‘Creating a Container’:
Teaching and Learning During COVID-19 By Kirsten Akens ’96
Rosy Simas’ first scheduled campus performance through CC’s Department of Theatre and Dance was a go for March 2020. She packed up, got on the road, and, as Simas puts it, “from the time I left Minnesota and drove here, in that two-day timeframe, we started to enter the pandemic and that is when people started to think about restrictions.”
When she arrived in Colorado Springs, Simas, a transdisciplinary artist who historically has presented work as a choreographer, carried on. With partner and dancer Sam Aros Mitchell, she installed and performed a transitory piece in Cornerstone Arts Center on March 6, weaving together movement, film, and immersive music. Though the year to follow would throw everyone for a loop, including Simas, her visit had made an impact. She’s back on campus for the 2021 Spring Semester, as the Department of Theatre and Dance’s first artist-in-residence, thanks to the newly established Pamela Battey Mitchell Visiting Artistin-Residence in Contemporary Dance in honor of Hanya Holm. (See “Gift Creates New Visiting Artist Position in Dance Department,” p. 15). “It is impossible to overstate the importance of Rosy’s contributions to the Department of Theatre and Dance — and above all, our work on the antiracism initiative,” says Associate Professor of Performance Studies Ryan Platt, who also is chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance. “Rosy is a Native artist and activist who actively builds new Native audiences and combats the marginalization of Native artists,” he says. “Her teaching always involves astute attention to questions of identity, power, and cultural difference. These issues are particularly needed in dance, which many students regard as inherently neutral and a matter of technical skill.” Platt notes that Simas also is contributing to the larger artistic and intellectual discourse on campus and that the Department of Theatre and Dance has been collaborating with the Native American Student Union, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, and faculty in anthropology, English, and race, ethnicity, and migration studies.
Rosy Simas. Photo by Jennifer Coombes
12 | COLORADO COLLEGE BULLETIN | SPRING 2021
