By Ashley Bowden
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Fritzlyn Hector, seventeen-year veteran of the broadway show STOMP! is the newest full-time faculty member of the department of dance. She is internationally known, having toured to various countries including Europe, Africa, Canada and every U.S. state. Her work with STOMP! currently consists of helping facilitate auditions and training new cast members. When she’s not teaching on campus, she is training new “stompers”. “I train cast members for six to eight weeks for each role. If we have a large group, we start filtering them in one or two at a time per week, and while that process is happening, we’re still training,” Hector said.
Hector was hired by the STOMP! company in 1999 and began her training in New York. The company sends out tours based in five different locations worldwide including London, England and New York at the Orpheum Theatre. “The U.S tour starts in the last week of October. We’re training the new cast members now because we’re going to be shipping them out to different tours,” Hector said. She has participated in each of these tours and considers herself lucky to have done so.
Previously, Hector has been an adjunct faculty member at Hofstra University and was invited as a guest speaker and teacher to Princeton University. In 2013, Hector was invited by Davyd Suber, adjunct professor of dance, to teach a master class on campus. “He and Cara asked me if I would be interested in teaching my work in choreography and showcase,” she said. After being invited back three times, Hector decided to become an adjunct faculty member in 2015. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, and was constantly exposed to Haitian folklore, African and hip-hop culture all at once. Hector teaches a hip-hop dance and culture class as well as an African dance class. She has choreographed the dance student’s senior showcase.
“It’s been a blessed journey. They told me that I was refreshing that I was able to bring new energy to Post,” Hector said. Likewise, she enjoys the energy from the theatre and dance department on campus, “[The faculty] really keep it real about what’s out there for the musical theatre dancers. They see the evolution of how the arts are happening. More musical theatre actors are dancing, so the collaboration is needed more now than ever,” she said.
Hector is also the director of her new dance company, the Fritzation Experience Network. “I performed for the first time at Symphony State. It’s a collaboration of all the genres that I grew up with and that’s what I’ve included in my company,” she said. The company’s genes include jazz, hip-hop and traditional dances from Africa and the Caribbean. Hector is also a company member and rehearsal director at Forces of Nature Dance Theatre Company where she became a principal dancer at age 15. She has been featured on episode 10 of Julie’s Greenroom, a Net ix show hosted by Julie Andrews.
“I feel like this is the era of fusion, and for Post to make that available to students, I think that’s an incredible thing. When they go out it’ll be more realistic in what they find. Post appeals to the diversity of the arts. I feel honored to be part of that process,” Hector said.
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