LEAP Alumna Lucy Van Cleef '21 on Her Journey From Dancer to Writer

In her recent article for POINTE magazine, "My 12-Year Journey to a Bachelor’s Degree While Dancing Professionally,"  Lucy Van Cleef '21 shares her dance and college degree journey and how she landed in Saint Mary's Liberal Education for Arts Professionals (LEAP) Program.

The LEAP Program is specifically designed to deliver a comprehensive liberal arts education to dancers and performing artists like Van Cleef, offering the opportunity to complete a BA in Performing Arts through part-time study.

In 2009, Van Cleef was a professional dancer with the Los Angeles Ballet, living the dancer's dream, working hard in the studio, and performing live onstage. "After fulfilling that dream, I still considered life after dancing as some abstract future reality," Van Cleef wrote. "Rationally, I knew that a dancer's stage career ended eventually—that there was bound to be a moment of 'What next?' I guess it was that question that drew me to the meeting, and to joining the LEAP Program the following fall."

The LEAP Program, Van Cleef writes, "encouraged me to articulate my love of dancing in a way that more people could understand—an ability that paved the way for the next stage of my career as a dance writer."

From Stage to Page

For her very first class, Van Cleef took "Writing for the Major" alongside professional dancers from all stages of life. Later in the program, she also had the chance to study abroad, traveling to Cape Town, South Africa, with six other dancers to teach at a two-week dance program.

These courses "encouraged me to articulate my love of dancing in a way that more people could understand—an ability that paved the way for the next stage of my career as a dance writer," writes Van Cleef. She's since become a regular contributor to POINTE magazine, Dance Magazine, Playbill, and Dance Europe. Van Cleef is also a translator: she recently worked with award-winning German author Bernd Perplies on Black Leviathan, a fantasy epic released by MacMillian Publishers in 2020.

Van Cleef received her diploma from Saint Mary's in April 2021. "It came just in time for me to submit my application to graduate school, where I'll be studying dance history," she writes in POINTE. "It might have taken 12 years, but the chapter was finally completed—thanks to the tireless support from three advisors: Mark Baird, Annie Colbeck, and Andrew Pearson."

As for what's next? "I'll be continuing my work as a freelance writer and translator. I'll also be enrolling in graduate school in the fall to pursue a PhD in Dance History."

READ the full POINTE article here. 

Learn more about the Saint Mary's LEAP Program.