Playlists
“Give students as many different experiences moving to as many different types of music as possible.”
There are three groups of people I go to for new music recommendations; music librarians, record store owners, and dancers. Despite the prevailing idea that we need to introduce dancers to new music in their college years, I find that is rarely true. Steering dancers towards certain pieces of music and away from others is a terrible practice when it is unsolicited by a student. We need to foster and empower curiosity, not narrow it down to a selection of preferred music based on our own individual preferences. The larger impact of this can be felt and seen by looking at mainstream media today. I am always curious if the reason that we see such a lack of representation of dance in our culture is because educators for years have discouraged and shamed students for wanting to use music with lyrics, from movies or other popular music of the day.