Dance and animation classes aren’t the most natural of partners at first glance, but a recent project had the students from each class collaborating in the making of “how to” videos of dances such as Macarena, YMCA, Cotton Eye Joe, and many more.

“The animation students are given a character rig and then they have to animate that rig to match the choreography of the dance,” 3D animation teacher Hillary Wysong said. “This project is really expanding upon what they already know, so they already know the basics of how to animate this is just elaborating and giving more detail to it.”

Students were given the opportunity to challenge themselves to try new dances and give an animated character a personality, by collaborating with two completely different classes.

“I think it’s pretty cool that we get to collab with a different class other than just another dance class,” Dance I student Michelle Jaeger said. “And learn different movements and technique with this animation project, things that I haven’t really touched up on such as counting memory and keeping up with the beat of the music.”

This project benefitted both classes by letting them explore and expand on the different techniques that they have learnt.

“The skills that are required to do this are real high level thinking so this is a really great challenge for everyone at all levels regardless of what dance you are teaching,” Gonzalez said. “So we tap many skill and naturally start using concepts that you already know.”