This summer, sophomore Morgan Wallace was dancing, as she has since she was three or four years old. She was in a hip-hop class at an intensive New Jersey program when a choreographer came in. He complimented her moves, jotted down her contact information and left.
“We don’t have a lot of details about it yet because it wasn’t even a serious audition,” Wallace said. “He just really liked me and was like, ‘OK, I’m booking her on the spot.’ And that’s what I want to do — dance for artists and choreograph for artists.”
Wallace has already taken major steps toward achieving her goal. She opened her own New Jersey dance studio — The Dance Vault — this summer, teaching hip-hop, jazz, ballet, contemporary and even Zumba. While in school, she performs in Maryland Dance Ensemble showcases as part of her full tuition Creative and Performing Arts Scholarship.
She’s even a member of this university’s dance team and the Dynamic dance team, which performed along with three other student groups and America’s Best Dance Crew winner Poreotics at the Hoff Theater last Thursday.
“It’s so cool that you can get someone that big to come to this school, and it’s great networking being able to meet them, getting to go dance with them and just watching them and taking in what they do,” Wallace said. “And I love dancing with people and rubbing off, taking and giving, that whole concept.”
The Dance Vault gives Wallace another chance for group interaction from a different perspective — she’s the sole teacher. She hopes to run a franchise of dance studios someday.
Wallace’s father, who converted parts of their New Jersey home into the business, said the studio was an easier endeavor than he expected.
“Morgan’s always been more than just a dancer,” Duane Wallace said. “We used to call her the Pied Piper. The other children flocked to her, and she taught them dance and other things, but dance was the primary way she got their attention and kept their attention. She’s danced all her life; she’s been teaching dance to different universities and high schools, but she’s always done it at someone else’s location. Now that everyone’s out of the house, [the studio] seemed like a natural transition.”
Wallace credits her ambition to her family, especially her mother, who died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, almost a year ago.
“When she passed away, it definitely set the tone for my life in a whole different way,” Wallace said. “Everything got so much more real. You don’t have your mom to call when you’re upset, so you become so much more independent, one, and then you realize you don’t have a lot of time. So that’s when I went on the fast track.
“I also set a goal for myself,” she added. “Anything I told my mom that I was going to do, I’m going to do it. If I told my mom I was going to have my studio, I’m going to have my studio. If I told my mom I’m going to be on tour with an artist, I’m going to be on tour with an artist. It gives me that extra push.”
Those close to Wallace said her mother’s death has elevated her dancing to an even higher level.
“She’s always been a great dancer, but she’s just more spirit-filled right now,” her father said. “Every time I’ve seen her dance in the last year, I think she’s as good as she can get, and then she just goes another level, and everyone’s saying the same thing.”
“Morgan is a very energetic dancer, so whenever we perform, she puts her all into it, 100 percent,” added sophomore dance and psychology major Courtney Harris, who is Wallace’s teammate on both the official dance team and the Dynamic dance team. “She’s a born performer, and when she dances, everyone can’t stop watching her.”
The Wallace family has made it their mission to raise awareness for ALS: Morgan Wallace’s brother, university senior Duane Wallace II, hosted an ALS dinner with a speaker on campus; Duane Wallace is hosting the Valerie Wallace Basketball Showcase back in New Jersey, with all proceeds going to the ALS Foundation; and Morgan herself plans to dedicate a dance in the next Maryland Dance Ensemble showcase to her mother, with a box outside for donations.
“Now I feel like I have a cause,” Morgan Wallace said. “We always said that everyone has to go through a storm, like sometimes God gives you something you’re going to have to weather through, but I never felt like I had any big issue in my life. Everything was great, and then that happened, and I was like, ‘That’s what I need to do.’ That’s my storm.”
For more information about ALS or to donate to the ALS Foundation, go to www.alsfoundation.org.
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