Dance has always been a part of Samantha Sordi’s life. At three years old, Sam catapulted herself into the world of ballet, and she’s “done it ever since.” Before coming to Swarthmore, Sam explored other forms of dance at her home studio in Lewes, Delaware. “I started doing contemporary and jazz, and I even joined the competition team,” Sam said. But when Sam started college, she planned to leave it all behind. After bad experiences in high school and the COVID pandemic, Sam said she “was pretty set on leaving dance in the past.” Yet, Sam stayed with the art form, and is currently graduating as a “double dance studies and neuroscience major.” So, what happened?
Meeting Olivia Sabee, an associate professor in the Dance Department currently on-leave in France, convinced Sam to give dance another shot. Sam said, “I went to the activities fair during orientation, and she told me to just, ‘do the placement test to see where you would fall into.’ I was placed into Ballet III, and the rest is history.” Sam continued to pursue ballet but recently branched into other styles during her senior year. She talked about joining Rhythm and Motion (RnM), a dance troupe centered on styles of the African diaspora and taking modern dance courses.
Over the past four years, Sam has been an active member of Swarthmore dance productions and classes. Sam reflected, “I’ve been in almost every dance concert we’ve had, typically within the ballet pieces.” She had been in a tap piece during her sophomore year but “was doing ballet in it.” In her senior year, she has repeatedly performed on stage, including in senior pieces, the Rhythm n Motion showcase, and even at the Philadelphia City Hall. After telling me about all of her time spent in dance and doing ballet, I couldn’t help but wonder: why dance?
Sam explained that it was the emotionality of dance that continued her interest. It was “the ability to express, sometimes, what I’m feeling, that I can’t put into words,” that initially drew her to dance. Sam revealed, “The dance studio is a very vulnerable place. You’re asked to leave everything at the door, but I bring some of myself to release it onto the dance floor.” Sam communicated that her passion for dance is almost therapeutic. She said that the studio “became a place I’ve fallen in love with. Somewhere I can move and feel what I need to feel in the moment.”
For her senior thesis, Sam is exploring the emotional agency in dance, and how archives omit some creative aspects of movement. Looking at dance criticism from the 19th century, Sam expressed that “the criticism says nothing about the artistic quality of the dancer.” Aligning her interests in both neuroscience and dance, Sam explained how scientific thought informed a lot of dance philosophy. She mentioned that Gray’s Anatomy, a standard for its exploration of the body and human anatomy, was at the time “much more empirical, and didn’t leave a lot of room for emotion.”
This attention to emotion in dance highlights how Sam curates a positive atmosphere in the Dance Department. As a first-year, Sam talked about how she remembers feeling intimidated by some of the seniors. Sam said, “I cried after my first Ballet III class here, and I didn’t want that to be the experience of the underclassmen below me.” She said that creating a welcoming space is something really important to her. “I give names to the different classes that come in, so like, the sophomores are my dance babies and the freshmen are my dance kittens. I always try to make it feel like a family,” Sam said. She continued that the community aspect critically formed her experiences within dance and is a significant part of understanding the art form’s emotions.
Through Sam’s dedication to emotionality, she captures a feeling inherent in movement: the beauty in embodying creative expression. Her work highlights communication beyond linguistic boundaries.
