Senior Dance Major Uses Thesis as Outlet for Environmental Activism

Senior Dance major Katie Ann Magyar ’20 is an environmental activist at heart and firmly believes that arts and dance have the power to effect change. For her senior thesis, Magyar collaborated with fellow UArtists to create a beautifully haunting piece about how oceanic animals could be affected by offshore oil drilling along U.S. coastlines. The project, titled Seismic: The Cost of Oil, was funded by the university’s Honors Scholars program. 

Magyar’s love for the environment was inspired by her mother when she was a little girl, and her interest in activism started when she was 16. By the time she was 18, Magyar was a member of Oceana, a nonprofit ocean conservation organization, and had started writing letters to the local and federal government about environmental legislation. Since then, she’s been involved with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Sierra Club, the Surfrider Foundation and World Wildlife Foundation.

“I focus on the ocean, because there is so much yet to be discovered about it,” Magyar said. “Scientists have only explored about 5% of our oceans, and humans are polluting and destroying that environment every day.”

In Magyar’s junior year at UArts, Dance professor Lauren Bakst quoted Dean Donna Faye Burchfield in class. “‘Pay attention to what you are paying attention to,’” she said. Bakst then asked the class what they were paying attention to. For Magyar, the answer was simple: the environment, under attack.

Magyar found herself researching possible connections between dance and the environment in professor Emily Wexler’s Dance History II class. Through that research, she learned about pseudo-empathy, where audience members subconsciously put themselves in the place of the performer. That sparked an idea: If people won’t read past the headlines about the environment, maybe she could make them feel something about the environment through dance.

For the project, Dance majors Emily Civitella ’23, Tatiana Lawson ’20, Claire Mork ’21, Kayla Rognoni ’21, Kyle Tanguay ’20 and Madelyn Wansong ’22 researched different animal groups to study how they move and how they might be affected by seismic missiles. Film major Ralph Ravix ’21 filmed and edited the piece, while Instrumental Performance alum Wesley Curtis BM ’19 produced and mixed the music.

Magyar hopes to reach a wide audience with her thesis film by submitting it to film festivals and sharing it on social media.

“I believe in environmental modern dance and how it can be a powerful tool for change,” she said. “I will be forever thankful for this piece and everyone who was a part of it.”

Watch Magyar’s full thesis.

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