As USC students, staff and alumni walked to their seats, DJ Ninabutterfly — aka senior dance student Nina Outlaw — filled Bovard Auditorium with her remixes, combining R&B vocals, house music rhythms and occasional string instrumentals; a prelude to the night of fusion to come.

On Sept. 18, Visions and Voices and the Kaufman School of Dance co-hosted “Decades of Dance in L.A.,” a celebration of their 20th and 10th anniversaries, respectively. The event highlighted the history of collaboration between the two organizations, and began with acknowledging the legacy of Glorya Kaufman, who passed away in August.

“[Kaufman] attended a Visions and Voices event … and that was the night that she decided, or came up with this idea of establishing a school of dance at USC,” said Daria Yudacufski, the Executive Director of Visions and Voices. “So our histories are very much intertwined.”

After opening remarks and an acknowledgement of Kaufman’s legacy within USC from both Yudacufski and Julia M. Ritter, appointed dean of Kaufman, the performances began. The program was composed of pieces by three local dance companies, each representing the presence of dance in the Los Angeles community.

“This particular event is focused a little bit more on Los Angeles area companies, which I think is also very exciting, just because Kaufman School of Dance is very L.A., Vision and Voices, USC, obviously, is very L.A.,” said Dane Martens, Assistant Dean of Operations and Strategic Initiatives at Kaufman. “Having it through that lens and presenting our local dance companies is a really great way to celebrate and honor everyone’s legacy.” 

The first performance was by Versa-Style Street Dance Company, which is also celebrating its 20th anniversary. The piece they showcased, “Freemind Freestyle,” featured several classic elements of street dance — hip-hop, popping, locking — but also a fusion with elements of salsa, which served as a nod to the Latin influences in L.A., a consistent theme throughout the night.

The second act was a performance by JA Collective, a duo formed by Jordan Johnson and Aidan Carberry, two alumni from the first cohort of Kaufman students. In an interview, Carberry explained the influence Kaufman had on the routine they performed.

“When we went to Kaufman, it felt like the mission statement was building dance, because you’ve kind of experienced every kind of style, or kind of touched everything. So it’s going to run through so many different styles of dance,” Carberry said. “It’s all the tools we’ve learned there we’re kind of using to build this piece.” 

In addition to performing at Visions and Voices’ celebration, JA Collective is also currently in residency at Kaufman, working with students on choreography that they’ll perform in the Spring 2026 semester. The event gave students involved in the residency a chance to see how their mentors work on stage.

“Just seven years after graduating, [JA Collective has] worked with such huge people and had such cool experiences. It’s really exciting that stuff like that can happen to students who graduate from Kaufman,” said Nolen Dubuc, a freshman majoring in dance who will be performing with JA Collective in the spring. 

Next, CONTRA-TIEMPO Activist Dance Theater, an Afro-Latine dance company, came out on stage to perform their piece, “joyUS justUS.” The piece originally premiered at a Visions and Voices event during the first Trump presidency as a statement on immigration. 

In an interview, Ana Maria Alvarez, Founding Artistic Director of CONTRA-TIEMPO, discussed why she made the decision to bring back “joyUS justUS” years after its debut.  

“I think sometimes it’s easy to say, ‘Oh, we need to just feel better or be happy,’” Alvarez said. “That’s not the kind of joy we’re talking about. The kind of joy we’re talking about is a radical act of taking space from a framework of possibility and power.” 

At the end of the piece, CONTRA-TIEMPO dancers began declaring the rights humans have to the audience, including the “right to tell your story,” the “right to speak,” the “right to be proud of where you’re from,” and the “right to remain unsilenced in pursuit of freedom, justice, joyUS.” 

They ended their piece by asking the audience to rise, declaring “you are joy, they are joy, we are joy, joyUS.” 

DJ Ninabutterfly returned to the stage as members of the audience and the other dance groups went on stage and began to dance together.

“My favorite part of the event, other than the large community and seeing people I know on stage, had to be the last piece and the social outreach that they were able to do on stage while conveying a compositionally sound piece of art,” said Noah Prim, a freshman majoring in dance.

The end of the event brought dancers and non-dancers of all ages to the stage together, in an almost party-like atmosphere set by DJ Ninabutterfly’s remixes.

“For me, it’s about bringing community together through the arts, connecting with each other. I think now more than ever, it’s important for communities to come together across their differences, and to celebrate each other and the power and the role that the arts can have in our lives,” Yudacufski said. “I can’t really think of any other better way than to come together with other people by celebrating the arts.”