Ohio State Dance Family,
On May 3, we celebrated the graduation of 25 BFA, 7 MFA and 4 PhD students. As I said to them during the ceremony: their success is our success. We claim bragging rights as they continue to create exemplary work, perform on the world stages and lead their generation in innovative dance collaborations with partners from many disciplines.
Our features in this InForm include BFAs Mason Chapello and Laura DeAngelis, and doctoral graduate Janet Schroeder, whose research projects exemplify the range and depth of artistic and scholarly inquiry. These students —like Kelsey Kempner combining her BFA in Dance and BS in Neuroscience to study movement as a tool for children on the autism spectrum—like Hazel Black choreographing a work informed by her social activism, working in a local food pantry---like Kelly Korn creating a website for injury prevention---like many others centering their investigations in performance inspired by personal story……these artists are the heart and soul of Ohio State Dance.
Their remarkable projects find support from faculty mentors like Dr. Karen Eliot, who recently won the 2018 Ratner Award for Distinguished Teaching. Dr. Eliot’s award will result in a collaboration with the Wexner Center for Arts to produce a catalogue of student writing highlighting the performing artist roster for the 2019-20 Wexner season.
Please join me in a heartfelt shout-out to the Ohio State Dance Class of 2019.
