Light-up styrofoam rods and fluorescent beams overwhelmed the outside of Dodge Plaza as students rounded out their first week of classes with a silent disco on Sept. 8. Onlookers gaped at the organized chaos on campus, wondering what drove students to congregate for an event complete with neon headphones and shuffling shoes.

Blossoming singer-songwriter Max Patel, CC ’23, graduated high school with his mind set on jetting off to New York to become a successful musician while pursuing an education at Columbia. Patel, a singer-songwriter who goes by the stage name “Jayani,” made music his “entire application” to Columbia, citing an impressive log of performances of his own music in addition to participation in musical theater and chamber choir.

Jane Watson, CC ’22, dances through Columbia’s campus on a perfectly sunny day in her music video for “Broken Systems.” She wears a colorful striped shirt, enjoys the weather, and clearly loves what she’s singing, all while her lyrics plead for change in the very system she traipses around. She hopes to incite change in such educational institutions herself by becoming a teacher. Watson performed at the 2022 Battle of the Bands under her stage name “Miss Anthropopscene.”

Googling “Madeleine Dopico” yields a slew of social media accounts and music streaming service profiles dedicated to the work of a rising electropop artist and feminist influencer. Further down are results for a former CEO and Master of Social Work candidate at Columbia in Advanced Clinical Practice. Seemingly unrelated, these results all concern the same person.

A cacophony of drums accompanies flashes of color at a Ghanaian woman’s funeral. Suddenly, we cut from ornate fabrics and impressive dances to an up-close look at the streets of the Bronx in “Queen of Glory,” directed by Nana Mensah, screened at the Athena Film Festival.

Soft red hues illuminate stone walls where a twinkly string of Christmas lights line the stage. The basement of St. Paul’s Chapel is packed as much as COVID-19 restrictions allow, as the organizers of Storytelling Night hustle eager audience members in and out of the compact room. Microphones, instruments, and a cluster of storytellers line the walls of Postcrypt Coffeehouse.

Shakespeare’s tried and true romances, uproarious comedies, and dire tragedies funnel into a fluid jazz standard in Duke Ellington’s “Such Sweet Thunder,” the inspiration for Columbia’s year-long event “Such Sweet Thunder: Ellington Plays Shakespeare—Love and Power in Adaptation.” Fans of Ellington, Shakespeare, and Columbia’s literary canon alike flocked to their computers to watch academic experts and jazz musicians honor the work through performance of and commentary on the piece.