In my last post, I didn’t mention the two talks I attended this week — one informal conversation with John Bohannon of “Dance Your Ph.D.” fame and a formal presentation from author of “Apollo’s Angels” Jennifer Homans.

1. John Bohannon

My roommate sent me a link about a month before the dance majors got the email. The link I’ll post below. The email said John Bohannon would be talking at 1 pm on Tuesday in LH 168. I went and listened to his story about dancing science, about collaborative efforts, and about the game of zero-gravity tag he wanted to play with the dance majors on Thursday. While I didn’t attend the game — fighting expedia for decent airfare took longer than anticipated — I walked past and saw dance majors slowly rotating a water bottle and a stool through the air. It was cool.

2. Jennifer Homans

The Jennifer Homans talk was through the JCFA’s Leadership Through the Arts forum. Each other, Leadership Through the Arts brings in speakers across the range of JCFA disciplines to speak. In past years, Ralph Lemon, Joe Goode, Denise Jefferson, Alonso King, and even Jacques D’Amboise have come to Butler through this program!

Ms. Homans outlined early French ballet and Russian ballet under the Soviet during her talk, ending with a Q&A conversation about the necessity of bringing new relevance to the art form.

I really liked the talk, but I was sitting onstage with other dancers (I don’t know why they wanted us onstage, except that Ducky, the venue, was completely full, and they were even live-streaming the talk to more people in the reception room in the basement). I have a very hard time sitting still for longer than about 40 minutes, so the whole time I was trying not to fidget!

It’s funny that Ms. Homans came this year — my grandmother gave me her book as a Christmas gift this December. What perfect timing!