People of Central: La’Niya Jones

Story and photos by: Zoey Morse

“Honestly, I love making choreography. I love not having rules and being able to do anything that is humanly possible,” CMU dancer La’Niya Jones said.   

Jones found her love of dance at a young age and ran with it. She is currently a junior at Central Michigan University and has been dancing for 12 years. “We have videos of when I was younger doing ballet and tap and not knowing what was going on,” Jones said.  

As Jones has gotten older, she has moved away from ballet and tap to more lyrical, contemporary and jazz styles. “Lyrical contemporary is my favorite. I love being able to express my emotions through dance especially because I am not the best at talking about emotions so any other creative way of expressing emotions is up my ally,” Jones said. 

In high school, Jones really found her passion for dance and community. “My junior year my friend and I got to do our first ever choreographed piece together. It was a lot of fun just being able to make up whatever choreography we wanted at the time,” Jones said. 

Choreography is Jones favorite part of the creative process of dance. She finds it freeing and exciting to be able to express herself through movement and allow other people to feel the same way. “Not having any rules or guidelines of this has to look like this and really being able to experiment different ways to move your body and send out your message,” Jones said.  

The dancer chose CMU for other reasons besides her love for dance. She holds other values very closely such as family, time, campus and student life. Jones did find a dance community at Central, just not with the school dance team.  

Jones is a part of an RSO on campus called Infusion Dance. “We are a student run dance organization and our main goal is just to have fun and express our love for dance,” Jones said.  

The RSO holds two shows each year and dancers get to choreograph their own movements. Dancers also get to pick their own schedules surrounding when they practice and what dances they want to be featured in.  

“It definitely still gets stressful. I know this semester I was really having a hard time deciding what dances I wanted to be in because I wanted to dance so much more. Sadly, I still need time do homework and actually take care of myself.” Jones said. 

Even under stress Jones still finds immense joy and relaxation in the sport. “I think it brings stress but also takes away stress. You really just have to find a good balance for you,” Jones said. 

Jones doesn’t always have the motivation or drive to go dance but there are a few things that keep her going. The community, the freedom and the love she has towards dance keeps her in the sport.  

“Towards the end of high school I didn’t think I was going to continue dancing through college. I just felt like dance was not helping me. I wasn’t feeling the best about myself when I was dancing and I remembered hearing about this RSO and I was like, you know what, I might as well go audition,” Jones said. 

The audition gave her hope she would fall in love with the sport again and ever since she has. “I am really glad I was able to audition. I feel like dancing in college has helped me fall in love with dance again and really being able to express myself and also make amazing connections with other people who love the same thing,” Jones said. 

“Dance is an outlook. I feel really euphoric when I dance. It makes me happy, it makes me sad, it makes me mad, it just makes me feel, which I feel like is so important especially now just because everyone is on their phones and scrolling through TikTok. That makes you feel good for a split second, but I know dance is something I can go to and it will make me feel good all the time,” Jones said. 

Dance has shaped Jone’s life for the better and allowed her to come out of her shell. She feels relieved and confident when she is on stage Infront of people preforming the dances she choreographed. 

“The last performance I got to see my choreography and be a part of it on stage, I think that was the moment I was like wow. Especially considering I wasn’t going to continue dancing. I made a choreographed piece. People are dancing to it, people are clapping and I feel like that was a moment where I realized how much I love what I do,” Jones said.