This is the fifth of a series of Dancer Spotlights to show how dancing fits into someone’s day.

Lewis is an engineer at an aerospace company. He describes himself as a “Nerdy Asian kid with 2 left feet” when he first took Social Dance 1 with Richard Powers as a freshman at Stanford. At the time, he never imagined being skilled in dancing. While the situation was discouraging, Lewis was very motivated and kept at it — determined to not give up.

And now, Lewis has been dancing for 9 years. He continues to dance once or twice a week, and occassionally hosts or DJs social dance parties. Lewis has also been taking a hip hop class for the past month, after first starting with Ronnie Reddick’s hip hop classes at Stanford.

On Friday, Lewis enjoyed cooking dinner and hanging out with his friend before going to hip hop. After dancing, he felt euphoric — the dance was awesome and he felt really connected with the teacher. Lewis and his friend enthusiastically discussed which parts of the dance they loved on their way home. When home, Lewis reviewed the video a few times to relive the experience, then puttered around the house the rest of his night, doing the laundry and other random tasks.

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To Lewis, dancing means community: “My friends are very some of the most talented, amazing people ever and I’m happy that we’ve kept up bonds through and after school.  While most of us tread very diverse academic/professional paths and keep ourselves incredibly busy, our mutual love of dance continuously brings us together.  Dances are a wonderful opportunity to reconnect and form new friendships.”