Dancing Like Nobody’s Business

Growing up in Hawaii and San Diego, Sharon Dobson was a member of a host of dance groups, ranging from ballet to hula, tap to jazz. She practiced tirelessly and performed for audiences large and small. The more she learned, the more she fell in love with her craft.

Sharon Dobson, who has danced since she was a young child, incorporates dance into her Fundamentals of Corporate Finance class.

At the same time, she pursued a career in the world of finance – an area not typically associated with the arts.

“While dance and business may appear to be disparate fields, they share many similarities,”  said Dobson, a lecturer who teaches finance and marketing. “Both require adaptability, creativity, discipline, hard work, and teamwork to achieve success.”

Dobson was so deeply impacted by this learning, she decided to incorporate it into every quarter of her Fundamentals of Corporate Finance class – a class required for all students pursuing degrees in the Orfalea College of Business. She does this by offering a compelling extra credit opportunity to students toward the end of her class, one that has become her trademark.

This opportunity is three-fold: Should they choose to take part in the assignment, students read a collection of articles relating to the connection between dance and business, and shortly after, attend a dance performance – most recently, one put on by Cal Poly’s very own Orchesis Dance Company. Then, finally, students write a reflective essay about their personal takeaways, what new insights the experience might’ve evoked, and how the performance left an impression on their understanding of dance, business, and the marriage between the two.

Each quarter, Dobson succeeds in getting her point across to the business major masses. A large majority of the class attends the dance performance, and accordingly, these students glean a renewed appreciation for the dance world, perhaps even seeing it in an entirely different light.

When I took the class in the fall of 2021, I walked away inspired and newly keen on the creativity, power, and imagination involved in the dance world. As I watched the different dances during the show and contemplated the work that went into each and every one, it made me think of the slow, extensive process of developing such intricate choreography.

Amishi Jain, a business administration student, is captain of the Bollywood dance team. (Photo courtesy of Amishi Jain)

Just as Dobson intended, I quickly internalized that synonymously with choreographing a dance, business decisions must too be approached with creativity, clearly defined roles, and the expectation of patience.

The assignment even enhances student performance in the finance class.

“In dance, one cannot become a dancer immediately without practice,” said Dobson, who is also the faculty advisor for the Cal Poly Andaaz Dance Club and a board member of Cal Poly Arts and Orchestra Novo.  “Similarly, in a corporate finance class, warming up and getting ‘fiscally fit’ are crucial to making sure that one develops the skill to not only succeed in class, but also to succeed in the business world.”

The power of dance as a tool to succeed in other areas of life is a sentiment not only shared by past and present Dobson students, but also embodied by other dancers in the Orfalea College community. Economics professor Katya Vasilaky danced professionally for the San Francisco Ballet for several years before becoming an academic. Meanwhile, third-year Business Administration student and Bollywood dance team captain Amishi Jain lives and breathes the symmetries of dance and business in her everyday life.

“Even though they seem like completely different fields, in the end the principles are very similar,” said Jain, who is also VP of Marketing for the Cal Poly Women in Business club. “With dance, you have to have dedication and practice in order to be the best dancer possible. Same with marketing, sales, and business. You have to get experience in order to become the best and move your way up. You start off as a team member, and if you do well, then you get a promotion to captain.”

When examining the parallels between the two worlds, Jain finds no shortage of commonalities – even when considering their final outcomes.

“In dance, if you’re in a leadership position, your customer is your dance team and the audience that you’re performing for,” Jain explains. “In business, your customer is whatever company you’re working with, and the client to which the company is selling.

“The purpose of dance is to entertain; the purpose of business is to help the client,” she added. “But you see the parallel: they have different objectives in the end, but the processes are very similar.”

In addition to being heavily involved in the arts, Sharon Dobson, left, has been a lecturer at Cal Poly’s Orfalea College of Business for many years. Here, she’s pictured at the 2023 commencement. (Photo: Pat Pemberton0

Dance has also enabled Jain to recognize the importance of humility, teamwork, and the importance of each and every member of a team – not just those who are on top.

“It really helps me see how important teamwork is because one might think, ‘Oh, this person’s not in a high leadership position, they don’t matter,’” she said. “But if they don’t show up, the choreographer must change so many different things in order to deliver the same results.”

Dobson values this idea, viewing it as an important takeaway for her finance students to absorb.

In any successful business, she said, a team of employees must all work together to achieve a common goal.

“Choreographers and directors are at the venue to prepare dancers for their performances and to keep the group accountable, just like managers in a firm who ensure employees stay productive and create value.”

Staff writer Neta Bar is a third year business administration student with a concentration in marketing.