After a long, stressful day of classes, the Exclusive Beauty Salon team, co-founded by Diarra Seck, BC ’22, Wilaynes González, BC ’22, Tonika Henry, BC ’22, and Shaniqua Davis, BC ’22, met up in their first-year dorms to massage each other’s scalps and practice braiding. This small effort kick-started their mission to create an affordable, accessible hair salon for Black students in the Columbia community.

Following the move to virtual learning and the cancellation of activities on campus in March, student theater groups were forced to cancel or postpone their productions to the following semester. But as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases rises to nearly 170,000 in New York and the University weighs whether to restart in-person classes in the fall, performing arts groups on campus are struggling to plan for the future.

Brianna Johnson, BC ’21, is one of the few Black students in her year who is a theater major. Had she not been inspired by her work with the Black Theatre Ensemble, she might have completely changed her route.

After a long day, Helen Reddy had just tucked her daughter into bed—a familiar, mundane task for the single mother and aspiring singer—when inspiration struck. She scrambled to her daughter’s desk, whipped out a notepad, and wrote without hesitation: “I am strong. I am invincible.” These words of affirmation would later become the lyrics of her hit song “I Am Woman,” which became an unofficial anthem of the women’s rights movement of the 1970s.

At 12 years old, Dahee Kwon, CC ’20, received a birthday gift that would kick-start her career as an artist: a sewing machine. She started sewing together pieces of her mother’s fabric into cushions, and today, she weaves together the contrasting fields of her majors: visual arts and computer science. At Columbia, Kwon is an aspiring visual artist who primarily works with oil paint.

“6, A, A, A, A, A, B, 3, D2, C, 9,” a voice called out.

As the Latin music faded out and the lights were dimmed, audience members blew into multicolored whistles and screamed in anticipation. Green light flooded the stage and dancers in gold skirts struck their first pose.

The summer before their sophomore years, Briana Wood, CC ’22, and Blossom Maduafokwa, BC ’22, began separately conceptualizing a similar idea. What if they curated a showcase that centered on black students and their artwork as part of Columbia’s Queer Awareness Month? When they both returned to campus and realized their shared interest, joining forces was an easy choice.

She stands tall, her hands wrapped around her iconic torch and tablet. Her green, dashiki-inspired dress is accompanied by an Afro that peeks out from under her crown; her large hoop earrings cascade down her shoulders.

“Who are you if you don’t have a memory?” asked La Vaughn Belle, CC ’95, TC ’99.