Foreword

I recently read about the work of Brazilian-born dancer Mickaella Dantas in a May 2021 Dance Magazine edition. Since the age of 12, Dantas has worn a prosthetic leg. The limitless possibilities she explores, particularly within the theme of paradox, intrigued me as a choreographer and dance educator. Dantas described working with Portuguese choreographer Clara Andermatt on a project in 2012 and Andermatt’s choreographic prompt to “explore walking backwards as though you are walking forward” as a pivotal moment. Dantas reacted by wearing her prosthetic backwards as she moved in space. This inconceivable image of a dancer arriving and departing at the same time immediately felt like an overarching theme to introduce this powerful collection of essays by Wake Forest University student-artists.

As students were writing these essays, the Covid pandemic forced them and artists everywhere to reimagine how we shared our work, how we continued to stretch and learn, and how we maintained our identities and sense of purpose at a time when we could not gather together in person. Artists always line up on a precipice of uncertainty, with their bodies, hearts, and minds exposed. For our students who contributed to this collection, when uncertainty was paramount in the pandemic, they lined up with ingenuity and a willingness to admit that operating in the unknown can be a source of wisdom. To me, this is what leadership looks like.

When Dantas referenced the work of British anthropologist Tim Ingold who said “every movement I make is also a movement of my attention,” a eureka moment of dotted lines connected me from Dantas’ article to the wisdom shared in the poignant essays and poems in this collection. I am reminded of Mary Costanza’s persistent and painstaking devotion to detail and perfection as a ballet dancer, of Liat Klopouh’s powerful resilience gleaned from years of piano training, and Adarian Sneed’s heartfelt love letter to her beloved partner: the theatre. I am grateful to Grace Powell for sharing her mature realization that one’s perspective can (quietly) be shouted from behind a camera lens and to Brianna Coppolino for her daring and beautiful defiance of singing duets during the Covid pandemic with a friend…safely outdoors for one another and for the forest to hear.

I am overwhelmed by these young artists and scholars’ abilities to be brave and vulnerable at the same time. I am grateful they found strength in recognizing that their identities as artists—hyphenated and with the many other complex, interdisciplinary foci in which they devote themselves—give them strength and purpose. They are tremendous Wake Forest ambassadors, and I am grateful for the superpowers they share with us in their artistic work and in their creative, thoughtful writing. May they go on and sparkle in the spaces between agony and ecstasy, awe and wonder, and may they always know their Wake Forest Arts family is deeply proud of them.

As we return to crowded theatres, art galleries, dance studios, music halls, and practice rooms once again, let us remember how the arts and artists carried us through a dark time, and as we reconvene into what Émile Durkheim calls “collective effervescence” once again—may the shared purpose of catharsis: of laughing, crying, learning, and growing together be among the most important things we celebrate. Artists teach us this and demonstrate it over and over again.

These students remind us that this is among our most important experiences as human beings.

Christina Soriano, Associate Provost for the Arts and Interdisciplinary Initiatives, July 15, 2021