From Dec. 20 to Jan. 11, the entire student body of Fordham University was celebrating their winter recess. Some students went home, while others elected to stay on campus. However, Jacquelyn Harris, FCRH ’26, chose a secret third option: take a one-week winter intensive at Jacob’s Pillow, alongside four other Fordham students.
Harris is a film and history double major with a Spanish minor at Fordham College at Rose Hill. Outside of her studies, she is in Fordham’s FLAVA dance club where she worked her way up from dancer to business manager and now president after four years participating in the club.
Harris’ love of dance began long before the beginning of her career at Fordham. Before college, she cites a life full of dance, however, her journey was somewhat unconventional
“I originally started dancing when I was three to be like my older sister,” she said. “But then shortly after I stopped taking traditional classes at studios and spent most of my time self-teaching, and somehow still was improving and ended up becoming pretty good in my extracurricular high school performances, and then got to college and started realizing I could do it more seriously.”
In the fall of her senior year, after three years of more structured dancing at Fordham, Harris decided to apply for Jacob’s Pillow’s first winter intensive, “Dance Your Purpose,” a one-week trip where she would be driven by a charter bus to their campus in the Berkshires of Massachusetts.
This stay involved long days, with breakfast at 8 a.m. and a full day of dancing that didn’t end until 8 p.m. Even after the scheduled activities ended, Harris noted that the organization would open up the studios for free dance, and many attendees would continue practicing well into the night.
Harris was housed in one of three cabins reserved for the dancers; each cabin was designated either social, medium noise level. The dancers were invited to fill out a questionnaire prior to their stay in order to pick which cabin they preferred. Harris chose the quiet cabin. Each cabin was also equipped with a communal lounge, communal bathrooms and single rooms for each dancer. Each meal was provided and catered, and Harris expressed a specific appreciation for the notice taken to various dietary restrictions.
Harris cited the filming they held on the final day of the program as her favorite part of the program.
“Typically with most dance intensives…they usually will have a performance where they invite family and friends and all that good stuff. But given that it was, you know, winter, and we were in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, and there was all the snow, we decided to do a dance film instead,” Harris explained. “And so the filming day, when we kind of put together this experimental dance short film, it was so much fun because I got to be a dancer, of course, but then, in being a film student, the videographer kind of let some of us help, so I got to be a production assistant.”
Harris also noted that while this was the inaugural winter intensive for Jacob’s Pillow, every summer they host a big dance festival over a series of weeks. She had never been, however, she did express an ambition to visit it at some point.
“Having been there now, and now being considered an alumni, I definitely want to go back in the summer,” Harris said. “Looking into the archives and seeing the kinds of people and performances that they host at the summer festival, I just feel like it must be the most magical place…I know a lot of other program participants want to go back this summer too, so I’ll definitely do it at some point.”
Harris expressed a desire to try pursuing a dance career post-graduation now that she has completed this winter intensive, but also has conflicting desires about following a path in film. She has just accepted an offer to work in the mailroom of an undisclosed talent agency, but was still very emphatic about trying to continue dancing.
“I’ve kind of started to look into more pre-professional and professional programs that I can balance with my full-time work schedule, in the hopes of, you know, maybe booking a job or two in musical theater,” Harris said. “I would love to get on an off-Broadway or Broadway stage at some point in my life. That’s definitely the big goal, but I’m also really still interested in contemporary dance, obviously, being on a hip-hop team, that’s still an option, but my heart is definitely in the storytelling of musical theater.”
Harris’ immediate future may be enveloped by her passion for film, but there’s no doubt that with her talent and her desire to pursue dance, she will no doubt grace a larger stage in the future.
