Lindsay Jorgensen

A few months into the COVID pandemic, Lindsay Jorgensen’s creative spirit was restless. “When I have a lot of time on my hands, my brain tends to wander,” says the professional dancer. “Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it just overwhelms me,” she admits. Like many of her peers, the recent college graduate first considered using the unexpected downtime to start a master’s degree. “I was looking at MFA programs in creative writing,” she says, when a close family friend recommended the Penn LPS Online Certificate in Creative Writing. “She told me Penn was a great school, and a certificate was a good way to start small, take a few classes and find out if I like creative writing before jumping into a master’s.”

As an undergraduate, Lindsay majored in dance and English and worked as an editor for her school paper. “I wanted to branch out from my journalism experience, but I hadn’t taken any creative writing classes as an undergrad,” she explains. “I also wanted to see if creative writing could help elevate my experience as a dancer and choreographer,” she adds. The Penn LPS Online certificate offered Lindsay the chance to test the waters in a new area of creative expression without committing to a degree.

Her first class was CRWR 1010: The Craft of Creative Writing. Instructor Jeff Johnson’s curriculum introduces students to a range of writing genres while folding in multi-media elements to hone skills in creative practice. As a performing artist, Lindsay was captivated by this approach to exploring creativity. “We looked at creative elements beyond the words on the page, like the space on a page, the font, or how to incorporate different media into a writing assignment,” she says. The course inspired her to think more broadly about choreography. “What would happen if I wrote a poem for a dance piece or incorporated multimedia elements?” she wondered.

Her initial experience set the tone for the coursework that followed and opened the door for her to apply creative writing techniques to dance. “There’s movement on a page, for example,” she says. “How can I apply that idea to physical movement? How would a piece change if a dancer performs in the corner of the stage as opposed to the center of the stage?” In her final course, CRWR 3200: Screenwriting, she was challenged to write the first 30 pages of a screenplay, rounding out her exploration of developing a compelling narrative—in writing or dance. “In Screenwriting, we learned how to hit those key beats, and how to focus your energy on the big moments,” she says.

The online format offered much-needed connection for Lindsay during the first months of the pandemic. “It was an isolating time, but I felt connected to everyone in class, even though we were all far away,” she says. Some of the creative writing courses offer optional live sessions for group discussions that are recorded for other students to watch later. “I really enjoyed the recorded discussions,” Lindsay says. “It was one of the only opportunities at the time to see someone’s full face! It was very bonding to hear my classmates talk and see them smile.”

As businesses and services began to open up again, the asynchronous format proved invaluable for Lindsay to be able to complete the program. “I travel a lot,” she explains. “I teach every evening at various schools. I rehearse during the day, and I may also fill up my other time with retail work. The asynchronous format allowed me to work on assignments when I had time.”

Lindsay completed six courses to earn the Advanced Certificate in Creative Writing. The key lesson from her experience in the program is the value and power of storytelling. “There's storytelling in almost every job, whether you're in sales or you're in the performing arts,” she says. “People connect to a story more than to just a set of facts.” As she hoped when starting the certificate, she has been able to apply creative insights from class to her work as a dancer and dance instructor. “I always tell my students now that we aren’t just doing drills. That's what separates dance from, say, football. Yes, we're moving our bodies. But you also need to tell me a story,” she explains. Sometimes she reads poetry to her students to create calm and focus. She even uses writing analogies to encourage her young performers. “Sometimes my students don't finish a combination when they get frustrated or make a mistake,” she says, “so I tell them, finish what you start. Slap a period on the end. Give me that conclusion to your story!”

Her ultimate professional goal is to stage a performance that incorporates her own creative writing, choreography, and additional multimedia elements. She has not decided what her next academic goal will be, but for now, she feels satisfied with her Creative Writing Certificate and may pursue a master’s degree focused on dance or teaching. “What I learned at Penn will continue to enhance my choreographic pursuits and feed my hunger to create in the performing arts realm,” she says. “I set out to see if creative writing could elevate my abilities as a performer and I 100% believe that it did.”