” Ellis said.
For Ellis, dance means more than a night out.
Defining what dance is to me isn’t so easy,” Ellis said “It’s the way I explore emotions, exercise and have fun.”
