keely song glenn

CFAC Students Travel Internationally to Gain Real-World Experience and Share Their Talents While Studying Abroad

BYU’s School of Music Invited Guest Artist Douglas Ewart for an Interactive and Collaborative Performance of Art, Music and Dance

BYU Contemporary Dance Theatre Presents “Textile”—a Performance That Intertwines Dance and Fabric

CFAC Students Travel Internationally to Gain Real-World Experience and Share Their Talents While Studying Abroad

The Contemporary Dance Theatre performance will dance in and out of reality and find hope within it all

Glenn shared her experiences of drawing closer to God and connecting with others as she leaned into the pauses of life

The center announced 50 winners in various creative disciplines, including visual arts, literature, music composition, film and dance In response to the ongoing circumstances that have impacted individuals across all disciplines, the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts recently announced 50 grant winners to support its artistic community. These grants were awarded in disciplines of visual arts, scholarship, literature, musical composition, film and dance. Thirteen of the grant recipients had ties to the BYU College of Fine Arts and Communications, with faculty, students and alumni being among those 50 recognized. The winners were chosen from hundreds of submissions to the center’s “Art for Uncertain Times” program, which was initiated to provide micro-grants for artists and scholars in the Latter-day Saint art community. The center’s call for submissions aimed to allow scholars and creative artists in any discipline to engage with the goals of the center — to advocate and explore the arts of our culture: visual art, music, literature, film, dance, design and drama. The organization encouraged submissions that related “to the needs of people at this specific moment in time.” The 50 winners each received grants of $250 for the submission of their works, which will be distributed digitally through the center’s website and social media platforms in the near future. In its announcement, the organization emphasized the talent of those who participated in the program. “The Center received hundreds of high-caliber proposals from artists and scholars all over the globe. We asked for a diversity of voices and are delighted by the diversity that we received — in viewpoints, disciplinary methods and geographical origins.” Check out the complete list of grant winners (by discipline) who have ties to the college. Dance Dance | Rachel Barker - “Untitled” Dance | Keely Song - “Covenant Keepers” Film TMA | Barrett Burgin - “Gathered” TMA | Jeff Parkin - “Silver Linings and Compensatory Blessings” Music Music | Jed Blodgett & Andrew Maxfield - “Untitled” Music | Esther Megargel - “Songs of Comfort and Joy for Soprano, Piano and Flute” Music | Joseph Sowa - “Untitled” Visual Art Art | Madeline Rands - 'Untitled' Art | Colby Sanford - “What Is Tiny, What Is Big?” Art | Maddison Colvin - “Threshold (After Sonatine)” Design | Silvia Borja - “Fish Out of Water” Design | Claire Forste - “Sufficient unto the Day” Design | Sarah Robinson - 'The Signs of the Times' Design | Brinnan Schill - “Untitled” Design | Emily Wall - 'Untitled'

The video continues a collaboration with NYC-based choreographer Jesse Obremski and pays tribute to graduating seniors

Being pregnant felt like a door closing on a big part of her life and identity, says dance professor Keely Song Glenn (BA ’08). She remembers not knowing how to “navigate moving from a dance identity to then a dance-and-a-mother identity.” Now a mother of three, she’s found that mother and dancer aren’t mutually exclusive roles, and she’s opening the door for other expecting mothers to keep dancing. Last March Glenn choreographed a dance titled “Claim” and brought together seven pregnant dancers at BYU to perform it. “A lot of times with my pregnancies, I just wanted the pregnant part to be over,” says Glenn. She hopes the project helps the dancers “claim where they are at right now within their bodies . . . both as a dancer and an expectant new mother.” Read the article and watch the video at magazine.byu.edu.

BYU’s Education in Zion Gallery, located in the Joseph F. Smith Building, will open two new exhibits at the end of January: a permanent exhibit titled “Education for Eternity” and a temporary exhibit called “Constructing a Soul.” The exhibits, which follow the gallery’s trend of highlighting BYU’s Four Aims, will be additional tools that faculty members can use to enhance their teaching. Heather Seferovich, the gallery’s curator, believes that professors will be able to integrate the exhibits into their classroom experience regardless of their respective disciplines. “The gallery is based on the Four Aims of a BYU education, which are applicable to every class on this campus, regardless of the discipline,” said Seferovich. “There are going to be different things that will work for different disciplines, it’s just a matter of the professors being creative or talking with me about their learning outcomes so they can craft an assignment that fulfills those outcomes.” Seferovich said that while it’s easiest for professors to connect their classes to the gallery when there are direct links between the exhibits and the course content — such as a photography professor who can use the gallery’s lenticular photo as an example — that’s certainly not the only way faculty can utilize the gallery. Seferovich said that many professors use the gallery as either a motivational tool at the beginning of the semester or toward the end of the semester as a way to get students to reflect on how BYU’s Four Aims have been incorporated into the class before they fill out teacher evaluations. Another common way for professors to incorporate the gallery into their classes is to have students take a guided tour or to answer questions for an out-of-class assignment. According to Seferovich, encouraging students to visit the gallery helps them learn in a way that simply sitting in a classroom cannot. “Sitting at a desk is fine, but many students are more kinetic learners, especially in creative fields, so walking around and talking and interacting with displays can sometimes help students with the learning process,” said Seferovich. “Students reach these wonderful epiphanies in the gallery. It’s like something clicks in their brains and they get it. These are life-long lessons that they learn, and they learned because they were walking around in the gallery.' Professors in the College of Fine Arts and Communications have already seen this happen with their own students. Ed Carter, a professor in the School of Communications, has been taking students to view Education in Zion exhibits for years. For him, the gallery represents a way to help students understand their place in the university by learning about those that came before them and preparing to pass on a legacy to those that come after them. “One of my BYU communications professors, Dallas Burnett, once told us that we don't ‘own’ our jobs at BYU, but are merely stewards of them,” said Carter. “I think that applies to students, too. I like students to think about how they can be good stewards over the positions they hold on campus and pass them on in even better shape. It helps to see what others before us did to improve the campus academically as well as ethically, morally and spiritually.” Carter also said that the gallery can help faculty members meet President Worthen’s Inspired Learning initiative by making them “consider how to make that kind of learning a daily reality in our classes, labs and other activities at BYU.” Keely Song Glenn, a dance professor, has also used the gallery to incorporate inspired learning into the classroom by taking students to view the gallery’s “Jesus Wept” exhibit where students were able to make connections between the material presented in the exhibit, their own emotions and the emotions they express through dance. “My role as a mentor and teacher is to help facilitate an environment in which the students feel safe to explore ideas and emotions within movement to make a dance,” said Glenn. “Navigating through the exhibit and the scriptures allows the students to contemplate how their emotions might better serve them towards creativity and compassion rather than despair and futility.” For professors who haven’t used Education in Zion exhibits in their classes before, the gallery’s opening event will be a great opportunity to learn more about what the gallery offers. The gallery will be hosting an opening event from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday Jan. 30. Col. Gail “Hal” Halvorsen, more commonly known as the “Candy Bomber,” will greet people and pass out candy during the event. At 4, 5 and 6 p.m. the gallery will also host a performance program featuring Janice Kapp Perry, BYU folk dancers, an alumni speaker and refreshments.

BYU students, alumni, faculty and UTA personnel cooperate to create raised awareness of Utah’s air pollution situation through dance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLZJf7P-T4o&feature=youtu.be When Keely Song moved to Utah in 2016, she was jarred by what she called the “apocalyptic” talk about air quality during the state’s notorious inversions. So when BYU announced in November it would be providing free UTA passes to students, employees and their families, the dance professor had an idea. “I wanted to create a work that motivated people — including myself, who commutes from Salt Lake City — to use public transit, while being educational and entertaining,” she said. “I didn’t understand how hazardous the air quality is on a red day, and that by limiting our emissions through carpooling, using public transit or not driving at all, we could actually greatly improve the air quality.” Continue reading on news.byu.edu.