Today we’d like to introduce you to Erika Randall.
Hi Erika, I’m so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed with your story and how you got to where you are today.
I came into this life as a dancer and knew that dance would be the engine of my time on the planet.
Dance has taken me all over the world, as a student, maker, and performer. Dance has also been my Beatrice, guiding me through every level of heartache and hell this life has offered. Sometimes, it has been dancing itself that has been the challenge–the impositions of body image, elitism, racism, and colonialization–depending on the forms I studied and where I trained. But most often, dance has been my way through, my way of knowing myself, and my point of view of who I am and how I inhabit joy and transformation.
I grew up dancing at Marjorie Jones School of Ballet and Dance Arts behind a shopping mall in Columbus, OH. I trained with China White from Dance Theatre of Harlem in downtown Columbus, and there I learned ballet and breaking–a strange and perfect combination in the 80s! The most impactful decision of my dancing life was to go to Interlochen for camp and ultimately to finish high school. Then Juilliard, leaving Juilliard –which was even more important than attending. In leaving, I learned that my life was truly about dancing, not grooming my ego and that my health was more important than my aspirations. From NY to Seattle back to NY to Ohio to Illinois. From performer to choreographer to educator to filmmaker, one twist and turn after another and another and another until I found myself at CU Boulder as an assistant professor in 2007.
I earned tenure after my collaborative award-winning feature film, Leading Ladies, the first of its kind to celebrate the LGBTQ community through dance and PG-13 vibes, toured the world for 2 years and through over 65 festivals. Now, an associate dean for student success for the College of Arts & Sciences at CU, I still teach and make dance, while using the body to give trouble to systems and to transform the often-disembodied thinking that stands in the way of institutional progress.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been a road… and a creek path…and a dirty sidewalk… and … a neon-lit, poppy-lined yellow brick road and and and. This life of making and unmaking has been full of all the things one would call challenges, struggles, and chances for growth.
From injury and body shaming to discipline shaming in higher ed to the specific challenges of independent film distribution to overcoming my expectations and personal limitations and colonized beliefs about my own body and the worlds of others. Dance has helped me learn and unlearn, again and again, and I am still learning…and so grateful.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
As the associate dean for student success at CU, I am so proud of the work my team does to support students, all students, but especially those who have been historically marginalized on campus. I see Yes as a verb. As an active member of several departmental, campus, and national committees, I am often reminded by my incredible mentors that “No” is also a word.
But I YES as a verb because I am enlivened by the creativity that it takes to generate ideas in the community. I YES because I want the voices of women, queer folk, artists, and mothers in the spaces where policy and protocols are discussed. And once in those rooms, I YES so that I can advocate for, ally, and augment those voices even less privileged than my own. Working with and on behalf of BIPOC communities of faculty, students, and staff on campus is a critical charge of mine, and one that I am only recently becoming brave enough to do with my whole being. I YES because I believe that marginalized members of our community must occupy the spaces where decisions have historically been made for us, not by us.
I have found inspired change in these rooms. Anyone who has been on a committee or in a leadership space with me, (which I think might be everyone on CU’s campus by now), knows that I am passionate, playful, and believe in humor and humanity as a way to put forward and synthesize ideas to effect positive change. Administrative leadership is choreographic for me, and I have loved bringing my knowledge and care of bodies in time and space to roles and rooms that can so often dehumanize us.
I am proud of the Ampersand (“&”) and ANDing campaign that my collaborator Tim Grassley and I have shaped for the college over the last two years, as it holds an inherent sense of connection, inclusivity, and access within its alchemy. We have built a podcast, (the Ampersand, where I get to be in conversation with incredible humans from A&S and be lit by them every episode), helped galvanize intersectional scholarship opportunities for students, and made room for folks to bring their multiple identities to their learning. All this through a playful and made-up word that breaks down walls rather than building or adhering to silos. We love collaborating so much we are starting our own creative and consulting team called “Night Bell Productions” and hope to bring our magic to folks outside the academy. Nightbellproductions.com soon to come!
Being surrounded by the best teams of humans everywhere I work has been the greatest magic of my academic leadership life.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
Folks on my teams know that chocolate, honesty, energy, and great ideas are what spark and support me and our collective “next”–also a willingness to work together to clarify your role and run with it is crucial to the team so that the work is upheld and invested in by all. I like to move both fast and slow–rapid-fire ideas, riffing, and dreaming into the infinite possibility (without fear of what we might need to let go of), and then slow down to check research, data, and our pulse (both literal and metaphoric).
Holding critical questions about positionality and our true audience as our north star is a must with my team. Who will most benefit? What and who are our primary focus? What can we afford to lose/let go of, and how can we share those goals and plans with integrity and transparency?
I do love it when folks laugh at my bad puns, get that I am always listening (even when multi-tasking), and know that even when I seem as confident as a bespoke suit, I am still raw, naked, and human underneath (PS. I do not own a bespoke suit, but it seems like the right image for “professional confidence”).
Folks can also connect with me more soon through my website re-zhuzh that will breadcrumb them to upcoming readings for my first novel, “Music for Leaving.” Soon soon!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.colorado.edu/artsandsciences/erika-randall
- Other: https://theampersand.podbean.com/
