The dance teacher we all know and love, Ms. Okada, teaches beginning, intermediate, and Dance Company classes. She resides in the dance room near the north gym and is known across campus for being one of the sweetest and most supportive teachers.
Surprisingly, dance is not something that Ms. Okada has always wanted to pursue. She loved dance for most of her early life, but just never had the chance to take lessons or become a “studio dancer.” Usually, she would just watch music videos and try her best to copy the dance moves. In 7th grade, she had a project on career options and chose dance choreography, which sparked an interest. Thus, she began the path to exploring the arts. She started with show choir in high school and began to fall in love with performing, singing, and dancing. It wasn’t until Ms. Okada’s senior year of high school, that she joined the dance company and started her lifelong journey in dance.
During her college years, Ms. Okada went to Cal State LA, originally planning on a career other than dance. However, she continued taking many dance classes in college, until a figure in her life encouraged her to switch majors to dance, which sent her along her lifelong path to become a teacher for us students here at ERHS. She finally fell in love with it in college and is forever glad she became our teacher.
Ms. Okada has always felt inspired to be a teacher, coming from a family of pretty much “teacher blood.” Her mom was a 2nd grade teacher for 36 years at local elementary school Delevan Drive, and always jokingly told her, “Never be a teacher. It’s so much work”. After college, she “naturally fell into teaching”, and wanted to do something she loved (dance), while also having weekends off for her family and a steady job. As her family grew, it became harder for her to perform and be away from home, and so she gave up performing completely. She would like to maybe perform again in the future, however, she doesn’t regret anything from her past and life now.
There are many different styles of dance; hip hop, contemporary, ballet, modern, jazz, tap, and many more. However, out of all the different options, Ms. Okada’s favorite thing to teach is hip hop. She loves seeing how happy it makes her students, even though making the choreography can prove to be a challenge at times. Despite that, her preferred style of dance is modern. She doesn’t it teach a lot: it’s a style she teaches mostly with her intermediate and advanced classes.
As a teacher, her favorite thing about her job is being able watch her students grow, not only in dance, but as they slowly turn into young adults. Because ERHS is a school that is 7-12 grade, she feels that this gives her the time to grow a close bond and connection with her students.
Being the friendly and kind person she is, Ms. Okada still keeps in touch with the many students she has taught. She has lots of experience in education, having taught for a total of 15 years, with eight here at Eagle Rock, one at Sotomayor, and six years at Montebello.
She loves Mexican and Japanese food, sweets, especially chocolate chip cookies; and being with family in her free time. She loves to explore nature, go hiking, camping, offroading, or go to the beach with her family.
In terms of dancing in general, she loves doing floor work, and doing variations while moving through space. She loves the physicality of it all, and how you kinda have to think outside the box with dance and send the message you’re trying to say with dance have always been some of her favorite parts about the dance and sport itself.
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