The term "sex hair" rarely evokes slicked-back ballerina buns packed with bobby pins, but ballet and burlesque are far from disparate to Marian Swain, Tufts senior and managing director of the famously sexy Tufts Burlesque Troupe (TBT).
Swain enrolled in her first ballet class at three years old, and she continued dancing with the same small studio and dance teacher through her senior year of high school.
"Growing up, it was all ballet, all the time," she said.
Here at Tufts, she leads, choreographs for and dances with TBT, and she is involved with the Department of Drama and Dance. Senior Lecturer Daniel McCusker's class on modern dance broadened Swain's creative and technical dancing horizons.
"His class is [Mercier] "Merce" Cunningham technique" — an integral technique in the modern dance canon — "so it's definitely easy to transition to that after ballet. The ballet technique is certainly a really good basis," Swain said.
Swain's strong foundation in ballet has allowed for a versatility in her dancing, which manifests in her experience with TBT, Tufts' second-largest dance group.
"What I like about Burlesque is that it's any skill level," she said, "so whether you're an experienced dancer or you have no experience dancing, we welcome you, and there are all sorts of different styles — hip-hop, technical, jazzy, sexy."
Since her freshman year, Swain has put her classical, technical training to creative uses within the troupe. Forget "The Nutcracker" — this semester, Swain has choreographed a piece to a Wiz Khalifa track, bringing her ballet prowess into a funky, up-to-the-minute context.
Though the talented international relations major does not aim to dance professionally after college — she hopes to use her fluency in German at an international firm — she has no plans to leave the hobby behind her.
"If I'm in the Boston area … there's a big dance community," she said. "Dance is a great way to keep in shape, and it's good for the soul."
