Member: senior Julia Jacobs

This dance was Jacobs’ third self-choreographed dance during her four years of V-Show. The song is by Fela Kuti, the late Nigerian saxophonist who pioneered Afrobeat, a genre mixing jazz, funk and African rhythms.

Q&A with senior Julia Jacobs

Q: How was it different from last year’s act?

A: “Last year, I knew I wanted to choreograph about womanhood, and I thought of ‘Phenomenal Woman’ afterwards. For this dance, it started with a song that rendered me incapable of sitting still and the story came after. I was in my kitchen with my headphones in, listening to Beyonce’s latest album and wildly dancing. After a couple of minutes, I turned around to see my older brother standing there laughing. ‘What are you doing?’ he said, in the way big brothers do. And at that moment, I understood what Fela meant by ‘who’re you?’ He meant, ‘who are you to tell me who I am, how I should act, what I should believe in?’ And I thought, who was my brother to tell me that I couldn’t dance alone in the kitchen alone like a maniac? So I kept dancing.”

Q: How did you feel during your actual performances?

A: “I had practiced that dance so many times that soon I realized that no matter my state of mind, my muscle memory would kick in and my body would automatically perform my choreography. With each performance I grew less anxious and more confident in my ability to be in the moment while I danced. By the last performance on Saturday night, I was “in it,” and that’s progress for me as an artist and a person.”

Q: How did this act factor into your overall V-Show experience?

A: “Walking off the stage from this dance on Saturday night, I just sat by myself on the stairs leading beneath the stage crying- not sad tears, but happy tears because I realized how much of my identity has been built on the pieces of choreography that the V-Show directors allowed me to perform on that stage. Had it not been for V-Show, I may not have felt the need to create art and share it with my peers due to lack of confidence in my own dance ability. The opportunity that the directors have given me to perform a solo piece my freshman, junior and senior years, and the support that I’ve felt from the rest of the V-Show cast has pushed me to choreograph, and ultimately, to find myself.”