Vanessa Nowitzky (Music BFA 00) notes, “Since the fateful ides of March 2020, being temporarily laid off from one job, having my hours reduced in another, and most fortunately receiving generous unemployment benefits enabled me to pursue my dreams and spend my extra time developing my singdancing company. At last I was able to rent a dance studio, hold regular rehearsals with new singdancers, and commission beautiful high-quality costumes. I created a new singdance trio, ‘continual birdsong,’ which we videotaped last November, for the excerpt ‘a bird in the hand.’ Search for ‘singdancing’ in Vimeo. Last month I received an Oregon Artist Relief Grant, enabling me to continue renting dance studio space as well as a local circus studio for aerial arts. I commissioned a sculpture artist to recreate my infinity ring (an aerial apparatus I designed in 2009) in a larger, stronger size for doubles work, and I am currently rehearsing on it with my singdancing company. We are vegan and use singdancing to give voice to animals. We tell their stories through mostly nonverbal music and dance and show the world our strength in order to promote the health benefits of a vegan diet. I am a proponent of universal basic income (UBI) in order to care for all humankind. As pertains to art, I believe it takes the pressure off artists to have to sell their work to earn a living, thus enabling our art to come from a deeper place and be more authentic and transformative, manifesting paradise on earth now for all sentient beings. The ongoing revolution in artificial intelligence will free humanity from unwanted jobs, so that we can reclaim our own kinesthetic experience. I believe this means more people will dance. You can discover singdancing online. Enjoy!”