SAMANTHA BLONS
Assistant A&E Editor
She dressed that afternoon in a black cat outfit with white pointy ears on the top of her head, to match all her friends from dance class. She had practiced the routine in class over and over. At 3 years old, Hayley McClelland took the stage as a dancer for the first time.
She has never looked back.
McClelland, a Pepperdine alumna and professional dancer and choreographer, was back in Malibu this month to guest choreograph the finale for Dance in Flight, which opened last night in Smothers Theatre. In the fall, she performed her tap moves at Convocation, while her pre-recorded speech played over the speakers.
McClelland graduated in 2004 with a liberal arts degree and an emphasis in theater. Since then, she traveled the country as a dancer and choreographer, launched her own line of fashionable dance merchandise and recently recorded a cell phone ring tone of her tap routine, to be released on her Web site, hayleymac.com, at an undetermined date.
McClelland, whose stage name is “Hayley Mac,” has covered the continent performing and teaching her craft at dance conventions, which usually host between 1,000 and 5,000 students.
“I’m always choreographing. Every week I’ll fly to another city to teach at dance conventions,” she said. <PR>Since starting her own business, she has sold her “Hayley Mac” brand dance merchandise at the competitions as well. She said the clothing line is still in preliminary stages.
This summer, she also choreographed the opening number of the Emmy-nominated Showstopper National Dance Championship program, which was broadcast worldwide.
But despite her successes in the entertainment business, she stressed that it has not been the smoothest ride.
“I’m supporting myself completely as a dancer, but it is definitely not an easy, steady, glorified job,” McClelland said. “I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else, but it’s definitely not consistent or secure. There have been times when I just didn’t get anything for a while, and there have been times when I’ve been really blessed.”
She said her faith, reinforced by her education at Pepperdine, supported her through tough times.
“I feel like Pepperdine gave me such a solid foundation of Scripture and what that looks like in every day life,” she said. “And honestly without my faith in Christ, I don’t know how I would be in this career.”
During her years at Pepperdine, she said she was very involved with Dance in Flight, performing in five or six songs every year, several of which she choreographed as a student.
Bill Szobody, professor of dance and director of Dance in Flight, taught McClelland during her senior year, his first year as a Pepperdine faculty member.
“I never really saw her as a student,” Szobody said. Because of her talent and prior training, “I always thought of her as more of an equal.”
Szobody usually brings in a guest choreographer for the Dance in Flight final number.
“I think it’s nice to get a professional from the outside to teach what they’ve learned,” he said. “Pepperdine doesn’t have a dance major, or even a dance minor, so I think it was really cool for our students to see someone [McClelland] who has left Pepperdine working professionally as a dancer and choreographer.”
McClelland choreographed this year’s finale to have a “kind of a rock ‘n’ roll feel, very passionate, very loose,” to match the show’s theme, “In Concert.”
“I wanted the audience to feel that same feeling as what you would feel on the stage as a dancer — their movement,” she said.
Every dancer in the show, nearly 65 of them, performs in the final number.
Senior Tristan Hack, who choreographed and performs in a hip-hop number in the show, said he was amazed at how McClelland pulled it off with so many dancers and with such a short amount of rehearsal time.
“As a choreographer, what I could do in an hour and a half, she can probably do in 20 minutes,” Hack said. “She was very enthusiastic, and when you have a teacher who you can see is truly passionate about what they’re teaching, you too share that enthusiasm and you want to perform your best.”
McClelland wants to expand her merchandising business and said she can see herself opening a dance studio later in her career. For now, though, she plans to continue performing, choreographing and teaching across the country.
“I’m doing my dream job right now,” she said. “I’ve realized more than anything since I’ve graduated school that it’s not so much about the job, its about surrounding yourself with people and investing yourself in their lives. That’s the thing that makes it all worth it for me.”
02-08-2007