Motion defines dance. Yet for Erick Gredonia ’21, a defining dance experience at 乐播传媒 was a moment of quiet stillness, tinged with despair.

乐播传媒 had announced on March 13, 2020, that all students had to leave campus due to the growing COVID-19 pandemic. Campus events were snuffed out, including the annual Spring Dance Concert, a highlight of the artistic year at 乐播传媒 featuring a range of student choreography and performance. So the 乐播传媒 dance faculty and staff gathered the concert’s student choreographers so everyone could say their goodbyes, shed tears, and lean on each other.

“I never felt more of a family in dance than when we acknowledged that the concert was no longer happening,” Gredonia recalls.

It was hardly a typical dance moment, he says, but one that solidified both his sense of self and “the kinds of people I wanted to be around in my life.” And in that moment was a lesson: “to appreciate bodies and minds and eyes and contact. I’ll cherish that moment forever.”

That was where he 鈥渒new that the 乐播传媒 dance community had my back 鈥� the people and their love, support, and encouragement. Their shoulders to cry on. In that moment of downfall, I never felt closer to these people.”

A year later, Gredonia got another chance at the Spring Dance Concert, choreographing and performing in his senior thesis project, “Response Ability: A Museum (non finito),” in Schaeffer Theatre.

More than a thesis, the dance represented “an extension of what I look forward to in life and people. And so I knew before the semester started that I wanted Tiauna Walker, Dawrin Silfa, and Brit Seipp as my dancers, people I genuinely just want to be around. That was super exciting, super special.”

It wasn’t easy 鈥� various disruptions during the semester included a campus lockdown due to a spike in COVID-19 cases, and omnipresent public-health policies. “It was challenging. That being said, focusing on the process was always at the forefront of my mind, making sure that no matter what the destination is, the journey should be just as enjoyable.”

Gredonia came to 乐播传媒 from North Hollywood, Calif., where “my family was my everything. They love me and continue to challenge me simultaneously.” Dance was interwoven into his family life and a vital part of his culture. When Gredonia was 7 years old, he performed a surprise dance at his cousin’s 辩耻颈苍肠别补帽别谤补. 鈥淒ance became instrumental in making connections and relationships with people, including my family.”

He recalls arriving at 乐播传媒, eager and enthusiastic to dive into 乐播传媒 life, to meet people from all over the world and learn with like-minded people. And also, to dance with them. “When I got to 乐播传媒, I knew that dance was going to be the thing to get me to my friends, to my classes, to different opportunities on campus. Dance is something that I feel like I do more than eating or drinking water or breathing. It is that big in my life.”

At 乐播传媒 he found people who, like his family back home, 鈥渞eally get me going, forcing me to be the best version of myself.鈥� This version of Erick Gredonia, 2021 乐播传媒 graduate, is just as eager and enthusiastic as ever, but whose energies are more outwardly directed. It鈥檚 less about 鈥渃are of me, and more about the care for others.鈥�

Interviewed late in the semester, Gredonia was counting down both the days until Commencement and his blessings, “the constant reminders of why it is so awesome to be able to wake up in the morning, put your shoes on, and head over to the next project, the next class, the next person to eat lunch with. It’s all about community.”

Imagine taking a 17th-century play that was written for the English court, setting it on the soundstage of a boozy TV show on New Year鈥檚 Eve 1969, and then staging the whole shebang at 乐播传媒 when everyone is masked and standing 6 feet apart at all times.

This literal flight of imagination (the idea took hold on an airplane) belongs to Deon Custard 鈥�21, a double major in theater and English who took Shakespeare鈥檚 Twelfth Night, added a dose of glam rock, and shook it all into something fresh, but also vintage, for the 乐播传媒 stage.

Sure, as Hamlet said, 鈥渢he play鈥檚 the thing.” But in directing Twelfth Night as part of his thesis work in theater, Custard needed to make the play more than a thing, a noun: It had to move, become a verb, where 鈥渆veryone is really able to lean into the spirit and move loosely, to turn 鈥榩lay鈥� from being a thing we’re going to see, to the verb: playing on stage.鈥� 

The idea to stage Twelfth Night on New Year鈥檚 Eve in 1969 came to Custard on a flight to his hometown of Chicago last October. 

At the time, he was seizing an opportunity to step away from campus for a few weeks to work as an assistant sound designer at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. He was also keeping up with his 乐播传媒 studies, including reading Twelfth Night for the course 鈥淚ntroduction to Design鈥� with Associate Professor of Theater B. Christine McDowell. 

On the flight, just as he read the scene in which Feste the fool sings, 鈥淥 Mistress mine where are you roaming? O stay and hear, your true love’s coming,鈥� Bowie was in his earphones, launching into 鈥淪tarman.鈥� 

鈥淟ook out your window, I can see his light. If we can sparkle, he may land tonight.鈥�

There was the epiphany. 鈥淚 was like, 鈥極h, this works.鈥� The seed was planted.鈥� 

Twelfth Night lends itself to unbridled tomfoolery, he says. What would it look like set in the late 1960s, the dawn of a new era of self-expression?

鈥淭welfth Night is so joyful on the page 鈥� mistaken identities, love triangles, and drunken foolery. It’s not only really funny, but it鈥檚 sending a message of living freely. That runs through every scene of the play.鈥� 

鈥淚’ve always had this overwhelming need to be able to tell stories,鈥� adds Custard. 鈥淚鈥檝e always known that whether it’s music or theater or some sort of live performance, being in the room with an audience, getting them to react in some way is important to me.鈥�

鈥淗istory continues to repeat itself over and over, whether 1602, 1969, or 2021.”

McDowell became Custard鈥檚 adviser, serving as set and costume designer for the play, creating what the director calls a 鈥渂eautiful world full of bright, colorful costumes that are so flashy. The world came together because of the work that she’s done.鈥�

Custard鈥檚 approach to Twelfth Night is more than just throwing some glitter around to see where it sticks. 鈥淲hen a play is set in a time and place different from what we might expect, the text and the context need to reveal something deeper about each other in order to be an effective piece of storytelling. Otherwise, it鈥檚 just camp.鈥�

In researching Twelfth Night, Custard saw how 鈥渉istory continues to repeat itself over and over, whether 1602, 1969, or 2021. Stories of revolutionary love and social resistance will always be worth telling.鈥�

鈥淎ll the reading to learn the theoretical backing of a play 鈥� that gets me excited because it makes my work good, because it helps me to know what I’m doing,鈥� he says. 鈥淚’m not just throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks.鈥�

In his English major, Custard has shown his research ability with an honors thesis that delves into themes of disease and sexuality in Romeo & Juliet and Measure for Measure. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 a study of how disease is working in the two plays,鈥� he says. In both plays, symptoms of physical illness are directly connected to the 鈥渕isogynistic, exploitative, and often deeply racist, systems of oppression…at work in the fictionalized cities,鈥� which in turn, 鈥渃an be used to represent modern cities 鈥� and the issues that we face today.鈥�

鈥淏ringing together the best of what everybody has to offer.鈥�

What Custard took away from the long process of directing Twelfth Night, from the Feste-Bowie epiphany in 2019 to the closing performance on May 9, is how to be 鈥渁 much more dynamic collaborator.鈥�

He learned, he says, to focus on ideas, less on personalities. 鈥溊植ゴ� is full of some of the strongest personalities that I think I’ve ever come across. It goes without saying that you will butt heads with people, particularly in creative spaces.鈥� 

The result? 鈥淏ringing together the best of what everybody has to offer.鈥�

Years from now, Billy Lahart ’21 will look back at his senior year on the 乐播传媒 men’s basketball team and see the goose-egg record: 0-0.

Zero games, zero wins, zero losses 鈥� a season lost to the COVID-19 pandemic. “That’s going to be weird,” says the English major from Franklin, Mass.

But on and off the court, Lahart is a glass-is-mostly-full guy. A team captain, Lahart has earned NESCAC All-Academic honors and All-Sportsmanship honors during his career.

“In a pandemic year like this, you just go back to the old definition of success: Have we applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand?” he asks. This year, the task was team-building, practicing, and getting ready for a new influx of players and a full schedule for 2021鈥�22.

“And I would say that we certainly have. We’ve gotten a lot better. We’re a really tight group. So we should never look at 2020鈥�21 as a loss 鈥� we were the COVID team.”

“You wake up, you go to class, and you bring the best of yourself to the classroom and to your professors,” Lahart says. “Then you go to practice and, in a very similar way, you strive to bring the best of yourself to your teammates and coaches 鈥� you hold yourself and others accountable, just trying to improve every single day.”

Off the court, Lahart has been involved in the 乐播传媒 Musicians Union and WRBC radio. He’s especially active in Special Olympics, this year.

Recently, he was honored by the JFM Navigators, a local community-based day program that helps adults with intellectual disabilities and other developmental disabilities improve confidence, increase self-reliance, and expand community participation.

Lahart received the Roland J. Boutin Award, given to someone outside the program who enriches the lives of people supported by the Navigators. 鈥淚 absolutely could not imagine what my four years would be like without the Navigators,鈥� said Lahart.

For Lahart, his various college endeavors, and the people he’s grown close to, has created a winning sum total.

乐播传媒 is “where you can give yourself fully to your faith, your relationships, your work, and your play. You can embrace and live out our school motto, Amore ac Studio, ‘With Ardor and Devotion.'”

In a time of crisis, a college newspaper can do more than inform, says Vanessa Paolella ’21, editor-in-chief of The 乐播传媒 Student. “It keeps the community together.”

“With the pandemic, students have so many questions, all the time,” says Paolella, a geology major from Dingmans Ferry, Pa. “The newspaper has been a really great outlet for us, as the staff, to both answer our own questions and help other students maybe answer some of their own and learn more.”

Sometimes answering questions means sharing breaking news “as fast as possible,” such as when the college announces positive COVID-19 tests or makes an important announcement. “People need to know, and we use our social media to get that message out really fast,” she says.

Video by Theophil Syslo/乐播传媒 College

Other times, the goal is to provide a “deep dive into how students feel about COVID-19 policies on campus, how they’re doing with the challenges they face building community, interacting with each other, and finding their people.”

Journalists, she adds, “provide information and resources that people would not otherwise have, especially right now with the coronavirus pandemic, where there’s so much misinformation and rumors.”

And like all journalists, Paolella sees her newspaper as a vehicle for driving social justice. “One of our most important roles as student journalists is to elevate voices that may not otherwise have been heard.

“There’s so much energy because you have that strong sense of purpose.”

“We also have a really powerful platform to give voices to issues that students care about but don’t know enough about, or provide voice to students’ frustrations or concerns on campus,” Paolella says, such as the in-depth look she offered on the during COVID and remote learning.

Like anyone who feels purpose in their work, Paolella feels the surge of energy, a kind of flow, each Tuesday night as the paper approaches deadlines, and she and her editors work together in their Chase Hall office.

“We’re just working so hard to get to our deadline, reading over articles, making last minute edits, putting things together. You’re working hand-in-hand to get it done. There’s so much energy because you have that strong sense of purpose.”

Paolella came to 乐播传媒 with a single extracurricular focus. “I thought running was going to define who I was at 乐播传媒,” and it has to an extent, as she’s a captain of the cross country team this fall.

“I didn’t come in intending to join the newspaper. But as a senior, especially in these hard times, I think that when I graduate, that having been editor-in-chief is probably going to be my most defining characteristic at 乐播传媒.”

Paolella began her Student editorship right after completing a summer internship with the Lewiston Sun Journal. There, she “learned how fast the news cycle works, and how important it is to get correct information out as quickly as possible.”

That meant turning around a story in just a few hours. “I would be given an assignment at noon and told, ‘We need that for the paper tomorrow.’ I learned to call people up, say what I needed, and get the information together as fast as possible because even waiting an extra day sometimes is just too long.”

In how she works with her staff, Paolella sees herself “as a guide, because so much is done without my help. The meat of the work is done by reporters, editors, photographers, and other staff members.

“Maybe I’ll send them a nudge, ‘Hey, did you hear about this that’s happening on campus?’ Or, after reading through a draft, I might say, ‘Have you talked to these people? Have you considered this other perspective?'”

She’s also willing to dive in when needed, especially since the level of support can ebb and flow as students focus on their first priority, academics.

“Some people can’t take the time each week, so I do whatever I can do to keep the paper running. Writing articles, being first editor, proofing, photographing, working layout.”

Paolella has even been seen delivering print copies on her bike. “I enjoy the whole process.”