Dancer shares unique style
By Robyn Kriel
Staff Reporter

A TCU alumna and professional dancer advised TCU dance students to break the rules to get ahead in the field.

“So much of life is about obeying rules,” said Leah Cox, a 1998 TCU graduate now dancing in New York City for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, “but when these dancers reach college, they need to break through those boundaries and begin to truly know themselves.”

Susan Douglas Roberts, associate professor of modern dance, said the faculty invited Cox to TCU as a guest artist and choreographer on a contract for nine days. Cox left TCU Tuesday.

“Leah always went against the grain as a student, but she was such a compelling mover and thinker,” Douglas Roberts said. “She was not a rebel just to be a rebel; she was always very thoughtful and professional, and it made her so interesting to work with as an artist, a student and a person.”

Cox said she realized in her freshman year that she preferred modern dance to ballet.

“People are so focused on how ballet dancers look and weigh, and I wanted to be noticed for how I felt and thought,” she said.

Cox worked on a dance, using seven TCU students, to be performed at a show at the end of October, Douglas Roberts said. Cox also taught technique, aesthetics and composition classes.

Douglas Roberts said the faculty’s priority is to bring back students who are successful in the dance field for inspiration and guidance for its students.

“Having Leah here gives students a clear and more immediate idea of what is possible to achieve,” Douglas Roberts said, “especially in Leah’s case because she is so young; she is a role-model in her rebelliousness.”

Kate McDonald, a sophomore modern dance major and one of the seven students in Cox’s dance, said Cox has taught them how to move their bodies in different ways.

“She also treated us very professionally, as if we were in a company,” McDonald said.

Cox said if you are always pushing yourself and always questioning, it will give you the hunger you need to move along in the field.

While visiting TCU, Cox participated in the faculty’s dance classes.

“I have been telling the dancers here that when you get a dancer who can do both modern and ballet, it is like eating a five-course meal,” she said. “That dancer will have both an understanding of the classical line, while knowing how to really use the space she is working with.”

Douglas Roberts said the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company is well respected and well-known.

“The company has a very innovative, very exacting choreographer,” she said. “It is very challenging work for the dancers and the audience.”

Brittany Barnhill, a sophomore modern dance and political science major, said Cox was an inspiring dancer.
“She is very in touch with her body and moves very freely,” Barnhill said. “You can see that fresh, innovative style when Leah dances.”