Exactly three months ago, I gave a talk to the students, staff and faculty in the Department of Dance explaining why I wanted to become their next chair. Believe it or not, in my five-year vision for the department, navigating a pandemic did not come to mind! In fact, in part of my speech I joked about how most of my leadership experience (interim chair in the Department of Theatre and Dance at UC San Diego, president of The Congress on Research in Dance) had involved major crisis management on my part and how excited I was to lead a strong department, in a strong institution with growth on the horizon. I seeded some ideas for study abroad programs, community engagement projects, big events in collaboration with the other arts departments at the launch of the new Arts District.

I should have known better!

None of us imagined ourselves in the current situation. I’ll admit that as a faculty member of almost a certain age, I had not embraced online teaching. I love being with my students in a classroom or studio. As the emergency situation progressed and announcements were made, I had no idea how we would move our deeply embodied work online. But after a few Zoom meetings with faculty and grad students sharing their brilliant ideas about how to be artists, scholars and teachers in this new situation, I was profoundly moved.

Of course, artists find a way! We always have! The arts are where we go for inspiration, emotional connections, love, hope, joy and escape.