Photo Courtesy of Ben Hosig
Mason Employee shares his special talent in tap dancing.
BY MADALYN GODFREY, STAFF WRITER
As students, it is often forgotten that the staff that support and advise us have lives of their own, with stories of who they are and how they came to be.
Ben Hosig is no exception. Hosig, the current Financial Specialist for the College of Performance and Visual Arts (CPVA) and former Business and Office Manager of Student Media, has worked for Mason over the past four and a half years. When he’s not working, you can find him participating in his lifelong passion.
“I am a tap dancer and have been a tap dancer for, oh goodness, the majority of my life. I started when I was six years old, and I now teach a weekly one-hour advanced tap technique class at a studio called Creative Dance Center, so I really enjoy putting my [tap] shoes on once or twice a week,” said Hosig.
But how did Hosig go from tap dancing at six to now working in finances for Mason and teaching dance classes at Creative Dance Center?
It all started the moment he first got his first pair of tap shoes.
“The moment I put on my tap shoes and started dancing, I couldn’t stop,” said Hosig. “By the time I got into my teens, I would cover dance classes for my instructors and after I graduated from high school, I took a gap year to study theatre, where I taught, choreographed and performed… for all my life I wanted to be a tap dancer.”
After his gap year, Hosig found himself at the Boston Conservatory focusing on a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Musical Theatre, but not for too long.
“I had the opportunity to work with Savion Glover, an amazing performer, in New York City, while I was studying theatre,” said Hosig. “But I took a leave of absence and went back and forth, left school in my early 20s and sort of went out on my own.”
That was until he met his wife.
“I actually was performing the night I met the love of my life, and shortly there after we were inseparable,” said Hosig.
Hosig left the East Coast to head to Arizona as his wife was accepted into the Ph.D. program at Arizona State university, but not without facing challenges along the way.
“I had a congenital defect in my spine and I needed to have a spinal fusion; and so, I waived the risk-reward of solely being a tap dancer to having my life,” said Hosig.
A decision that set him onto the path he is on now.
“Even though I was determined to keep dancing in my life in some way or another, I knew I need options,” said Hosig. “I had the opportunity to really think about my future and what I wanted to do in the dance and arts. There was a program at Arizona State focused specifically on arts administration and that’s what I did.”
After graduation, Hosig found himself in a decade-long career of working with the arts.
“From working in arts education at The Bushnell and the Hartford Symphony orchestra in Connecticut, to managing a theatre alongside my wife, to even fundraising and helping with finances for the Shakespeare Theatre Company, I always wanted to be around the arts in some type of capacity,” said Hosig. “And over the past 10 years, I have been grateful to spend most of my time working at or in support of art organizations, even with continuing my career at Mason with Student Media and now CPVA.”
With such a life of opportunities, hardships and decisions, Hosig leaves students with advice as they carry on their path inside and outside of college.
“Life throws you curveballs that will make you face instances of crossroads where you have to make difficult decisions where sometimes it may not initially be your most desired outcome,” said Hosig. “But ultimately we learn from them and it makes us who we are. Through all the failures, success and heartaches, it makes you, you. Life is very short, don’t worry about the future. Life is about living, so we don’t want to waste these moments that we have because you may never get another one.”
Ben Hosig: A father, a husband, a manager, a financial specialist, a tap dancer, but most of all, a person with a life well-lived.
