In the calm and quiet of winter break on campus, Dana Caspersen encourages students to “step into messy situations” in the light-filled Nicholas Dance Studios on the Douglass Campus.
Johsian Martinez, a BFA/EdM Dance Education student, says his experiences at a performing-arts charter school, with teachers who accepted him as he was made all the difference and informed his own choice to become an educator.
Percussionist and Dance Department Music Coordinator (MGSA alum, DMA 2016) Mesia Austin serves as an accompanist, providing improvised music, on the spot, for MGSA Modern Dance Technique classes.
Dancer Ariana Speight and flute performance major Sana Colter met as Douglass Residential College students. That rich friendship eventually yielded C.R.E.A.T.E., Cultural Rhythm Expressing Art To Empower.
The Dance & Parkinson’s program at Mason Gross, uses music and movement to empower them. And a new film from the school’s Documentary Film Lab captures just how moving, and joyful, that process can be.
Art & design student Aaron Lewis had zero dance training— but he chose to transfer to the dance program anyway. On Lewis’s second try, he made it.
In the several classes he teaches at Franklin dance alum Aaron Ramos is working on dances that he says “people need to see and hear,” with subjects including immigration and the #MeToo movement.