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The Indiana Daily Student

arts

'dancing star' reaches milestone

Collins literary magazine celebrates 25th anniversary

\"You must have chaos within, to create the dancing star." - Friedrich Nietzsche\nWhen Jan Susina read that quote as a student at Samford University 25 years ago, he knew he had the title for a literary magazine. First, he needed an environment that would foster that kind of creative project.\nWhen Susina heard about Collins Living-Learning Center, then called the Men's Residence Center, he knew he had found the right place. Susina came to IU as a graduate student and resident assistant and founded a tradition that affects students to this day -- Collins' annual Dancing Star arts journal and literary magazine. \nIn the editor's note of that first edition in the spring of 1976, Susina called Dancing Star "a nifty little literary magazine."\nThis semester, Collins residents celebrated that the publication has become so much more than that, honoring its 25-year legacy with an anniversary edition edited by senior Brian McMullen. \nThe Legacy\nIn the early days, the magazine was written on typewriters, pasted up by hand and stapled together by the same students who selected and edited the content.\n"One of the great things for me was that the staff stayed with it, and people wrote poems to people and about things we knew. People grew as writers," said Susina, now an English professor at Illinois State University. "The magazine was just a part of this community of writers."\nFor Susina, working with Dancing Star was a pivotal point in his life. He said his experience with literary magazines is the reason he was hired as a resident assistant in the first place, and he spent four years editing the publication. \nHe married another Dancing Star editor, Jodie Slothower, who gave birth to their "own little dancing star" a year ago. (Slothower refers to young Jacob Wynn Susina as a "little bundle of poetry" instead.)\nBoth can claim a milestone for the publication. Her husband might have founded the publication, but Slothower was Dancing Star's first female editor in 1982.\n"I wanted to show that women could do it as well as all of the guys," she said.\nSince then, Collins' female residents have held their fair share of editorial positions. The list of past editors now features as many women as men.\nSarah Boehm, who edited or co-edited Dancing Star in 1996, 1997 and 1999, is one of the women to follow in Slothower's footsteps.\n"I think the best part of Dancing Star was what the readers don't see," she said. "Drumming up clever phrases on colorful paper to advertise 'Wanted: Critique Staff' … sifting through piles of writing so late at night we forgot 'My Favorite Christmas Cookie Cutter' poem was rejected, trying to negotiate prices and dates with the local, and often unreliable, printers … and swearing at the computer that rearranged the page order because I hit the wrong button."\nWhat Susina and Slothower remember best is not the publication itself, but the community of writers who worked with Dancing Star and its many related projects, including broadsheets and poetry readings.\n"It was a way for us to find a cohesive, very active group within the University," Slothower said.\nBoth Susina and Slothower said they are pleased with the publication's legacy and the support it has received from Collins and the University.\n"I am so pleased to see that there is an interest and that the magazine continues," Susina said. "One of the important things about being a parent is being able to let go; one of the things I like about the new issue is it may not be the issue I would have done, but I'm proud of it."\nThe Celebration\nIn a sense, little has changed since the early days. Dancing Star is still a student effort, supported by Collins activity fees. It's more streamlined now, with computer layout programs and professional printing services. But the purpose is always the same -- to offer students a chance at free expression and to give them an audience.\n"The challenge always for me is to rethink the entire concept," McMullen said, "but also to refer to what it was before."\nMcMullen said his goal with the current edition was to challenge people's notions of what a literary magazine can contain, which is why the publication is much more visual in this incarnation.\n"I hope it's a testament to the idea that the sky's the limit when it comes to being creative," McMullen said.\nThe staff did not rely on the design to carry the publication: The content is equally powerful. Students offered literary submissions ranging from haiku poetry to short stories. And every length and format in between.\n"I think we're doing things nobody else is doing anywhere in terms of visual and editorial concept," McMullen said.\nThe magazine also features a playful parody of another Collins publication, "Cocked and Ready." The Dancing Star version, "Red & Cocky," features art, poetry and even a collection of "stillnot.coms," as-yet unclaimed Web site names.\nMcMullen transferred his own design experience to the anniversary edition, and it has even garnered him an internship. But he said his Dancing Star experience is much more than a line on a resume. \nHe called it "the thing that consumes me."\nThe Cornerstone\nWhen Susina and Slothower remember their Collins experience, it is linked forever to the community of writers Dancing Star created for them. That nurturing environment is a landmark of the living-learning center environment.\nMcMullen called the magazine a "cornerstone" of Collins' goals for its residents. With more than 400 Dancing Star alumni worldwide, the publication has left its mark on current and former Collins residents.\nFor some, it will simply be remembered as a magazine that gave them a voice, an audience, a chance to be heard -- whether for the first time or the hundredth. For others, like McMullen, it will define and even jumpstart their careers. For still others, like Susina and Slothower, Dancing Star has defined their lives and values to the point that, without the experience, they would be completely different people, with completely different lives.\nThat's a lot for one annual literary magazine to accomplish. But at Collins, it's been that way for 25 years, and it's still that way today.

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