WAC students optimistic over headquarter switch

By Dexter Gauntlett
Daily Bruin Staff

World Arts and Culture students bid farewell Friday to Gloria
Kaufman Hall before singing and dancing their way to the site of
their new building located on Kinross Avenue.

The WAC department is moving into Westwood beginning fall 2002,
as its former dance building and art studio undergoes a two-year
$30 million renovation project starting next year.

The ceremony began with 20 minutes of silence as students and
faculty removed chairs, chalkboards and other items to transport to
the new building.

“It’s about transformation and the process of
ritual. We’re recognizing the old while moving into the
new,” said second-year WAC graduate student Esther Baker.

Nicole Josefson wrote on a good-bye banner addressed to Gloria
Kaufman Hall:

“Thank you for letting a psychology major with two left
feet and no rhythm tap, cha-cha-cha and dance across your
floors,” she wrote.

Other performing arts students used the event as a prophecy of
their hopeful success in the future and wrote phrases such as,
“This is where it all began.”

Kaufman ““ whose $18 million contribution is the single
largest donation to a dance program in American history ““ has
been involved with UCLA Performing Arts for more than 20 years and
is the primary donor for the building’s scheduled
renovation.

Kaufman commenced the procession that included nearly 200
students and faculty in a song-and-dance parade through
Westwood.

Students marched through Westwood Plaza and down Westwood
Boulevard.

The procession paused at the South Lawn of the UCLA Medical
Plaza to perform flamenco, tap and modern dance routines for
passersby.

The celebration concluded at the new building on Kinross Avenue
adjacent to Lot 32, where department chair Dan Froot inaugurated
the new home.

The move symbolized that the department is becoming more
recognized even though it’s one of the strangest departments
he’s ever seen, Froot said.

“Even though it’s a weird hybrid of cultural studies
and performing arts it’s still the only department that tries
to encompass all those things,” he said.

WAC, one of the smallest majors on campus, focuses on creativity
and body-based modes of performance, according to the
department’s Web site. Some students said they see themselves
as unique students within a unique department.

“We’re a lot of freaks ““ but freaks in a good
way,” Baker said.

The major is virtually unknown to others on campus, WAC students
said.

“The event was a way to present ourselves to the larger
community and kind of say, “˜did you know we
left?,'” said Marianne Kim, a second-year graduate
student of fine arts.