In just two years, Kenna Mueller ’27 helped lead the Occidental Dance Team from a spirit squad to a nationally competing, student-run program grounded in passion and community.
When Kenna Mueller ’27 arrived at Occidental College, she wasn’t searching for a national-level dance career. The former competitive gymnast had never participated in dance prior to arriving at Occidental, but by the spring of her first year she decided to audition for the Occidental Dance Team after feeling she hadn’t yet found her people on campus. “I was really just looking for community,” says Mueller, a biochemistry major from Pennsylvania. The decision to audition quickly reshaped her Oxy experience.
That leap led to far more than weekly rehearsals. By her sophomore year, Mueller had become captain of the Dance Team, helping steer the squad through its most ambitious transformation yet: shifting from being a spirit group supporting athletics to a technically rigorous, competitive squad that participated in collegiate tournaments. Alongside co-captain Julie Wang ’27—a psychology major from Seattle who has danced competitively for nearly two decades—Mueller helped spearhead fundraising, choreography decisions, and logistics to make that vision real. “We were like, ‘Let’s see if we have the money for it, let’s raise money and let’s do it,’” she recalls.
The results have been demanding and exhilarating. The 13-member team holds four practices a week, with members expected to practice on their own outside of team rehearsals. Full dress rehearsals take place on Sundays—complete with costumes, hair, and makeup—with strength and conditioning sessions during the week. “We're in the gym, we're training, we're doing everything to take care of ourselves. Besides being for fun, dance can also be a physically intense sport,” Muller explains.
But it’s not all work for the team. The community they’ve come to form extends beyond practice and into bonding moments that can be found during lunch, shared classes, and through off-campus excursions. “I’ve never felt so close to such a big group of people,” Mueller says.
That camaraderie is pushing the team forward as they prepare to enter competitive spaces alongside dance teams that come equipped with school funding and coaching staff. The group receives a modest annual budget from ASOC and must raise thousands of dollars more to cover competition fees, travel, choreography, and costumes. Captains and executive board members coordinate everything from costume design and sourcing to registration paperwork and recruiting. For their upcoming national competition in Anaheim this February 21-22, the team enlisted a professional choreographer to teach them a routine in the Pom-style of dance.
Being a fully student-run program has its pros and cons (the administrative tasks can be cumbersome, Mueller admits). Decisions are made collaboratively and creative visions are shaped through group discussion, and this dependence on each other fosters a sense of ownership that has deepened the commitment toward the team.
Within Occidental’s vibrant dance culture—alongside student clubs like Dance Production, Pulse, and Oxy K-Tigers—the Dance Team occupies a distinctive niche, though many participate in other dance clubs as well. With a strong first-year and sophomore base, the team is growing and progressing beyond half-time shows. As the team heads to nationals, they carry not just a polished routine, but the collective pride of a group that quite literally danced its way into something extraordinary. “Working together and building this community has just been so amazing,” Mueller says. “I've accomplished things that I never thought I'd be able to, which is really great to do with all your friends around.”
