Dancing To Her Diploma

Posted by Amanda Tyler in Dance

Maria Weckesser, who will soon be SFUAD’s first dance graduate, fixes her hair purposefully in the mirror the second she steps into the dance studio, as only a girl who has been raised in the dance world knows how. Weckesser proceeds to joke about her age and how long it has taken her to get a degree, due to her somewhat surprising and largely nontraditional career path thus far. Like many young girls, Weckesser started ballet at the age of three, at a hole-in-the-wall studio. Other activities throughout her childhood, such as ice skating and soccer, were quickly put to a stop because of how they could potentially affect her dancing. Weckesser imitates her five foot tall, male Russian teacher when she quips, “Do you know what ice skating shoes do to your feet? They flatten you out!” This small example of the reality of growing up in the dance world only continued as she got older.

Weckesser puts on her pointe shoes.

“By the standard of a ballerina, I’m not it—I don’t have the feet, I don’t have the body shape, I’m not skinny enough…I’m just not it,” Weckesser explains, not with defeat, but with realization of her place as a dancer. Attending the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts helped her discover the fun in dance again, when she was exposed to genres other than ballet. With her newfound love for hip hop in particular, Weckesser was shown that dance does not always mean looking the same as the girl next to you.

While improvising around the studio, Weckesser strikes a pose.

Following high school, Weckesser’s dance career took several unexpected turns. She attended college a couple of times on and off, both to major in dance and to try something new. After a year-long gig as a backup dancer for the Pussycat Dolls in Las Vegas, Weckesser spent some time auditioning all around Los Angeles with no results. Each of these experiences ended for different reasons, though Weckesser keeps a positive outlook when insisting that they helped bring her to where she is now.

“I think it took me this entire life experience, until now I’m almost 30, to figure out yes, I do wanna dance… but what road in dance I wanna go down,” she says. When Weckesser made the executive decision to move back to her hometown of Philadelphia, she would never have guessed what was to come.

Weckesser was working as a bartender when she received a call from her former high school about a position to teach ballet. Stepping back into her old school with a new role opened Weckesser’s eyes in discovering how much she loves teaching. After a few years of watching the students progress, Weckesser also began to realize the influence she was having. “I didn’t think I meant anything to these kids,” she says. However, spending time watching them grow showed the true significance of her actions. It brought back not only old memories of teachers that had influenced her, but also helped Weckesser to see the positive impact she could make on a people’s lives using dance.

Weckesser fixes her hair in the mirror.

“I don’t necessarily wanna be in the limelight. I wanna create the limelight,” Weckesser says when mentioning her goals to open her own studio following graduation. Listing perhaps the biggest perk of this as being her own boss, Weckesser intends to hire a staff that she will enjoy working with. Her goal is to teach dancers of all ages, from all backgrounds, the lessons that she has learned throughout her life as a dancer, in the hopes that the students will find their own niche somewhere in the dance world.

Weckesser lands gracefully.

If her last name sounds familiar, it is because her uncle, John Weckesser, retired from his position as head of SFUAD’s Performing Arts department this past December. When asked if her uncle had any role in her graduation from SFUAD, the answer is a definitive yes. Had it not been for him, Weckesser would never have heard of SFUAD and it’s newly developed dance department. After discovering her love for teaching and receiving encouragement from her uncle, Weckesser decided to go back to school one last time.

“It’s a great honor to be the first dance major to graduate from here… And to have the Weckesser name,” Weckesser proudly states. Weckesser first began her college journey in 2004. In May of 2014, her journey will come full circle when she accepts the first BFA in dance from SFUAD.