The heart of Florida State University’s campus is Landis Green, without a doubt. It is where people gather, meet, have events, celebrate, create memories and more. It is central to the campus and to any Nole’s memory of their time here at FSU. Last year that all changed. It was sparse, gentle and not normal.
Just on the left of Landis, if you are facing the iconic Strozier Library, sits the silent giant Montgomery Hall. Within those walls, magic is made. Home is created. Love and passion are found. Creativity is curated. Montgomery hosts the buzzing world of Florida State’s School of Dance, and after a year and a half sitting quietly, it is back and better than ever.
The entire dance community of Florida State has been waiting for this moment. All majors, minors, professors and students of any field missed out on key moments while FSU was online, but those in the world of performance and art were hit especially hard. Dance class? On Zoom? Sounds impossible, but it was Florida State’s School of Dance’s reality.
For the First Years of the 2020 to 2021 season, many key moments of collegiate dance life were undiscovered. They came to campus and began their collegiate dance training online. Their professors were screens projected on the wall; their classmates zoom squares on a laptop. No shows, no rehearsals and worst of all no performances. The feeling of being on stage, the effort paying off, the emotion and feeling of sharing art was taken away. They ended their senior years without that last performance and were looking at a year where they wouldn’t feel the stage lights warm on their skin, their makeup and hair performance ready. And yet they persisted.
They trained every week, Monday through Friday, took part in film projects and anything to get back what they were at FSU to do—DANCE!
This past Tuesday, they finally had their moment. I am going to be honest here, I am one of those second years who has been counting down the days until now! On Tuesday, we had our auditions for the upcoming dance season and magic was made.
We were together, sharing the space, moving together, all of us, after a year of only dancing over computer and phone screens. It was unreal. We were all so hyped and eager to move together—any dancer knows this feeling.
From the perspective of 13 sophomores in the School of Dance, when asked to, in one word or phrase, describe the feeling of dancing together finally, going through auditions and getting our collegiate dance experience back, they said it feels:
Caroline Walshe: overwhelming but ecstatic
Katie Rolph: like home
Adele Strauss: inspired and motivated
Anna Marie Parish: homey
Sky Barnes: whole
Aleck Condon: welcoming
Sophia Lutinski: connected
Rachel Fontenot: inspired
MacKenzy Jordan: powerful
Callee Egan: GLKSNRYXBALRGAJ
Io Ermoli: like a dream come true
Jasmine Burelsmith: light, like a weight has been lifted
Abby Nelson: powerful.
We are together, and that feels like home. We are inspired and motivated. We are connected. We are overwhelmed but overjoyed. It feels like a dream come true, and a weight lifted off of our shoulders. It’s welcoming, it’s whole, it’s homey and it’s powerful.
The Second Years in the School of Dance at Florida State University are here, and they (we) are a force to be reckoned with.
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