They step in unison, arms pumping down in front of them like pistons. They kick a leg out and, exactly on the six-count, spin 90 degrees to repeat their march. Then again, another 90 degrees, before launching off the ground for a spin. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame their movements with views of West 55th Street and Ninth Avenue, where cars, buses, and pedestrians are engaged in their own choreography, sometimes slowing to take in the studio scene. There’s no music inside—only footsteps, hard breathing, and shouted notes of correction and encouragement.

The dancers are seniors in the Ailey/Fordham BFA in Dance program, which is celebrating its 25th year. They’re in the Joan Weill Center for Dance in Manhattan—home of the Ailey School, five blocks from Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus—rehearsing teacher and choreographer Earl Mosley’s Running Spirits (Revival and Restaging) for the program’s annual benefit concert in mid-April.

In another ground-floor studio about a month before the concert, first-year students take West African Dance with Imani Faye. As a drummer slaps out a beat on a djembe, Faye guides the students through their own performance piece, Den-Kouly (Celebration), with its traditional Tiriba and Mané dance styles from Guinea.

As the students work to nail the choreography, they’re also grappling with bigger, more complex movements. For the first-years, it’s the culmination of nine months spent testing themselves, body and mind. Are they able to balance a rigorous dance training program and a rigorous academic curriculum? And for the seniors, it’s a time of final exams and frequent auditions. Are they ready to secure their place in the professional dance world?

Carrying on the Legacy of an American Dance Pioneer

The idea for a best-of-both worlds BFA program—top dance training and top academics in New York City—came several years before the first class arrived in the fall of 1998. Edward Bristow, then dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, struck up a conversation with Ailey School director Denise Jefferson in line at the West 60th Street post office. He believed Fordham could do more to make its presence felt “at the center of the arts world,” and Jefferson was interested in building a college degree program for Ailey dancers. “We knew that given our strengths, we could pull off something special,” he recalled.

Today, the program is led by Melanie Person, co-director of the Ailey School, and Andrew Clark, a Fordham professor of French and comparative literature who had served as an advisor to many BFA students before succeeding Bristow as co-director in 2023. Through their leadership, the Ailey/Fordham students are staying true to the vision set forth by Bristow and Jefferson, who died in 2010. They’re also upholding the legacy of Alvin Ailey himself, a towering figure in modern dance.

Ailey founded his namesake dance company in 1958, when he was 27 years old. His story and the story of the company he founded are inextricable from the histories of Black art in America and the Civil Rights Movement. At a time when Black dancers found it next to impossible to make a career through their craft, Ailey created a home for them. Since its inception, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has become not only one of the most successful Black-founded arts institutions in the United States but also one of the premier modern dance companies in the world, described in a 2008 congressional resolution as “a vital American cultural ambassador to the world.”

Texas native Antuan Byers, FCLC ’17, is one of many BFA students and alumni who say they were drawn to the program after seeing the company perform during their formative years. “I attended my first Alvin Ailey performance my senior year of high school, in that moment of still being on the fence about where I wanted to go to school,” said Byers, who was a member of Ailey II, the company’s junior ensemble, and now dances most frequently with the Metropolitan Opera. “After seeing the Ailey company, it all became clear.”

For many Black students in the BFA program, Alvin Ailey’s legacy serves both as an inspiration and a reminder of the challenges that dancers of color have faced. It’s hard to miss that legacy when you’re inside the Weill Center, with its walls lined with photos and ephemera spanning seven decades.

“Every day I try to use the weight of his legacy to further encourage me and push me in my craft,” said Naia Neal, a rising senior from Santa Cruz, California, who earned the program’s Denise Jefferson Memorial Scholarship and is pursuing a minor in math. “Alvin Ailey loved to dance, but he also understood that dance should be for everyone. He made it known that everybody deserved to be there.”

The dance landscape looks a good deal different today than it did in 1958. Black choreographers like Kyle Abraham and Camille Brown have had their work performed by New York City Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera; Black dancers are members of most major companies in the United States; and Black administrators are artistic directors at places like Pacific Northwest Ballet and Philadanco. But on many stages, Black dancers are still underrepresented, and for many students of color, a place like the Ailey School still functions as a home where they can chart a professional path.

“Something about being here has opened up a completely different relationship with me and what I add to different spaces and what it means to be a Black dancer,” said Carley Brooks, a rising Ailey/Fordham senior from Chicago pursuing a minor in communication and media studies. “The [Ailey] building allows me to feel so comfortable and confident in my body and what I have to present.”

Developing the Whole Dancer

If one thing defines the Ailey/Fordham experience, it’s the need to find balance within a hectic schedule. All students take ballet every semester, a way to keep them grounded in classical technique, and in their first year, they also take West African Dance and begin training in either the Horton technique or Graham-based modern dance. They also have foundational classes like Improvisation, Body Conditioning, and Anatomy and Kinesiology. And they take two Fordham core curriculum classes each semester, including first-year staples like English Composition and Rhetoric and Faith and Critical Reasoning.

In their sophomore year, students decide if they want to pursue a second major or a minor. It’s a decision they don’t make lightly, as it comes with extra coursework, but for many students, it’s a way to help them plan for careers beyond performing—and to infuse their dance practice with outside influences. That year, they also take Composition, and for many of them, it’s the first time they formally work on their own choreography—a complex process, with varying notation systems and a good deal of trial and error.

As juniors, the students continue to branch out intellectually. In the Ailey academic class Black Traditions in Modern Dance, they engage with history while also thinking about the artistic choices involved in a performance. Meanwhile, in Fordham classrooms, many begin fulfilling the requirements for a second major.

They also have a chance to become mentors to their first-year counterparts. Jaron Givens, a rising senior originally from Prince George’s County, Maryland, who is majoring in both dance and environmental studies, has relished the opportunity to pay forward the mentorship he received during his first year. He took part in the Ailey Students Ailey Professionals mentorship program, which pairs students with Ailey company members. Givens met with Courtney Celeste Spears, FCLC ’16, who he said “facilitated a space where I was able to be vulnerable … and showed me how much Ailey cared.”

The Ailey School has been working with Minding the Gap, an organization that offers mental health services to dancers. The hope is to give students as much access to mental health support as they have to things like on-site physical therapists at the Weill Center. On the Fordham side, faculty describe a similar focus on students’ well-being. “I try to … get a sense of what their concerns are, what they’re enjoying, and what they’re struggling with,” Clark said. “That’s where you really get a sense of the whole person and you have the ability to help out.”

There’s also a natural level of camaraderie that comes from spending so much time with fellow BFA students, both in dance classes and often in academic ones. “For us, it’s not a competition,” said Sarah Hladky, a rising junior who is majoring in English as well as dance. “Ailey very much emphasizes the fact that there is a space for everyone. And so even if people come in feeling like they need to prove themselves, at the end of the day you leave being like, ‘No, I am the dancer that I am, and you are the dancer that you are. And we can coexist and really make a great environment for each other.’”

While a sense of community is integral to the Ailey/Fordham experience, students are well aware that they’re training for a highly competitive profession. The postgrad goal for many of them is to join a dance company full time—with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Ailey II often at the top of the list. Many alumni earn a spot in those companies and others such as Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Martha Graham Dance Company, and the Radio City Rockettes. Others regularly appear on Broadway stages and in film and TV productions. But a benefit of their Fordham studies is that they graduate prepared for any number of career paths.

“My education at Fordham was instrumental in my formation as an artist and businesswoman, providing me with a depth of knowledge, curiosity, and appreciation for many subjects that gave me a foundation to build on,” said Katherine Horrigan, a 2002 graduate who went on to dance with Ailey II, Elisa Monte Dance Company, and a number of other companies around the world before launching a dance academy in Virginia.

Spears encourages Ailey/Fordham students to “build your academic resume as much as you build your dance resume.” She said the program expanded her ideas of what she could do as an artist and a leader. She began dancing with Ailey II in 2015, her senior year, and moved up to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater before deciding in 2023 to focus full time on ArtSea, her arts organization in the Bahamas. “I think if you focus on having viable options and stretching how many different places you are able to impact, you then have the mountaintop,” she said.

[RELATED STORY: “Bridging Art and Entrepreneurship”]

For Samar Haddad King, a 2005 Ailey/Fordham graduate, a composition class with Kazuko Hirabayashi was so transformative that she decided to focus on choreography. For her class’s senior concert, she premiered an original piece, and the following year, with her BFA classmate Zoe Rabinowitz, she co-founded the company Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, based in both New York City and the West Bank. Nearly 20 years later, they have brought their work to 17 countries around the world.

Rabinowitz has carved out her own unique path since graduating in 2005. While she still dances in Yaa Samar! and elsewhere, her role as the company’s executive director builds upon several post-college jobs in arts administration, and she has also taught yoga and Pilates throughout her career. Acknowledging the finite amount of time most people can dance professionally, she said it’s important for young dancers not only to develop academic interests but also to take an expansive view of the dance world.

“Finding the things that you enjoy doing—the passions and the strengths that you have cultivated inside and outside of your dance training—and finding ways that you can do those things to implement jobs and create sources of income is going to be critical for most people,” Rabinowitz said, adding that dancers are known as great team members across industries. “Recognize that you come with a really strong skill set and work ethic, and that you have the capacity to do a lot of things.”

Person, the Ailey School co-director, echoed that sentiment. “The skills that they acquire as dancers are going to be transferable in any aspect of their lives. With the Fordham degree and their strong academics, they’re well situated to exist in the world.”

Whatever part of the dance or professional world they end up in, Ailey/Fordham alumni often maintain the close bonds they shared as undergraduates, and now there’s an additional way for them to stay connected. Ahead of the program’s 25th anniversary, Byers and Maya Addie, a 2021 graduate who is a member of the Radio City Rockettes, learned about Fordham’s affinity chapters—alumni communities formed around shared interests, past student involvement, or professional goals. They decided to start one for Ailey/Fordham BFA graduates.

“It’s a personal goal of ours to bring together our alumni because we have such a wealth of knowledge in that group,” Byers said. “In dance but also in our incredible business owners, or folks working in politics, folks working in finance, people teaching, people with kids. We see this 25th anniversary as an opportunity for us to really build an alumni program with all that excitement and energy.”

A Performance to Mark Endings and New Beginnings

On the evening of the spring benefit concert, after a cocktail reception on the sixth floor of the Weill Center, family, friends, and fans of the BFA program made their way to the Ailey Citigroup Theater on the building’s lower level. Following a brief video highlighting the history and mission of the program, Neal kicked off the evening’s performances with The Serpent, a solo piece choreographed by Jonathan Lee. To the pulsing beat of Rihanna’s “Where Have You Been,” she gave a high-energy performance that incorporated styles ranging from modern and hip-hop to voguing. Unlike the more restrained audience traditions one might see up the street at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the audience cheered throughout the piece.

That energy level, both onstage and in the crowd, continued with the first-year students’ West African piece, Den-Kouly (Celebration), featuring vibrant costumes and jubilant movement. The sophomores performed an excerpt from the more ballet-centric For They Are Rivers, choreographed by Becky Brown, and the juniors danced an excerpt from Darshan Singh Bhuller’s athletic, abstract Mapping. Three Ailey/Fordham alumni—Mikaela Brandon, FCLC ’19; Naya Hutchinson, FCLC ’21; and Shaina McGregor, FCLC ’18—came back to dance alongside Neal in Four Women, choreographed by senior student Baili Goer.

The final performance of the night, appropriately, belonged to the seniors. Since that March rehearsal of Running Spirits, Mosley had revealed to the students the meaning behind the piece, which he first choreographed for a group of preteen boys at a summer program in Connecticut in the late 1990s. At the time, he explained, he was dealing with a group of rambunctious kids who loved to run around—and whose parents thought of them as “little angels.” It made him imagine a scene in which a group of angels, who get around via running instead of flying, are all gathering in the morning to plan out their work agenda for the day.

“When I tell dancers that’s what it’s about,” Mosley said, “they always laugh because they’re like, ‘Really? That’s all? So we’re just literally getting ready to go to work?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, you’re just getting ready to go to work.’”

It’s a playful piece, but the version Mosley created for these graduating dancers is one that requires strong technique and collaboration, and features impressive jumps, lifts, and, as the title suggests, speed. There was a sense of mischief onstage, an almost conspiratorial glee to the movements. That tone felt appropriate considering all the students had been through in their nearly four years together, from beginning the program at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to trying to wrap up their final semesters while planning for the future.

“This past year has probably been the most challenging in terms of juggling my schedule,” said Meredith Brown, a dance and economics double major from Asheville, North Carolina. “Because I’m also auditioning and making sure that I’m taking care of myself and enjoying the city and taking advantage of all these wonderful things.”

Brown and her fellow 2024 graduates are in a better place to manage those competing demands than they were four years ago—not only more experienced but also more confident.

“When I think about my first year, there was a lot of imposter syndrome,” said Abby Nguyen, a 2024 grad from the Bay Area who double majored in dance and psychology. “There was this constant feeling like I needed to prove myself, that I needed to prove that I was good enough to be here. But ultimately, you are here, and you are good enough to be here—or else you wouldn’t be in the building.”

The dancers’ growth has also been visible to Person, who recalled the challenges the Class of 2024 faced starting college during the pandemic. “I was watching them rehearse the other day, and I think they really came together as a class,” she said. “I think they relied on each other to push through this, honestly. … I think it gave them this inner strength that they might not have even recognized that they have.”

And while challenges certainly lie ahead—auditions, demanding dance jobs, the threat of injuries, and more—Mosley believes this group of graduates is ready to face them.

“They give me the energy like, ‘Oh, I know I’m going to do something,’” he said. “‘There’s
no doubt, I’m going to do something.’ This group as a whole is all about it.”

“I don’t normally go out on a school night! I’m a teacher. I get up at 4:45 in the morning,” she said shortly before the December 13 performance. “But for this? I am willing to make that sacrifice.”

The show has been a long time coming for Ruffin. She has been an Ailey fan for years—“If you are an inner-city Black girl, you’ve heard of Alvin Ailey,” she said of the famed company, founded and fronted by the boundary-breaking eponymous Black dancer. But she hadn’t been to a show since 2000. A lot of life has passed since then. Ruffin went to Fordham’s Graduate School of Education and earned a master’s degree. Now she teaches seventh-grade public schoolers in Manhattan. And she somehow missed the part where Fordham brags about its partnership with the Ailey School. Since 1998, the two institutions have been offering a joint BFA program through which students learn dance at Ailey while getting a full liberal arts education at Fordham College at Lincoln Center.

“I had no idea that Fordham had this connection with Alvin Ailey. And if I would have known that, I would have been humming and bumming for tickets for my teachers a long time ago,” Ruffin said. Does it lend Fordham a little—“Street cred? Absolutely!” Ruffin beamed. “Fordham never—I must admit, they do not cease to surprise me.”

The bond between Fordham and Ailey was on full display that Tuesday evening. The alumni event attracted a varied cohort. Couples, young and old, chatted over wine and cheese plates in the 100-year-old theater’s gilded lobby. Lovers of modern dance came alone; others brought friends. There were families—a couple of teenage daughters sat off to the side on marble stairs, avoiding small talk. Fordham trustee emeritus John Costantino, GABELLI ’67, LAW ’70, did not. “A lot of the programs tonight, they really relate to people,” he said. “They mean something.”

Costantino was talking about the dances—including choreographer Jamar Roberts’ In a Sentimental Mood, which had its world premiere earlier in the year, and three classics by Ailey, who died in 1989: Reflections in D, Cry, and of course Revelations, the 1960 piece that ends nearly every Ailey performance. But he could have been talking about the Ailey/Fordham BFA, too. The program certainly means something to Courtney Celeste Spears, FCLC ’16, one of seven Ailey/Fordham graduates now dancing with the company. She would take the stage later that evening, but first, she addressed a room of Fordham alumni and friends in the lobby—an intimate moment before the lights went down.

“It was such a whirlwind of four years,” Spears said of her college experience. “I think so much of the foundation that I got there shaped me as a young woman, as a professional, as a dancer, as an artist in so many ways. It was such a well-rounded program.” But more than anything? “I always felt just very covered, and safe and advocated for.”

That was music to the ears of Andrew Clark, Ph.D., a Fordham professor of French and comparative literature who also co-directs the BFA program. Clark’s sister was a classical ballet dancer, on her way to a professional career, when she tore the ligaments in her hip. “That totally changed her life. She couldn’t dance ever again. … She had to pick another path,” he said.

Today, the Ailey/Fordham program offers students a best-of-both-worlds approach: a top dance education and a top classroom education in New York City. “Having other curiosities, having other skills and interests and passions [beyond dance is]really important,” Clark said. But don’t think for a second that he doesn’t care about dance. His voice rose talking about the first number of the night: Spears would be dancing with Christopher R. Wilson, FCLC ’17, whom Clark advised when Wilson was an undergrad. He is “such a beautiful dancer, and they dance together all the time and they’re amazing,” Clark said.

Minutes later, the theater filled up. The show began. The program was rhythmic, painful, energetic, beautiful. A New York institution, performing for a hometown crowd. It was worth losing sleep for.

—Jeff Coltin, FCRH ’15, is the City Hall bureau chief at City & State New York and a contributor to this magazine.

The Ailey performance was one of many cultural events hosted throughout the year by Fordham’s Office of Alumni Relations. Learn more at fordham.edu/events.

The evening showcase, The Movement, Melodrama, and Melodies of NYC, featured dance solos from the Ailey/Fordham students and performances of the Grammy- and Academy Award-winning song The Shadow of Your Smile, as well as popular rhythm and blues song Route 66 by the Fordham Jazz Ensemble. Members of Fordham Theatre also performed an excerpt from the play Indecent, which celebrates the love, magic, and hope of the theater. Following the showcase held in Costantino Room, guests wined and dined at a reception held in the adjacent Soden Lounge and Bateman Room. 

In her closing remarks at the end of the showcase, Tetlow thanked the students for their “stunning” performance and their ability to evoke emotion. 

“There’s a world where we would have our business school students discuss a business plan, and watch the law student try to brief, and have a calculus problem on a whiteboard, just to demonstrate their talent and discipline and hard work, but none of them would have made us feel what you made us feel tonight,” Tetlow said. 

She also praised the students for their courage to perform on stage and admired the dancers’ agility. (Watching the Ailey dancers almost made her pull a muscle, she joked.) In addition, she highlighted the students’ nod to American history. 

“I think that you, tonight, really earned our spot on San Juan Hill. I feel the spirits of the people who lived here who were so important in American history and in American cultural history, from Zora Neale Hurston to Thelonious Monk. And you have made it such that we deserve this spot of their making and deserve our spot as part of Lincoln Center of the Performing Arts because we are part of this grand experiment to bring together such amazing culture of this country and in the world,” said Tetlow. “So thank you for demonstrating what Fordham is and your own talent and for making the kickoff to this inauguration so special.” 

That is how choreographer Jeremy McQueen, FCLC ’08, a graduate of the Ailey/Fordham BFA in Dance program, describes his response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the artistic director and choreographer of the Black Iris Project, the collaborative dance company he founded in 2016, McQueen experienced the kind of upended plans so many in the arts have dealt with since last spring. He had been scheduled to begin a two-week residency choreographing for Nashville Ballet last May when the pandemic forced the company to cancel the rest of its season.

After the loss of that gig and the postponement of several planned Black Iris Project pieces, McQueen focused on a work he had been considering for some time: a ballet film about New York City youth in the juvenile justice system, taking inspiration from Maurice Sendak’s 1962 Caldecott Medal-winning children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are.

McQueen is releasing the film, WILD, in four parts. After premiering on BronxNet television on March 13, the second part, WILD: Act 1, is available for streaming rental until April 11. The first part, WILD: Overture, aired in November.

Taking Risks and Amplifying Voices

As a director and choreographer, McQueen took inspiration not only from Sendak’s book but also from a photograph by Richard Ross that he saw at the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. The photo serves as the cover of Ross’ book Juvenile-in-Justice, part of a multimedia project examining the harsh conditions faced by youth placed in the juvenile justice system.

WILD: Act 1 follows a boy, played by Ailey II member Elijah Lancaster, as he seeks to mentally escape from the claustrophobic room he has been placed in at a juvenile detention facility on his 14th birthday. Through movement, along with music, illustrations, video projection, and audio recordings of interviews, the piece explores the effects of isolation and trauma on the young people who are held in confinement.

“I think this is probably one of the most striking works that I’ve created to date,” says McQueen, whose previous filmed ballet, A Mother’s Rite, was nominated for a New York Emmy Award in 2020. “It’s definitely one where I’ve taken greater risks than I’ve ever thought I could take.”

Part of that risk, according to McQueen, involves wanting to make sure he is properly telling the stories of a group of young people whose voices often go unheard. While he says that he has received positive feedback from practitioners in the juvenile justice field—as well as attention from The New York Times—he is staying attentive to the subjects of the work.

“One of the biggest things that keeps me up at night is wanting to make these young people proud,” he says. “It’s less about the accolades or what can come from it, but I’m constantly focused on how I am able to hopefully adequately amplify the voices of these young people.”

Catharsis and Collaboration

While the pandemic prevented McQueen from filming the piece in a juvenile detention center, which was his original goal, he was able to find creative ways to stage the piece safely. He and his dancers rehearsed the piece both on Zoom and in person during a two-week “bubble” residency at Vineyard Arts Project in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and it was shot without an audience by cinematographer and editor Colton Williams in the black box theater at the 14th Street Y in New York City.

According to McQueen, completing the project was never in question.

“You have to figure out a way to do this, because if you don’t, you’re just going to vanish,” he says he told himself. “You have to continue to have a presence in some kind of way, and to shift your mission to still connect with community, even if that means connecting with them virtually.

“Art has always been so healing for me,” he added. “It was important to me that I continue to let my art heal me in the sense that this project has been incredibly cathartic for me, but also for other artists that [were]so needing of work and opportunities to creatively stay inspired and stay engaged.”

Along with Williams, the dancers, and a number of visual artists who contributed to the piece, McQueen collaborated with several musicians who provided both commissioned and existing songs to the piece’s mixtape-style soundtrack, including the singer-songwriter Morgxn, whom McQueen had originally been paired with for the residency at Nashville Ballet; former Hamilton cast member Phillip Johnson-Richardson, who goes by the moniker Phil.; and R&B artist Brittany Campbell.

McQueen says that he has learned a lot about directing by diving into the work and experimenting, an approach for which he credits Ava DuVernay, director of films including Selma and 13th, as an inspiration.

“The best way to learn is just to start, and that’s one thing that I’ve really held close to my heart from her teachings,” he says. “Don’t worry about not having the degrees or the credentials, just start playing. A lot of these things I’ve learned how to do out of necessity—figuring out how can I do this and what creativity can I bring to the table to truly diversify the industry in such a crowded dance market.”

‘Bringing All of Myself’

McQueen’s plans for the remaining two parts of WILD speak to his ambition and creativity. For the third part, Entr’acte, he is staging a socially distanced bike excursion throughout the Bronx, where audience members will travel to five locations. At each one, a dancer will tell the story of a young person from the borough who has been impacted by the criminal justice system. And in the fall, he will premiere the final part, Act 2. McQueen says that when he is able to tour the piece, he plans to stage the Entr’acte bike excursion prior to the stage performance in each tour city.

And once all parts have aired, McQueen has even bigger plans for WILD.

“Our goal is Netflix or HBO or Amazon Prime, some sort of worldwide streaming platform,” he says. “That’s one of our goals for this package of WILD with all four parts: being able to see and experience dance on those platforms in ways that we haven’t been able to do. There are TV shows about dance. There are dance documentaries. But there’s not really a dance film of this caliber or nature yet, and we’re hoping to be one of the first to do that.”

Regardless of where WILD takes him, McQueen makes it clear that he will continue to tell the stories he feels are important, even if they have not traditionally been given exposure on ballet stages.

“One of the things that I have to stand very firmly about is being able to bring all of myself,” he says of how he will choose future projects and collaborations. “I feel like in the past, only parts of my Blackness, only parts of my being, were accepted or allowed to be brought into the room.

“I understand that you have to understand your audience, but I also think that it’s important to push boundaries. That’s the only way we can really grow as individuals and as an artistic [community], is to strip away the veil and talk about what’s really happening in our country.”

The shift to remote learning last month necessitated by the COVID-19 outbreak has presented unique challenges to students and professors in the performing arts. They’ve been forced to temporarily leave behind concert halls, dance studios, and theaters, and in some cases, to reconsider the very nature and purpose of what they do.

In Theater, Special Attention to the Medium

“It’s a huge challenge to adjust to this, and like any kind of trauma, it plays itself out very differently in different personality types. To be aware of that and sensitive to that is an education,” said George Drance, S.J., artist-in-residence at Fordham University Lincoln Center and a member of the Fordham Theatre faculty.

For Drance, who is teaching the courses Acting IV and Theatre, Creativity, and Values this semester, the shift has involved helping students learn and rehearse plays such as The Centaur Battle of San Jacinto while separated by both space and—for students not on the East Coast—time. Scenes would be impractical to rehearse on Zoom, so students have been working on monologues instead. Drance also split his Acting IV class into an East Coast group and a West Coast Group, and when they meet in person, it’s primarily to review monologues the students have recorded of themselves earlier.

“We decided to really use the platform to focus on individual on-camera technique, because they’re dealing with a camera instead of an audience,” he said.

“So rather than force a Zoom conference to be anything other than it is, we took it as a way to demonstrate how the principles of working with a partner and doing on-camera work are really the same principles but executed with subtle differences.”

Drance said he has also challenged his students to ask themselves what it’s like to be attentive to themselves now that their regular routines have been stripped away.

“How can you be patient with yourself, rigorous with yourself, and generous with yourself according to what is appropriate for each moment? In that way, it’s very Ignatian,” he said, noting that Saint Ignatius, the founder of the Society of Jesus, often spoke of focusing on whatever is more conducive to a person’s place and circumstance.

Clint Ramos, head of design and production in the theater program, said when it comes to set design, students who would have been expected to turn in the second of the semester’s two projects are instead receiving in-depth tutorials. Even if students can’t build models of theater sets from home, they can still dissect the texts of plays and discuss emotional responses that might then be translated into physical forms.

“When we’re looking at a text, instead of immediately jumping to a design, we spend a lot more time talking about the piece, its social implications, what could be a potential design for it. We’ll research materials that could lead to a design rather than concentrate on the practical methods of designing the piece itself,” he said.

Stage Directing a Zoom “Play”

For Lillian Rider, a Fordham College at Lincoln Center junior who will graduate in December with a degree in theater design and production, the pandemic ended her chance to stage manage To The Bone, the final production of the department’s mainstage season.

Instead, the cast came together via Zoom for a reading of the play on April 18, the day that would have been the final performance of a two-week run. Roughly 90 people attended, and Rider supervised from her parents’ home in Hartford. Although it was never meant to replace a real performance, she and director Lou Moreno took small steps to make it more than a regular Zoom meetup, such as making sure the backgrounds behind actors were similar.

At the conclusion, audience members were allowed to turn their cameras on, and the cast could see them applaud. It was a far cry from the real thing, but Rider said she was satisfied that it did what she most wanted it to do, which was reunite the cast and introduce new people to the material.

“We had a few sound problems, which were bound to happen, but we just didn’t stop, and they worked themselves out. I was texting actors throughout, helping with technological things, but nothing that held up the run,” she said.

“I didn’t think I’d actually end up getting to manage a mainstage show this year, but it did end up being a lot of management, a lot of emails and scheduling, and then I got a hand in the running of the show.”

For Music Class, Professionals Record Students’ Arrangements

Nathan Lincoln-DeCusatis, an assistant professor of music, was fortunate that the two classes he is teaching this semester, Music Theory II and Jazz Arranging, are more amenable to online instruction, thanks to music-writing sites like Noteflight. After some trial and error, he settled on a system where he makes a prerecorded lecture of himself playing chords and working with notation software. Live meetings are reserved for questions about the lecture and demonstrations of exercises students can practice.

“It’s like a flipped classroom, because you do the lecture for homework, and then you do the homework together in class. As I’ve gotten better, I’ve been able to do more in real time over Zoom, because I’ve figured out tricks like how to play the music from my computer,” he said.

Lincoln-DeCusatis did lose a live performance element of his music theory class, as he had arranged for professional musicians to visit class and perform pieces that students had arranged. Rather than scrap it, he emailed the students’ works to the musicians, who then recorded them in their home studios and returned tracks to him. He then synced the tracks—one each for a trombone, tenor saxophone, alto saxophone and bass—with a piano track of his own, and uploaded the finished result to SoundCloud.

“It actually sounded better than anything we’ve done before, because that’s how you record in a recording studio,” he said.

“Every instrument is isolated, and you can mix it and add effects to it. It sounded really great; it’s the best-sounding outcome we’ve had so far. That was probably my greatest pandemic teaching triumph.”

Antonio Rivoli, a sophomore at Fordham College at Rose Hill majoring in music and urban studies, and one of Lincoln-DeCusatis’ music theory class students, is also enrolled in the Afro-Latin Music Ensemble course. The course was significantly hampered by the suspension of in-person instruction, but he said that ensemble director Peter “Jud” Wellington shifted the focus of the class to sampling, a change Rivoli has embraced wholeheartedly.

“We’ve really challenged ourselves to make the best out of a really difficult time. No one expected that this could have happened, and to be putting together other kinds of projects that the courses aren’t designed for has been really cool,” he said.

Rivoli said he’s also tried to make the most of his time at home in Battery Park City.

“I have a microphone, and I took music production last fall, so I’ve been doing some mini-recordings to try to be productive. I’ve been practicing more guitar, which I never do on campus. So there have been certain perks,” he said.

A Barre in Brooklyn

Meagan King is, in her words, “trying to find the light in everything.” By now, King, a senior in the Ailey/Fordham BFA program, would have normally auditioned for one of Ailey’s two dance companies, where she hopes to dance upon graduation. Instead, King is studying at her parents’ home in Mill Basin, Brooklyn.

“I’ve been trying to stay ready,” she said.

“I’ve been telling myself, ‘If I put in the work now, I won’t have to feel like I’m unprepared when it comes to the audition.’ I know that I can be naturally nervous in auditions as most people are, but I want to take out all the extra factors that can take away from me just shining.”

In addition to working with instructors, King has been using the time to explore online presentations from other dancers. She’s been working on the custom-made barre her father built for her and her younger brother, who is also a dancer, and she’s dampening her ballet slippers to give her more grip on the floor.

Like her fellow seniors, she has had virtual conversations with dance professionals from around the city that were arranged by the Ailey Company, to address any concerns related to the field. The talks have spurred her to think deeply about why she started dancing in the first place, as a student at LaGuardia High School of Music and Art in Manhattan, just a few blocks from Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus.

“I realized, that kind of free spirit is the same person I want to connect to now when I get to go out and do my audition whenever this is over. It’s easy, once you have the knowledge, to become critical of yourself,” she said.

“Not to say I should just be reckless and audition, but I feel like I’m taking off layers in this quarantine so I can just dance. I have the knowledge; I have the foundation I’ve been working on.”

Melanie Person, co-director of the Ailey School, said the school has had to rely more on video and written instruction in lieu of in-person instruction, and instructors are particularly sensitive to the fact that students’ living rooms and bedrooms are no substitute for a spacious, well-lit studio.

Person also noted that self-discipline has always been paramount for world-class dancers.

“At Ailey, they’re taking two to three dance classes a day, even via Zoom,” she said.

“This requires self-motivation and self-discipline that you really need anyway for dance, but now you really have to draw more from your own reserves for this. You’re a dancer, this is what you do, you have to have to keep your own schedule with it.”

There is a culpable sense of loss born from the fact that the community is separated from each other, she said. But perhaps counterintuitively, Person said, it can be empowering for a dancer to assume complete responsibility for themselves and their art.

“It’s a different model. It’s time to be reflective. And really, you can sit back and think about, ‘Why do I dance?’ Once you have distance from something, perhaps you come back to it with a different appreciation and from a different perspective. I believe that is what is to be gained from this.”

The dinner was also set to celebrate the close of Faith and Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid, which surpassed its goal of $175 million by bringing in a grand total of $175,311,288. The campaign supported existing scholarship funds and nearly 200 new scholarship funds for students—including Fulbright scholars, community leaders, and first-generation college students.

“In a year when nothing has run as usual, and we have all had more than our share of disappointments, I am incredibly proud of our Fordham Founder’s honorees and donors for their generosity and openheartedness toward our peerless Founder’s Scholars,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the University. “Despite your own very real concerns about your health and that of your loved ones, and all the uncertainties with which the pandemic has presented us, you stepped up to ensure the continued education of your younger sisters and brothers in maroon. I may not be surprised by your selflessness, but I am deeply grateful, and once again filled with admiration for all that you do for the Fordham family.”

The University will present the Fordham Founder’s Award at the 2021 event to this year’s honorees: Emanuel (Manny) Chirico, GABELLI ’79, PAR, chairman and CEO of the global apparel company PVH Corp., and his wife, Joanne M. Chirico, PAR, as well as  Joseph H. (Joe) Moglia, FCRH ’71, chairman of TD Ameritrade, Fundamental Global Investors, and Capital Wealth Advisors and chair of athletics at Coastal Carolina University.

On Jan. 7, the University also bestowed the Founder’s Award upon Jean and Alex Trebek, PAR, in Los Angeles, who received a citation praising them as “ true partners in the mission of Fordham.” And on Dec. 16 of last year the late Jane M. Flaherty, PAR, was posthumously recognized at the Rose Hill campus for her support of the University and the cause of Catholic education.  Her husband James P. Flaherty, FCRH ’69, PAR—a 2011 honoree and their children received the award where she was hailed as “one of the angels of Fordham—a kind and selfless spirit who took joy in helping students realize their dreams through the scholarships she and her husband, Jim, established.” 

Founder’s Scholars: The True Stars

The annual Founder’s Dinner is by far Fordham University’s most elegant event. But for all the glamour, the evening’s true stars have always been the Founder’s Scholars, extraordinary students who have benefited from the millions of dollars the event has raised over the years.

Christopher Wilson, FCLC ’17, a former Founder’s Scholar and donor to this year’s dinner, said that while he’s disappointed to miss the evening, he views his ticket purchase as an “investment.”

“I think it shows that we believe in the future,” said Wilson.

A graduate of the Ailey/Fordham BFA in Dance program, Wilson only recently started buying tickets for the event. He said it was a wonderful, if disorienting transition, moving from scholar to donor.

“You kind of go in as a student and you’re sort of the center of attention for the evening and the transition was weird for me,” he said, remembering last year’s dinner. “There was no Ram Van to take me back to my dorm. I had to get home on my own. It was the little things like that kind of made me realize, ‘Okay, we’re not students anymore. We’re grown up. I’m a big boy now.’”

Today, Wilson is a principal dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. When he goes to the Founder’s Dinner, he said, he enjoys running into old classmates and getting to know alumni from other schools. Though the event was canceled, he said he still felt like a participant.

“By still showing support for the scholars, it’s a way of us all coming together and uniting against this crazy monster that we’re dealing with right now,” he said. “And saying that we know that we’re going to come out of this.”

This year’s 48 Founder’s Scholars are not only the largest cohort ever, but also the most diverse group, comprising students with a wide variety of backgrounds and interests. From Astoria, New York, to Sandy Hook, Connecticut, to Montreal to Bloomfield Hills, Missouri, to Houston to Long Beach, California, the scholars represent nearly every region of the country—and beyond. Their passions are just as varied. Conner Chang studies business administration, Sarah Grandinetti majors in Russian, and Saeef Hossain focuses on psychology.

In an amusing speech prepared for the event, senior Devin D’Agostino, who majors in integrative neuroscience and philosophy, addressed how the University fosters diversity of thought. Though he didn’t get the chance to deliver it at the Hilton, he kindly recorded the speech on his phone from his home in Remsenburg, New York. In it, he described how a childhood interest in dinosaurs evolved from paleontology to biology to his current majors. He spoke of an initial conference with his adviser that began his evolution.

“For the first time in my life, I doubted dinosaurs,” he said. “Suddenly my image of the paleontologist became less of Dr. Grant from Jurassic Park … and more of Ross from Friends.”

Despite the seeming abandonment of his early interests, he said dinosaurs kept coming up his studies.

“I was suddenly encountering dinosaurs everywhere: in Ancient Literature …a picture of the Corinthian helmet clarified to me how the dome-headed Corthyosaurus got its name. In Philosophy of Human Nature … a reading on Plato’s concept of the forms provided to me a method of distinguishing between species in early Archosaurs. In Biopsychology … a lesson on localization in the brain revealed to me how scientists determine the sensory capacities of Tyrannosaurus rex,” he said.

He credited Fordham’s classic liberal arts education to opening his mind, allowing him to find dinosaurs in unexpected places.

“That is the magic of a Fordham education: With its multidisciplinary focus and emphasis on exploration, Fordham encourages us to find the unity in all things—a unity that comes from our pursuit of knowledge,” he said. “Whether it be finance, medieval literature, or dinosaurs, our passions create the unity.”

Looking to the Future in a Time of Crisis

Todd Cosenza, GABELLI ’95, LAW ’98, chair of the President’s Council and member of the Founder’s 2020 Dinner Committee, met Elizabeth Pinho-Cosenza, FCRH ’98, at Fordham College at Rose Hill. The couple eventually married at the University Church and continue to support Fordham through their work on the council and by giving to the Founder’s Scholarship Fund. Each year, they rally friends to come to the event. Cosenza, a partner at the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, LLP, said that while he most certainly understood that the event had to be canceled, he admitted that he was looking forward to seeing old college roommates and mentors as well as getting to meet the honorees.

“This year we have Joe Moglia who was being honored, and I was looking forward to meeting him,” said Cosenza.

Cosenza noted that an often-overlooked aspect of the event is that it showcases how far the University has come on the national stage.

“From the alumni perspective, given the prestige of the University, it really shows how our footprint has grown over the last 20 years, and how impressive our student body has become,” he said. “I think it’s just something that resonates with all the alums. It instills, even for the new scholars, the sense of community and the Fordham alumni network.”

Regardless, he stressed the main purpose of the event remains the Founder’s Undergraduate Scholarship Fund.

“We need to make sure people don’t lose sight that the goal of the dinner is to help the scholarship fund, and ensure Fordham remains competitive with its peer universities,” he said. “So, we just go onward to 2021.”

Susan Conley Salice, FCRH ’82, concurred.

“The importance of the Founder’s Dinner is the impact it has on students,” said Conley Salice, a member of the Board of Trustees, a Founder’s 2020 co-chair, and co-chair of the Faith & Hope campaign. “So, we weren’t able to have an exciting and fun-filled dinner party, but the need for scholarship dollars still exists and actually is growing. Many parents, and students, will be unable to work and their savings will be impacted.”

Conley Salice said that leaving the funds in place for the scholarships was more than a kind gesture; it shows support for the future of the city and the world at large.

“Once the students are able to get back to academics, we’re going to need them to be men and women for others and find ways to help our society learn from the experience and work well together to serve our neighbors,” she said. “Scholarship dollars are a great example of an opportunity to support that.”

Amanda Jara, FCRH ’18, a former Founder’s scholar who had also bought a ticket to Founder’s 2020, said that she is currently being solicited for donations by a variety of institutions, but giving to education hits home.

“I know what it meant to have everyone donate, to be a recipient, and to be on the other side of the equation,” she said. “I understand why it’s really important for the students to see that these donors and their community still have faith in them. We still hope for the best for them, and I feel that if we can demonstrate that with leaving our donations in place, then the whole campaign of Faith and Hope is worth it. We still have faith and hope in our students.”

Last fall, Playbill listed Fordham among the colleges most represented on Broadway, so it’s no surprise to find three alumni and one Fordham Theatre faculty member among this year’s Tony Award nominees.

Fordham Theatre alumna Julie White, PCS ’09, is up for best featured actress in a play for her turn in Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus. Written by Taylor Mac, Gary is an imagined sequel to Shakespeare’s violent revenge drama. It’s set amid the decline of the Roman Empire and tells the story of the minor characters left with the macabre cleanup work following the gruesome events of Shakespeare’s original.

In her review for Vulture, Sara Holdren praised the “combined zaniness and pathos of [White’s] marvelously feverish performance” as Carol, a midwife who is merely mentioned in Shakespeare’s play, and added that it is “all but impossible to imagine Gary without [her] brilliantly kooky antics.”

White previously won the Tony for best actress in a play in 2007 for The Little Dog Laughed, and she was also nominated for best featured actress in a play in 2015 for Airline Highway.

Meanwhile, Ephraim Sykes, FCLC ’10, has been nominated for best featured actor in a musical for his role as David Ruffin in Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations. New York Times critic Ben Brantley noted Sykes’ “spectacular scissor splits” and “smoking hot” performance as the music legend who sang lead vocals on Temptations hits like “My Girl” and “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” but who was as personally troubled as he was talented.

“This is the most monstrous role I’ve ever had to take on,” Sykes told Broadway.com. “The award [for me] is when I walk out of the stage door, and I meet somebody that says, ‘What you did really connected to me.’”

A graduate of the Ailey/Fordham B.F.A. in dance program, Sykes has previously been nominated for three Astaire Awards for his roles in Broadway productions, including Hamilton. He has also toured with the Ailey II dance company, and in 2016, he played Seaweed J. Stubbs in NBC’s televised live production of Hairspray!

Tony Award winner Clint Ramos, who joined Fordham Theatre last fall as head of the design and production track, has been nominated for best costume design for his work on the play Torch Song. He won the Tony in that category in 2016 for his work on the play Eclipsed.

Rounding out this year’s list of Fordham nominees is producer John Johnson, FCLC ’02, who got his start on Broadway as an intern for Joey Parnes Productions during his junior year at Fordham Theatre. He has a total of seven Tonys to his credit (among Fordham alumni, that’s second only to his mentor, Elizabeth McCann, LAW ’66, a nine-time Tony Award-winning producer).

This year, Johnson has been nominated twice, as an executive producer of best play nominee Gary and of The Waverly Gallery, which is up for best play revival.

Six additional members of the Fordham family are part of productions that have been nominated for 2019 Tony Awards:

• Siena Zoë Allen, FCLC ’15, associate costume designer, What the Constitution Means to Me
• Kaleigh Bernier, FCLC ’16, assistant stage manager, Be More Chill
• Jessie Bonaventure, FCLC ’15, assistant scenic designer, What the Constitution Means to Me and Hadestown
• Drew King, FCLC ’09, ensemble, Tootsie
• Fordham Theatre student Wayne Mackins, ensemble, The Prom
• Michael Potts, former Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theatre at Fordham, Mr. Hawkins, The Prom

The 73rd Annual Tony Awards ceremony will be held on Sunday, June 9, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

Dinner and a Show: Fordham’s alumni office hosts theater outings as part of its cultural events series. On May 9, a group of alumni and guests saw Tootsie and heard from Fordham grad and ensemble member Drew King, FCLC ’09, in a special talkback session after the show. Plans are underway for an October outing to see Ain’t Too Proud featuring Tony-nominee Ephraim Sykes, FCLC ’10. Tickets will be available soon via the alumni events calendar.

Based on reactions, comments, and shares*, here are the Fordham News stories that were most popular on Facebook this year.

10. Fordham Provost Stephen Freedman Dies at 68
To call an obituary a “popular” post may seem incongruous. The word is very fitting, however, for our late provost Stephen Freedman, who was loved and admired on the Fordham campus and beyond. His untimely death in July shocked the University community; we still grieve for him as we strive to carry on his legacy.

9. Management Course on Spinning Bikes Gets Students Up to Speed
Struggling to fit in your spin workout and still make it to class? Students did both in Julita Haber’s management class, the first ever fitness integrated learning (FIL) class to be offered on an American campus.

8. Faces in the Class of 2018
Hailing from all over the world, these 10 members of the Class of 2018 were just a small sample of the many talented graduates who do us proud each year.

7. Spending a Year With the Jesuit Volunteer Corps
For some Fordham grads—including Charlie Shea and Annie David—the Jesuit Volunteer Corps offers a chance to experience a different community and find a sense of purpose.

6. Performing Arts Programs Earn Top Rankings
Our performing arts programs took center stage this year, earning top spots in several prestigious rankings. Bravo!

5. Fordham Opens New London Centre
Fordham officially unveiled its new London Centre, now located in the Clerkenwell neighborhood and offering study abroad opportunities in liberal arts, business, and drama.

4. Fordham Marches in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade
As always, the Rams had a great showing on Fifth Avenue for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. We took first place among universities for the third year in a row.

3. Remembering Nicholas Booker
Friends and Fordham staff came together to remember first-year student Nicholas Booker, an athlete, a pal to many, and a promising young man whose future was cut short by a severe asthmatic attack.

2. Moving in on Opening Day
There was plenty of Fordham spirit on display as Opening Day welcomed new and returning students to campus.

1. Sistine Chapel Reproduction Installed at Rose Hill
And our most popular post of 2018 was a recent one: A quarter-scale reproduction of the Sistine Chapel fresco—a gift from the Met—now hangs in Duane Library’s Butler Commons. Be sure to check it out in January, when the University will open the room to members of the campus community.

*A note about our methodology: This list is based on total reactions, comments, and shares, including reactions to other people’s shares– which are not reflected in the numbers seen at the bottom of the posts here.

“It took, like, a good two minutes for her to come back to me, so I just sort of sat there, just listening to her, and I was also crying at the same time,” he said.

From the moment he saw the Alvin Ailey company perform in Atlanta when he was 11 years old, Wilson said he said to himself, “I want to be an Ailey dancer.”

By the time he hit high school he was already researching how to get to New York and be near the company. He had discovered the Ailey/Fordham BFA Program, which offers conservatory training in dance alongside a liberal arts curriculum. It became his first choice. He was accepted and received a Founder’s Scholarship.

“I think that the Founder’s Scholarship and all of the aid I received, it just made my dreams come true,” he said.

When he arrived at Fordham, he recalled, he heard a guest speaker who told students that if they wrote their goal down on a piece of paper and posted it a wall in their home, it would help them realize their ambitions. Every year after, Wilson plastered the walls of his dorm with posters of Ailey II, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s junior company that serves as a bridge between The Ailey School and the professional dance world.

“So every morning, I woke up, I saw those, and every night before I went to bed, I saw those,” he said.  “When you see something so often, I think it just sort of trains your mind, unconsciously, to really go for that thing. You could just see it as, ‘Oh, it’s just a picture on a wall.’ No, it’s a dream.”

But making that dream a reality required hard work and focus, he said. And it all paid off when he made it into Ailey II in his senior year and into the main company this past spring. This month, Wilson will be dancing in a production called EN, which was recently created for the company by choreographer Jessica Lang. As the company takes up its residency at City Center for five weeks in December, audiences will get several chances to see the new ballet.

“I saw the piece when it premiered, and I was just blown away,” he said of the Lincoln Center opening from this past June.

After spending the summer learning the company’s repertoire, this fall he began to learn the new piece. Lang’s husband, Kanji Segawa, also a member of the company, walked Wilson through the steps at Ailey’s dance studios, which sit just down the street from Fordham Lincoln Center on Ninth Avenue.

Wilson remembers the short walk between the two campuses as the moment he got to savor New York as his home. He said he very much appreciated having the “college experience that every young adult wants to have,” alongside the rigor of the conservatory. That pairing made him see that Fordham’s “men and women for others” ethos is as an inherent part of being a performer.

“In a physical and literal sense … I am dancing to help someone feel something, whether that be happiness, sadness, inspiration, anger,” he said. “I think that’s why people come and see dance. Because they want to see their stories portrayed on stage, and that’s our job as dancers, to do just that.”

He added that studying dance in New York can’t compare to anywhere else.

“I would say New York City is definitely the center of the dance world,” he said. “It is a goal for a lot of dancers—most dancers actually.”

Hailing from the comparatively small city of Augusta, Georgia, Wilson said his Founder’s scholarship made a “small town boy’s dreams come true” and that he hopes to inspire other young boys like his 11-year-old self.

“It’s just an image that is forever burned into my mind because now that I’m here, I always think back to what brought me here,” he said. “I’m dancing for that little black boy in a small town who wants to go on and do big things, but doesn’t know that he can. I dance to let him know that it’s possible.”

Kathleen Keresey contributed to this article. 

A dancer with scoliosis rises to become one of the breakout stars in her field

Paige Fraser is taking the dance world by storm. In the past year alone, she earned a fellowship from the Princess Grace Foundation-USA, was named one of Dance Magazine’s “breakout stars” of 2017, and was featured in an Intel commercial—all while performing as a founding dancer of Visceral Dance Chicago.

But if Fraser had followed her doctors’ advice her freshman year of high school, she might not even be dancing today.

In 2004, the Bronx native was diagnosed with scoliosis, and doctors encouraged her to undergo a spinal fusion procedure.

“What they do is put two rods—sometimes three, depending on your curve—in your back,” Fraser says. “But as you can imagine, it’s very hard to move with a metal rod in your back.”

So Fraser decided she would cope with the pain of scoliosis rather than give up the art form she had loved since she was 4. Her parents supported the decision, and she found a chiropractor who was willing to work with her. She wore a back brace through high school, and went on to enroll in the Ailey/Fordham BFA in Dance program, graduating in 2012.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she says, “there are days when arches in my back are tight, or my ribs are inflamed. But you just have to learn about your curve, and know how to listen to your body.”

Fraser achieved a longtime goal as a Fordham senior, when she was asked to join Ailey II, the junior company of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. After two years with Ailey, she joined Visceral Dance Chicago. Helping to lay the groundwork for a new company gave her the opportunity to “find out who I am as my own artist,” Fraser says. “It’s very creative, and we each get to share our own artistic voice.”

Fraser has used her platform to serve as a spokesperson for dancers with scoliosis—and to promote diversity in dance.

“When I joined Visceral, I was the darkest woman in the company. It doesn’t bother me, but sometimes there are things you don’t have control over,” says Fraser, a first-generation American of Jamaican descent. “Like you have to do extra work so your shoes match your skin color.”

That’s why she was so excited when the nonprofit organization Brown Girls Do Ballet featured her on its website this past April. “It is so important for dancers to see other dancers like themselves,” she says. “Every time I go on stage, I carry the hopes of those little girls who look up to me, because I want them to know that anything is possible. They can do it with hard work and belief and knowing they’re beautiful inside and out.”

Read more “20 in Their 20s” profiles.

Junior Joslin Vezeau, the recipient of the Denise Jefferson Memorial Scholarship, performed a solo dance to Mercer’s “All in Love Is Fair,” while group numbers were performed by the freshman, sophomore, junior and senior classes, respectively. Whether poised onstage or posed mid-air, students brought line, shape, and spirit to the language of movement, creating dramatic renderings of each choreographer’s vision.

[doptg id=”80″]