SPOTLIGHT on - Sherry Hopkins (C'99)

by Jeff Ward-Bailey, guest feature-writer / photos courtesy of Sherry Hopkins

The following article was originally published in the Principia College Alumni Dance newsletter, Back at the Barre (Issue #9 - March 2011).

It is part of a special series of SPOTLIGHT articles about the dancers who inspired the charcoal drawings that grace the walls of Morey Dance Studio.  (Read the intro here.)

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Like many of her contemporaries, Sherry Hopkins began dancing at the age of four -- including ballet, tap, and jazz styles. But it wasn't until she came to Prin, she says, that dance really became a passion. "I'd always done a Russian style, a very modern style," she says. "But at Prin we learned a lyrical, modern style."

Above, Sherry Hopkins (right) with, from left, Holliday Rees, Nicole Jenkins, and Victoria Ries, doing a little "Swan Lake" in Morey Dance Studio, June 2010

Sherry, like so many others, was particularly inspired by the teaching style of David Grenke, the founder of ThingsezIsee'm Dance/Theater and a former principal dancerfor the Paul Taylor Dance Company. "His teaching style was so different from anything I'd ever seen," she remembers. "He had this passion for theater, for the macabre, almost. He just had such a modern vision ...  I knew right then that that was what I wanted to do." Inspired by Grenke's example, as well as that of professor Judith Patterson, Sherry made plans to open her own dance studio.

After graduation, Sherry continued to dance, taking classes in the Dallas-Forth Worth area. It was here that she began teaching at Cherrilane's Little Dance Studio in Lakewood, TX, where she'd taken lessons growing up. Then, after she was promoted to assistant director of the studio, she says, she "discovered a new passion ... I hadn't realized fully at Prin." This was the opportunity to choreograph -- between ten and twelve pieces per season at the studio, including lyrical and modern pieces.

"I was able to share a lot of what I learned at Prin and in workshops," Sherry says. "The students really blossomed when they were exposed to a lot of different styles." And, she says, the opportunity to teach and choreograph showed her that teaching dance was the way to become "a master at the craft."

Below, Hopkins re-enacting her picture with a little help from Nicole Jenkins in Morey Dance Studio, June 2010

Sherry's post-graduate immersion in the world of the performing arts doesn't only include dance, however. Shortly after moving from Prin to Texas, she also began teaching drama classes at an elementary school as well as teaching musical theater voice and dance classes at the KD Studio Acting Conservatory.

As she gained more teaching experience, Sherry also became interested in directing, and got the opportunity to choreograph and co-direct "Mama Drama," a local play, as well as a night of one-act plays. She also did TV, film, and industrial acting in Dallas, and took a soap opera workshop in LA one summer. How did she find time to immerse herself so fully in the performing arts? "I wanted the training," Sherry says sincerely. "I just wanted to go out there ... and meet as many people as I could."

In the midst of her performing arts career, Sherry's son was born, followed by a daughter a year later, and she took a break to become a stay-at-home mom. But that doesn't mean she left the performing arts world. In addition to parenting, Sherry continues to act (including TV and film auditioning and as a member of a murder mystery troupe) and has begun teaching dance to her daughter -- who is now four years old -- at home.

And Sherry's dream of opening her own studio? Well, it's nearly come to fruition: she has almost completed a master's degree in family and marriage therapy, which will enable her to become a certified dance therapist (someone who helps others express themselves through dance and drama). She plans to open her studio once her children are in school, and to become active both as a dance therapist and as the director/choreographer for the studio, as well as to continue her own training.

Above all, Sherry says, she wants to inspire others with the dramatic element of dance that has so gripped her since dancing at Prin. "I am so moved by music and dancing and choreography ... dance has the ability to just rip your gut out," she says. "I love how music can move you and the story can move you, more than just the steps and technique."

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Read about the other alums in this special SPOTLIGHT series!

SPOTLIGHT on: Holliday Rees (C'00)

SPOTLIGHT on: Victoria Ries (C'00)

SPOTLIGHT on: Nicole Jenkins (C'00)

SPOTLIGHT on: Emily Wakeling (C'00)