D ISCLAIMER: This article is written with no intention to denounce, devalue, or defame the work or life of any essential worker or the respective industry said worker provides service in. I am incredibly grateful and inspired by your service and fortitude. We would not be able to get through this pandemic without you, and I hope you receive every mode of compensation aptly. Dealing with the shutdown of many industries and organizations, many people who are stuck at home resort to their music archives, television and film streaming sites, comedic social media photos and videos, visual artwork, journals and blogs, culinary tutorials, and miscellaneous forms of artistic performances for entertainment. However, the entertainment serves for more than kicks and giggles; the outlet this artistic entertainment provides has proven to help the general public maintain a stable mental state in these quickly ever-changing days of the COVID-19 pandemic. From the overflow of TikTok dance chall...
F or most of my life as a dancer--honestly, in most spaces I occupy--I usually am the first or only of some demographic I belong to in a given space. Throughout college this was pretty common: I was the first male to ever join the Knox College Dance Squad, which led to me becoming the first black/male co-captain (interim) of the dance squad in its 16-year history. (To this day I am the only male that has been an active member of the dance squad for all four undergraduate years and the only male co-captain.) Alongside that during my senior year, I began living my life as an openly gay man, and for that I was the first openly gay undergraduate member in the history of my fraternity's chapter (which was the campus' predominantly white male fraternity comprised 98% of sports athletes; clearly, you-know-who represented the 2%). Hence, choreographing for and performing at the halftime presentations during football and basketball games were important acts for multiple reasons. Not ...