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����̽̽ dance program alumni Michelle Marion grew up in New Jersey, where she was a committed dancer, taking Royal Academy of Dance classes. However, in high school, an injury sidelined her, and by the time she arrived at ����̽̽, dance had taken a back seat.

“I had been dancing my whole life, and I just felt burned out,” she recalls. “I needed to take a break.”

Then a friend encouraged her to join , a student-run dance company at ����̽̽ that choreographs and performs at the end of each semester. She joined the group and took on a leadership role, choreographing several pieces and serving as president of the organization for two years. She also declared dance as her minor.

“I rediscovered dance at ����̽̽ and found new ways to express myself,” she said. “I saw dance as a way of communicating political and environmental messages.”

Marion integrated dance into her senior capstone thesis in environmental studies, her major at ����̽̽. She collaborated with senior thesis advisor Amy Seidl, who wrote a 15-minute narrative that Marion choreographed with nine student dancers. She performed the piece at ����̽̽ and several local elementary schools.

After graduation, Marion moved west to Tucson, Arizona, where she worked at nonprofits, managed social media, and continued dancing. She recently branched out to establish her own company called the Dust Dance Collective, a contemporary dance group focused on producing video dance media.

“We’re holding auditions now for our second season. We create concept videos with modern choreography, and we collaborate with other artists in Tucson—photographers, makeup artists, musicians, videographers, and clothing designers.”

It’s the sense of community in the Program in Dance that she’s striving to replicate. Last winter, she returned to Burlington to perform in Dancing Uphill, an annual dance event that celebrated the 10th anniversary of ����̽̽’s dance program.

“Paul Besaw and Claire Byrne (of the Program in Dance) hold a very special place in my heart. I had never done improvisational movement until I came to ����̽̽. Dust Dance focuses heavily on that, and that’s what pushes me forward.”

Deeply involved in school government during her high school years in Fairhaven, Mass., Lily Lovinger declared political science as her major when she arrived at ����̽̽. She wouldn’t have guessed at the time that her academic path would lead to a career in arts administration at New York City’s Lincoln Center or that her experience in the Program in Dance would be so influential in her trajectory.

Dance wasn’t really a factor for her when it came to choosing a college.

“����̽̽ felt like a good fit—it was a large school but not so big that I felt overwhelmed. I’d taken ballet from the time I was four until I was a freshman in high school, but I had pretty much left dance behind.”

At ����̽̽, she began to miss the physical discipline of dance and took a ballet class for a PE credit. Her instructor introduced her to Paul Besaw, who was building the dance minor at ����̽̽, and the two hit it off.

“I got hooked. I took every class Paul offered through graduation,” she said.

Lovinger jokes that the two gave each other a hard time about ballet—“I had such tunnel vision for the dance form I had grown up with and loved so much”—but Paul’s classes provided an eye-opening education in other dance forms.

“I had a lot of amazing experiences at ����̽̽, but the piece I still feel most connected to is the dance program. Paul was so energized about starting the program and making sure there were lots of opportunities for students to learn and explore.”

With her political science major and a minor in African studies, Lovinger had her sights set on a career in sustainable development, perhaps working for an international NGO.

During her job search, she came across a post for a fundraising position at a ballet company, and she suddenly saw another career path that could keep her connected to the arts world. She scored an internship at the New York-based Mark Morris Dance Group and got a close-up look behind the scenes of an internationally renowned arts organization. The experience helped her gain a variety of skills in marketing, public relations, and fundraising that prepared her for her position at Lincoln Center as assistant director for fundraising and special events.

She oversees galas, receptions, and private performances, with fundraising goals ranging from $300,000 to $2,500,000 per event. In addition to event logistics, her work also involves the development of prospect lists, extensive letter campaigns, and follow-up with prospective donors.

“If it hadn’t been for ����̽̽'s Program in Dance, I don’t know if my passion for the arts would have been reignited. It wasn’t just the love of dance itself but learning about the history, different forms, and choreography that made me excited again about the importance of the arts.”

For Mia Pinheiro ’15, the disciplines of geography, her major at ����̽̽, and dance, her true passion, aren’t so very different. Both are centered on place and space, rooted in a physical location and in the imagination.

A native of New Bedford, Mass., Pinheiro remembers making her first visit to ����̽̽ in the middle of winter, but the weather didn’t interfere with the positive vibe she felt on campus.

“The main reason I chose ����̽̽ was the culture—there was a more relaxed, laid-back quality that I didn’t pick up on at other schools I visited.”

She took some ballet and jazz dance classes as a child but knew she had only scratched the surface of her talent for creative expression.

“I owe so much to the Program in Dance, especially to [senior lecturer at ����̽̽] Clare Byrne,” she said. “I took several courses from her, and she totally opened up the world of dance, not in a traditional sense but a radical one.”

She found ways to blend her interests in geography and dance. One of her student projects involved participating in a site-specific dance performance at the Kent Museum in Calais, Vt., with Montpelier-based choreographer Hannah Dennison.

“I took her class when she was a guest teacher at ����̽̽, and she hired a few students to be in her summer ensemble,” Pinheiro explains. “We did a period piece based on Hannah’s historical research that was actually set in the museum—the performance was a mix of dance and theater that moved through the building.”

Describing herself variously as a “movement artist,” “choreographer,” and “roving performer,” Pinheiro has used her ����̽̽ experience as a springboard to a vibrant career in dance that has taken her many places, most recently to Mexico. In March of 2017, she embarked on a research sabbatical, serving as choreographer and collaborator for “Bosque,” an exploration of dance with tension fabric recorded in a black-and-white film. She also choreographed “La Gran División,” a sound and fabric movement that “explores the tension and the continual arrival and discard of ideas,” performed at the Museu de Arte Contemporáneo in Oaxaca.

With Burlington as her home base, she is working on a site-specific movement and choreography workshop for the summer in collaboration with a Jungian psychologist. She credits the variety of experiences as a student at ����̽̽ for broadening her outlook and potential for future directions.

“You can do so much at ����̽̽—studying traditional styles of dance, diving into genre-bending courses, or both. Being exposed to so many forms really broadened my sense of what is possible.”