cfacgrad

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Amanda Lund’s time at BYU has given her a jump start on her future career. She has already had the opportunity to work with e.l.f. Cosmetics, where designs she helped create will be featured on shelves at Target stores. She is currently an intern for Javas Lehn Studios, a design firm based in New York City working for hotels and publications. Her attraction to art and design came during her freshman year when she took her first art class: Art 101. This three-hour course enthralled her and made her realize this was what she wanted to dedicate the rest of her life to, in some capacity or another. “The design program really pushes you to explore what you’re passionate about and use design to express that,” Lund said. Lund has taken those words to heart and has used her passion for design to guide her in other avenues of her education and life; thus leading her towards her drive for inclusivity in design. A lover of the outdoors and a helper at heart, Lund dedicated her capstone project – “Designing for Every Body, Not the Average Body” – to aiding those with disabilities. She wants them to be seen by the design world. “I focused specifically on those who live with physical disabilities and how the spaces we have designed reject them. These spaces were not designed with their needs in mind, but were designed for what society deems as the 'average' body. But I believe there is no average human,” said Lund. Her project zeroed in on how commercial parks and playgrounds tend to turn away people with physical limitations, especially those in wheelchairs. She praised Clemyjontri Park, a park from her hometown of McLean, VA designed for children with disabilities, as being the most popular kids’ park in the area. “When you design for people with disabilities, it suddenly becomes more accessible for everyone,” she said. Lund hopes to use her design skills to make the world a more inclusive place. She didn't understand that design was so much more than just creating beautiful brands and products that articulate a particular story. “I’ve learned that there is so much more to design. I now have the necessary tools to help give others a voice and ignite change in the world around me,” said Lund. Lund will receive her BFA in graphic design this spring and will continue the Javas Lehn internship after graduation. She looks forward to finding other endeavors that will develop her fervor for design and her voice for others.

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Graduating dance student Anelise Leishman reflects on her time at BYU Ballet has been a central force in my life from the beginning, and one of the greatest blessings of my BYU experience was being able to continue dancing in college. While working towards my English degree and pursuing my passion for writing, I earned a minor in ballet and performed with Theatre Ballet for four years alongside a wonderful group of people who would become my closest friends. One of my most fulfilling experiences was performing in George Balanchine’s “Walpurgisnacht Ballet.” The Balanchine Trust has high standards when choosing who performs their works, and it has always been a dream of mine to dance Balanchine’s choreography onstage. In “Walpurgisnacht,” all the women let their hair down — literally — for the final movement of the ballet. I’ll never forget the exuberance and joy I felt onstage, free for once from the restraints of hairspray and bobby pins, dancing with my best friends. I got to cross something off my bucket list that weekend. However, for any serious dancer who has devoted their life to the art form, dancing in college rather than embarking on a professional career comes with a certain stigma in the ballet world. The implication is that you’re not “good enough” to make it onto a professional company and get paid to dance without a degree. That view is, of course, extremely short-sighted, and one that I’ve found to be fundamentally untrue: after all, I’ve been fortunate enough to perform works from famed choreographers like Balanchine and to share the stage with some of the most talented dancers I know. Even so, that stigma is enough to give anyone an inferiority complex. Every now and then, those thoughts creep in — I’m not good enough, and What’s the point? And lately, as my time in the studio has come to an end, the most depressing thought of them all — Did any of that hard work even matter? Merce Cunningham, one of the forefathers of American modern dance, once said, “You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that fleeting moment when you feel alive.” That rings true for me, now more than ever. It can be difficult to appreciate the value of all those years of training when the only souvenirs you’re left with are the memories of past performances, of the adrenaline you felt in those few minutes onstage. My last performance with Theatre Ballet was this February, dancing “Swan Lake” at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. When the show was over, I had taken off my costume and was packing up when one of my friends came backstage to tell me that someone in the audience had asked to see me. I was confused because no one I knew was in attendance that night. It turns out a four-year-old girl had seen me in the program and wanted to meet me because we have the same first name. I got to chat with her and take a picture. She even showed me some of her dance moves, and her mom told me how excited she was to start dance lessons. After COVID-19 hit and classes everywhere were postponed indefinitely, Annelise’s mom got in touch with me for advice on how to feed her daughter’s insatiable love of dance and continue her ballet education from home. It almost felt like I was passing the torch, from one Anelise to another. Ballet is meant to look easy, but it’s not without struggle; it takes its toll. I came to BYU still recovering from my first ankle surgery, my second surgery kept me off the stage for a year, and last summer I discovered I had been dancing on a torn ligament for the entire season. But to know that I made a little girl’s day just by being onstage made my last performance a very special one. As my time at BYU — and my dance career — draws to an unexpected close, I’ve come to realize that more than anything else, dance is an exercise in sharing joy. Everything we do as dancers is for the audience. We may cross off some bucket list items along the way, but at the end of the day, it’s all for them. That’s what makes the hard work matter. The publication of student articles allows the College of Fine Arts and Communications to highlight the experiential learning opportunities and behind-the-scenes experiences of students and faculty and tell stories with a unique voice and point of view. Submit your story at cfac.byu.edu.

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