Alicia Pierce adjusts her baggy, purple sweatpants and tightens the shoelaces on her jazz shoes before she walks graciously to the stereo and presses play.

As the music filters through the gymnasium, her petite frame seems to transform. With a blink of an eye, the 56-year-old, 5-foot-2-inch SF State dance lecturer becomes larger than life, able to spring lightly into the air or melt softly onto the floor.

“Professor Pierce is like a tropical fruit that only comes around maybe once, twice if you're lucky, in a lifetime,” said junior dance major Jim Eagan, 23.

A self-described child of the civil rights movement, Pierce has been instructing jazz, African and Haitian dance at SF State for over 30 years. While teaching as many as eight classes each semester, Pierce speaks volumes to her students through dance, movement and energy, to promote the importance of artistic exchange and self-expression.

“Dancing is not just about bodies moving,” said Pierce. “It’s a culture that needs to be shared with the world.”

Through the use of holistic methods, Pierce tries to teach each individual “as a whole,” extending her efforts beyond the dance community, with hopes to educate her students about history, diversity and “how alike we all are, than different,” she said.

“My classes aren’t just for dance majors, but for everyone who’s interested in growing and developing,” said Pierce. “It’s about interfacing students and having some positive influence on them, not just as dancers but as human beings.”

Pierce also infuses her dancing with the techniques of Katherine Dunham, a social activist, humanitarian and dancer during the ’30s and ’40s who used anthropological dance to connect the ethereal world of dance to the concrete world in which we live.

Senior BECA major Stacie Esposito says Pierce’s Dance Aesthetics class has helped her see past her preconceptions about dance.

“Alicia’s taught me that dancers aren’t just dancers. They can be writers, humanitarians, anthropologist and even teachers,” said Esposito, 21. “She brings her class to life and adds so much meaning to the text making me think deeper into dance and what it all means.”

Born in Oakland, but raised in New Orleans, Pierce’s passion for dance runs through her veins.

“It’s not possible to grow up in New Orleans without music and dance,” said Pierce, whose mother exposed her to dance school and the arts at an early age.

After graduating high school, Pierce returned to the Bay Area where she began her undergraduate studies at SF State during the fall of 1969. But it wasn’t until her junior year that she embraced the idea of dance as a career and graduated with a bachelor’s in physical education with an emphasis in dance and children’s movement.

During her education at SF State, Pierce witnessed an environment of social change and urban unrest as the civil rights movements spread throughout the country.

“Free speech and dance were in full force,” said Pierce, who grouped with other dance students to channel activism through dance and other artistic movements.

She began teaching dance community centers and after school enrichment programs with hopes to uplift the community.

“What can I say, I’ve just always loved to teach,” said Pierce.

In addition, she performed and held classes through SF State’s E.M.B.A.J.E., a student ensemble of artists, drummers, musicians, and poets connected to the African diasporas including Haiti, Brazil and the Caribbean.

Immediately following her graduation in 1974, Pierce was hired at the university as a lecturer where she taught classes on posture, control and theater.

Over three decades later, Pierce claims she is still as vibrant as ever, joining her students at the ballet bar during her jazz class and shaking her tailbone in colorfully evocative steps and fierce movement during her Afro-Haitian classes.

“You can tell she loves what she does, and that dance is her passion. When she shows us dance steps she really puts energy and thought into it, and she makes sure we do the same,” said junior biology major Lisa Ethridge, 19.

Besides teaching classes at SF State, Pierce is also a dance instructor at City College of San Francisco (CCSF), teaching back to back, two hour classes every Saturday afternoon.

“I have a lot of energy and I love what I do,” said Pierce. “I’ve learned how to conserve energy over the years.”

And students who have taken several classes with Pierce say that her teaching methods have changed too.

“I’ve noticed an evolution in her,” said CCSF student Char Whyte, 40, who graduated from SF State in 1997 with a master’s in theater. “She comes from a disciplined dance background, so she has high expectations. But over the years she’s adjusted and become more accessible to those of all varieties, not just the disciplined.”

Although she’s pushing her 60s, she is passionate about her career and her students and doesn’t plan on retiring anytime soon.

“I’ll be teaching for as long as I can walk, as long as I can function,” said Pierce.