Jolene Moreno rediscovered her love for dance at Allan Hancock College.
The dancer and Lompoc native had been practicing the art since she was 3 years old, but her former dance studio became a toxic environment for Moreno, she said as she sat outside of one of Hancock’s dance studios.
“It was a competition in every class; if you didn’t fit the teacher’s standards, she would ignore you or put you down,” Moreno said. “I got body shamed for the first time at that studio. I had trust issues and body issues ever since, and at 14, I was in a really dark place and I stopped all together. I was very scared to go back to a traditional studio because of that.”
Moreno stayed away from ballet slippers, Marley floors, and pink tights her entire high school career, but something changed when she went to college. Dance counted as a physical education or general ed course. She isn’t sure what came over her, but she decided to take a dance class.
“I absolutely loved it. It was a completely different vibe,” she said with a laugh. “It was a happy accident. A happy split-second decision.”
Like a new connection with an old best friend, dance accompanied Moreno during her entire time at Hancock. She took jazz, modern, hip-hop, and ballet classes; auditioned for performances; rehearsed for hours nearly equivalent to a full-time job; and performed alongside her peers in showcases Hancock hosts throughout the year.
Since the early ’70s, Hancock’s dance program has offered students class and performance opportunities. Over time, it evolved with more dance styles and classes designed to prepare students for the industry. After facing severe impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, the school bounced back with the new Fine Arts Complex coming to fruition and enrollment numbers increasing.
Students are now rehearsing for their annual November showcase, with Moreno among the dancers who’ll be performing.
Moreno is scheduled to complete her degree in liberal arts with a focus in social behavior this spring and hopes to become a therapist or work in another profession related to psychology. Dance, she said, will still be a part of her life beyond graduation.
“Even though I don’t have the confidence to do it as a career, I still want to do it more as a hobby,” she said. “I know there’s a few studios around here; I would love to do that—just find it more as an escape and hobby to keep going and stay consistent in my life.”
Other students came to the program to pursue a dance career—with some hoping to go to LA and join a company and others dreaming of becoming performers at Disneyland. Some students transfer to a four-year program to continue their education in dance or to complete a separate degree. Like Moreno, they all still want dance in their lives.
“There are many different pathways in dance,” said Sydney Sorensen, associate professor and coordinator of Hancock’s dance program. “I thought it was either you’re a teacher or performer, but there’s so many different avenues. We’re really trying to connect students to a path that is individualized and not just a blanket degree that is just … opening one avenue for them.”
Sorenson grew up training in Utah and worked with Disney, later performed in Germany with another dance company, and eventually went back to school to get a master’s of fine arts and dance at New York University. She taught at Texas Tech before coming to Hancock, where she’s starting her sixth year of teaching.
“I’ve always been employed by dance, whether it’s as a teacher or a performer. That was always a goal or an agreement I made with myself: that I would pursue dance as a path,” she said. “It was the only thing that I was really obsessed with, and I feel most like myself when I’m creative. I’ve wanted to advocate for that and be a support system for students just like my teachers were for me, specifically in college.”
All students in the Hancock program learn about the history of dance to better understand how it began and its place in culture. They can train in jazz, tap, contemporary, hip-hop, modern, ballet, and folkórico, and students can have the chance to choreograph their own pieces.
In 2022, fellow faculty member Jesus Solorio developed the commercial dance certificate, which focuses on preparing students for immediate entry into the dance entertainment industry—rather than for a university transfer. The program added classes that prepare students for auditions and another that focuses on performing for a camera—a more common way for choreographers to document and visualize pieces in the age of social media.
“Students can become performers, they can choreograph, they can teach; a new career path is a dance therapist [that] incorporates the healing side of movement,” Sorenson added. “I’ve seen a lot of students go on and pursue other careers not related to dance, or become an arts administrator, or working with kids. We have a student working with elderly people to get them to move and reconnect with their bodies.”
Hancock’s dance program launched in the late ’60s with Agnes Grogan, “our fearless leader,” Sorenson said. Grogan hosted five sections of modern dance and choreography as physical education classes. The program had its first concert in 1969 and added other styles in the ’80s.
“They used to rehearse in the gym on the wrestling mats. They didn’t have a theater, so they lined up their cars in the parking lot to light the dancers. They performed at churches, rented rooms at a mortuary,” Sorenson said, adding that this was before any performing arts buildings were constructed on campus.
Prior to the Fine Arts Complex, dancers had one studio—which made it challenging to find needed space, and rehearsals were stacked back-to-back. Moreno recalled waiting for classes outside in the rain while other dancers finished up and going back and forth between the former studio and the new center as it was being constructed.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the program adapt, with classes on Zoom, a virtual show, and an outdoor performance. Enrollment dropped to 201 students in the 2021-22 school year. But then, in the 2023-24 school year, it more than doubled to nearly 500 students.
After more than 30 years of effort, Hancock welcomed the Fine Arts Complex to campus, complete with a 400-seat concert hall, a film screening room, and lounge areas for students in the college’s dance, drama, film, graphics, music, photography, and multimedia arts and communications programs.
“The space is so inspiring because there’s so many different programs and art forms in here that can interact,” Sorenson said. “Let’s say I have an idea to collaborate with the choir, I can easily access students in the class.”
The fall showcase, Dimensions in Dance, will be Sorenson’s first time directing in the Boyd Concert Hall. This year’s theme is discovery, which students get to interpret in their own way. They auditioned at the start of the semester and are enrolled in the class, which meets regularly, and are assigned lab projects where they get to choreograph each other.
“It’s a great group. They’re supportive of each other. It feels like a community. I hope it feels like a place they can belong,” Sorenson said. “I’ll always be an advocate for the arts, whether it’s through personal passion, the healing side of things. Even if you don’t pursue it, I think it’s a valuable class to take, and the degree can be something that leads them through a career in dance or something that’s related.”
Reach Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor at toconnor@santamariasun.com.