Dance Archives - �鶹ӰԺ University

Choosing Joy: Student speaker Megan Eisenstein’s journey of self-discovery

Communications — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:31:20 +0000

Megan Eisenstein has been selected as the 2026 �鶹ӰԺ University student commencement speaker. A student known for her curiosity, creativity, and commitment to bringing people into civic life, Megan’s academic path was not always clear.��

“I didn’t really know where I was going academically,” Eisenstein said. “I just wanted to try everything.”��

That openness to discovery ultimately led Eisenstein to a major in Government, where she found her passion, while also exploring dance, data science, and statistics along the way, shaping her studies into a blend of logic and creativity.��

“Throughout my time in college I’ve really started to think of my relationship with myself and my surroundings rather than how I relate to other people or what other people think of me,” she said. “Focusing on my own experience actually opened me up to other people further because I really started thinking about my own self.”��

Of course, Eisenstein was not on the journey alone. She had a community of Lawrentians cheering her on. She deeply valued her professors and the opportunities they presented to students, she said, as well as the broader community that has been pivotal in shaping her experience.��

“Being humble and supportive for other people is not only amazing because you’re helping others, but it also helps you be your best self,” she said. “I’ve found that in every space I’ve been,” adding that just being surrounded by authentic, expressive peers has had a lasting impact on her. “I want to take that with me wherever I go because the world needs more of that.”��

Choosing Joy��

Eisenstein’s choir director, Dr. Philip Swan, also made a lasting impact when he told the group that ‘joy is a choice.’��

Eisenstein initially found that proclamation confusing … how could you choose joy? Upon further reflection, however, the statement began to resonate with her.��

“If you notice joy around you and you think about what you’re grateful for, you’re going to be joyous even when circumstances are difficult,” she said.��

If there is one message Eisenstein wants her audience to take away from her remarks at commencement, it is that joy is powerful and can fuel us as we move through our ever-changing world.��

“You just notice it around you, and you find things that make you happy,” she said. “Realizing that helps carry you through difficult things.”��

As Eisenstein reflects on her time at �鶹ӰԺ, she sees more than an academic experience, but a personal journey shaped by community, curiosity, and small moments of joy … lessons she will share from the commencement stage and take with her into her life after �鶹ӰԺ.��

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Robert Battle-led dance performances to culminate inaugural Creator in Residence program

Communications — Mon, 05 May 2025 15:40:30 +0000

Dance performances led by acclaimed choreographer Robert Battle and featuring 13 �鶹ӰԺ University students will be held May 9 and 10, the culmination of the university’s inaugural Creator in Residence program.

Performances are set for 7 p.m. May 9 and 2:30 and 7 p.m. May 10 in the Esch Hurvis Studio in Warch Campus Center. The performances are free and open to the public. In addition, two outreach performances for Appleton Area School District students will be held during the day on May 9.

Battle—working in collaboration with Margaret Paek and Mauriah Donegan Kraker, both visiting assistant professors of dance, and Conservatory music faculty—is leading the students through the creation of an original piece of composition and choreography, titled Gather Together. It is a 20-minute work comprised of three parts. It opens, Donegan Kraker said, with an unfolding or blossoming of material—an adagio that is a welcoming to the work. The middle of the work is a solo for student Ella Fajardo-Wilde, who steadily moves through a landscape that feels like city, sky, and noisy river. She works with a smooth press, a passing through to see the horizon, the possibility of what might be next. The choreography culminates with a celebratory, high-energy ensemble dance—complex and cyclical, folding into and out of various formations.

“As we know from our practices of dance, embodiment creates pathways for curiosity, resiliency, and connection through movement,” Paek said.

Robert Battle works with students on choreography in advance of the May 9-10 performances. (Photo by Danny Damiani)

The creation of the work is part of a Creator in Residence program that aims to bring world-renowned creators to �鶹ӰԺ to collaborate with and inspire students and faculty. Launched in the fall and made possible through a gift from Harold ’72 and Mary Donn ’73 Jordan, the Creator in Residence program speaks to �鶹ӰԺ’s commitment to academic and artistic excellence.��

Battle is an icon in the dance world, having served as artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre from 2011 until late 2023. Future Creator in Residence programming is expected to span a range of disciplines, from sciences to humanities to arts.

Battle has set the tone for the new program over the past year. The connection with students was immediate when he first came to campus for a week-long residency in the fall.��

“These students are multifaceted,” Battle said. “They’re really smart, and they value art, they value dance. They have a lot to express, a lot to say.”

Study dance at �鶹ӰԺ

This innovative program will nourish you as you take an embodied, experimental approach across disciplines to art making.

When he returned to campus in February, Battle worked with students and faculty to prepare a performance built on artistic expression. It evolved organically, collaboratively. Battle said he usually comes in with steps already set, but he wanted this to be a collaborative process, with creative ideas flowing both ways.

“To me, that’s my excitement, to always be learning, investigating, trying new things,” he said. “I think this is a space where I felt safe to do that, very much supported by the faculty and by the dancers.”

Battle is now back on campus, the last leg of his residency, to finalize and present the performance, working in partnership with rehearsal director Donegan Kraker and Conservatory faculty Loren Kiyoshi Dempster and Jean Carlo Ureña Gonzalez.

Donegan Kraker said the performance “celebrates and reflects our collaborative ways of working at �鶹ӰԺ: deep conversation around process, interdisciplinary projects, student/faculty collaborations.”

The musicians, she said, embraced the collaboration as fervently as did the dancers. Prior to Battle’s first visit to campus, Dempster and Ureña Gonzalez worked on building the collaborative process with percussion students by having them watch videos of Battle’s earlier choreographies without sound, co-creating original music ideas along the way.��

Dempster and Ureña Gonzalez then improvised accompaniment for Battle’s dance classes as an initial connection point. They began crafting musical drafts and sending them to Battle for consideration. They brought in multiple traditions, genres, and music cultures, combining inspiration from traditional folk music, Latin jazz, blues, and Baroque classical. During the February residency, Conservatory student Luis Plaza was added to the mix, improvising on piano.��

In the dance rehearsals, there was often at least one musician working live while Battle was setting choreography, and new possibilities emerged.��

“There will be a few surprises – interactions that came about during rehearsals that could only happen with this kind of extended time spent together,” Paek said. “Embodied presence, creating simultaneously in time and space, allows for this kind of powerful collaboration and innovative connection. This kind of hands-on experience—creating art together as faculty, professional artists, and students—this is what �鶹ӰԺ does so well and why the Creator in Residence program is so specifically well-suited to �鶹ӰԺ.”

Fajardo-Wilde, a sophomore from Brooklyn, New York, said the experience has been energizing.

“When working with Robert Battle as he set work on me for my solo, we flowed in collaboration, even incorporating a section of improvisation in my solo,” she said. “This made me excited to keep coming back to work with him.”

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Dancer Michelle Gibson to bring energy as guest teacher; community event set for April 14

Communications — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 13:52:25 +0000

Michelle N. Gibson, a dancer, choreographer, and cultural ambassador who works with New Orleans “second line” dance traditions, will spend five days at �鶹ӰԺ University highlighted by a Sunday, April 14 event at Memorial Chapel.

The community event, set for 3 p.m., is free and open to the public. Gibson will be joined by a combo featuring �鶹ӰԺ music students.

“It is not a sit back and passively-be-entertained kind of performance, but a community event,” said Margaret Paek, visiting assistant professor of dance at �鶹ӰԺ. “Michelle uses the second line aesthetic originating from traditional New Orleans jazz parades to educate and uplift as she gets everyone moving with her.”

Michelle Gibson will be a guest teacher in multiple dance courses at �鶹ӰԺ before leading a community dance event on April 14.

In the days leading up to the performance, Gibson will be meeting with students and guest teaching several classes, including Musicians in Movement, Articulating the Solo Body, and Dance Collective Ensemble. �鶹ӰԺ introduced a new dance minor in 2023.

“She has infectious, embodied energy that brings people together and builds healing, wholeness, and belonging,” said Paek, who knows Gibson from graduate school.

She calls Gibson a “force of nature” and said she’s excited for Gibson to share these dances alongside �鶹ӰԺ students at the April 14 event, titled A Congo Square Gathering: A Reverence for Culture and Healing for Humanity, Down by The Riverside.

“It is a fabulous collaborative opportunity for the five �鶹ӰԺ student jazz musicians who will be playing with her,” Paek said. “They will get professional experience working with a stellar choreographer, playing both pre-determined songs and improvising for her.”

Learn about dance at �鶹ӰԺ

This innovative program will nourish you as you take an embodied, experimental approach across disciplines.

Raised in New Orleans, Gibson is well acquainted with gospel, jazz, traditional funeral processions, Congo Square gatherings, the Black church, and Second Line parades celebrating community, according to her biography. Together, her dance and music experiences inform her instruction of African American vernacular dance forms.

Gibson received her BFA in Dance from Tulane University and her MFA from Hollins University/American Dance Festival at Duke University. She moved to Dallas and launched her dance career in the early 2000s and has performed all over the world. She is a consummate storyteller, employing body and mind to build a bridge between the arts and academia.

The New York Times featured Gibson and her Second Line workshops in 2022: “In Gibson’s workshops, she starts by helping students find the second line beat in their bodies, the bounce in their feet, hips, shoulders, heads. A strut shifts into a skip, because the dance has to cover ground. Gibson, who calls herself ‘sassy and saucy’ and refers to herself at ‘Mz. G,’ is an encouraging, permission-giving coach.”

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New dance minor at �鶹ӰԺ puts emphasis on collaborative skills

Communications — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 20:02:54 +0000

A new dance minor has been introduced at �鶹ӰԺ University, the culmination of years of effort to build a comprehensive dance program.

In full, Dance: Embodied Collaborative Practice minor and interdisciplinary area is a lofty name.��

“All of the words are important,” said Mauriah Donegan Kraker, visiting assistant professor of dance. “The minor values every body, practice as research, and kinetic intelligence. Collaborative practice is the foundation of our study. Each dance class, rehearsal space, or performance at �鶹ӰԺ supports the individual with tools for strengthening their own artistic voice and deepening their collaborative skills.”��

Tori Schneider (left) and Madeleine Tevonian take part in a Dance Collective Ensemble class.

Margaret S. Paek, also a visiting assistant professor of dance, said the goal is not to teach mimicry but to discover an individualized understanding of one’s body.��

“Embodiment denotes a relationship to the senses and experiences, rather than the look of a move or any (jazz hands) presentation,” she said.

The title’s emphasis on collaboration reflects a hallmark of dance at �鶹ӰԺ. Kraker and Paek said they resist an authoritarian, hierarchical classroom structure, and instead embrace critical pedagogy and hope to collaborate with students.

“The goal for me is to support their dance inquiries and for students to grow into artistic peers to be creating within the room,” Paek said. “… We can’t collaborate unless we all have agency.”

Study dance at �鶹ӰԺ

Dance at �鶹ӰԺ values every body, practice as research, and kinetic intelligence. Collaborative practice will be the foundation of your study.

The idea of practice is equally central in the degree’s scope. There is no endpoint for dance at �鶹ӰԺ—the faculty view it as a continuous journey.��

Dance programs did not always exist at �鶹ӰԺ. Paek was recruited by Brian Pertl, dean of the Conservatory of Music, in 2015. Since then, Paek and Kraker—hired in 2021 through the theater program—have gradually built the department.��

“For me, music and dance are all part of the same expressive/creative continuum,” Pertl said.��“I want all our �鶹ӰԺ musicians, and really all our �鶹ӰԺ students, to have the opportunity to explore their creative birthright through embodied practice. For our musicians, dance deepens expressive musicality. It deepens creativity and provides yet another artistic path to experience the magic and joy of artmaking. The dance minor is a beautiful leap forward for all Lawrentians.”��

The dance minor incorporates classes that have already been developed.

“That has been done informally, structurally through our years together,” Kraker said.��

Tori Schneider, a senior art history major from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, is among the first students to pursue the dance minor. She said she’s thrilled to see the growth in dance at �鶹ӰԺ. When she first took Contact Improvisation, she was in a class of 15 students. A year later—she was working as the course’s teaching assistant—there were more than 30 signups.��

“Dance has exploded here,” Schneider said.

That’s part of the momentum that’s building, Paek said. Establishing the dance minor is the next step, providing increased visibility for the program. Students who have been committed to dance now have a more tangible path. Among those students is Schneider, who has been taking dance classes since her first year on campus.

“I think that the ability to actually achieve a minor really gives the students who put a lot of effort into dance … something to show for it,” she said.��

Ella Rose Schaefer participates in a dance rehearsal in Warch Campus Center.��

Schneider finds strong connections between her art history major and her dance minor. The topics often collide in performance art, which Schneider plans to center her senior capstone on.��

“[Although] they may seem very different on the surface level … dance is a form of art,” she said.

Paek elaborated: “The way that we think about dance is dance through a lens that you can engage with anything. So, in one aspect, you can bring whatever you’re majoring in and whatever your interests are and use it as a lens to research.”��

The interdisciplinary nature of the minor allows for course connections all around the university. Students seeking the dance minor will take classes related to kinesiology, musicology, musical performance, stagecraft, and theater.��

Kraker cautions not to consider dance “supplemental”: “Our lineage [of dance here]”, she said, “is an organization of movement, in solo and ensemble ways.”��

Students have a long history of organized dance groups, including a competitive team, swing club, and studio. In addition, guest dance artists visit �鶹ӰԺ every term, often working directly with students.��

“We’re teaching tactics that are about how you are stepping into the next site of performance,” Kraker said.

That could mean preparing for an interview, or how to gracefully navigate holding power in a room, or “how your body is in relationship to a community,” she said.��

The minor aims to foster individualized and liberating dance experiences. Awareness and reflection are placed above perfection and competition.

“The environment is just really warm,” Schneider said. “They’re encouraging people—no judgment at all.”��

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�鶹ӰԺ dance lecturer Kraker chosen for prestigious MacDowell Fellowship

Communications — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 15:24:12 +0000

Mauriah Donegan Kraker, lecturer of dance, has received a prestigious 2023 MacDowell Artist-in-Residency Fellowship.

Selected from a pool of more than 1,800 applicants, she joins 141 other fellows – architects, composers, filmmakers, interdisciplinary artists, theater artists, visual artists, writers, and poets – from 23 states and 11 countries for a month-long residency. MacDowell’s stated mission “is to nurture the arts by offering talented individuals an inspiring residential environment in which to produce enduring works of the creative imagination.”

While in Peterborough, New Hampshire, this spring, Kraker will research and further develop a new dance work alongside New York-based collaborator Leah Wilks. Together, they function as the duo , serving as co-choreographers, performers, and sound creators.

“A MacDowell Fellowship deeply supports and nourishes my choreographic research, encourages me to stay with an imaginative state of research/play while being fully supported with space and time in a way that is not often available to a dance artist/educator,” Kraker said.��

Learn more about dance at �鶹ӰԺ

This innovative program will nourish you as you take an embodied, experimental approach across disciplines.��

The creative work during this fellowship will be in sync with the learning happening at �鶹ӰԺ, said Kraker, who teaches movement practices in the Theatre Arts department.

“This is the dance and artmaking we believe in and facilitate in each dance class at �鶹ӰԺ: deep conversation around artistic process, interdisciplinary collaboration, student/faculty multi-media collaborations,” she said. “This cross-pollination of idea, interest, training is what makes �鶹ӰԺ unique and is what sets up our artists for post-�鶹ӰԺ success. I look forward to returning to �鶹ӰԺ in four weeks and sharing my research methodologies with my classes at �鶹ӰԺ.”

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