Beyond the Gates and Back Again: Lyrric Jackson, C’2013, Returns to Lead Spelman Dance Theater

As the newly named director of Spelman Dance Theater, Jackson is building a creative ecosystem where students, faculty and alumnae learn from one another and where success becomes something to bring back and share. 

There is a particular kind of full-circle moment that happens at Spelman. A student arrives, discovers her voice, builds alongside her sisters, takes what she learned beyond the gates and, sometimes, finds her way back. 

For Lyrric Jackson, C’2013, coming back is not simply about returning to the place that helped shape her. It is about making sure what Spelman gave her continues moving forward. 

Jackson, a choreographer, data scientist and adjunct faculty member at Spelman, has been named the new director of Spelman Dance Theater, the College’s pre-professional dance company. As the new director Jackson stepping into a lineage of artists and educators who helped shape the company, including T. Lang, who directed when Jackson was a student, and more recent leadership from Cicely “Cici” Kelly C’22 and Morgan Hawkins C'10. 

While already teaching at Spelman, Jackson began thinking more intentionally about the future of the Dance Theater and what she could contribute. 

“I started to get the itch to want to see the vision of Spelman Dance Theater blossom with a different color,” said Jackson.  

Seeing the Whole Stage 

Jackson’s vision begins with expanding what students imagine when they think about a career in dance. Performance and choreography are only part of the picture.  

“I want students to understand that it’s not just being a performer or being a choreographer,” Jackson said. “It’s really all of it. It’s every bit of it.” 

Jackson wants students to understand scenic work, stage management, lighting, sound, costuming and production, as well as the many creative and technical roles required to bring professional dance production to life. 

Jackson learned these lessons firsthand and unexpectedly during her first semester at Spelman. After spraining her knee in a jazz class, she found herself on crutches and unable to participate in the way she anticipated. 

Instead, she became a stage manager. 

Jackson began working with sound, pulling music and learning the light board. An injury that could have placed her on the sidelines instead expanded her understanding of the ecosystem surrounding a performer. 

Now, Jackson wants students to have the same opportunity to see the full scope of the industry. 

Her vision for Spelman Dance Theater is intentionally interdisciplinary, giving students opportunities to engage with choreography and performance while understanding how lighting, scenic design, sound, fashion and other creative disciplines work together to create what audiences ultimately experience onstage. 

A Room of Infinite Possibilities 

Some of Jackson’s vision is new. But much of it is rooted in what she experienced as a Spelman student herself. 

“While I was a Spelman student, we did a lot of student work,” Jackson recalled. “We were creating projects on the back end of things and bringing them to faculty, saying, ‘Hey, can we do this?’ I want to bring back that freedom and collaborative spirit, but also the innovation of our time here.” 

Jackson wants today’s students to experience that same sense of possibility. 

“I think the ability is still there,” she said. “I think the curiosity is still there, but it’s like opening up the door to say, ‘Here’s a room of infinite possibilities. Take your choice at any point.’” 

Her challenge to students is simple: question everything. 

Jackson acknowledges that freedom can be uncomfortable. Students accustomed to learning exact choreography can suddenly find themselves facing a blank canvas when asked to improvise or create something entirely their own. 

Her goal is not to remove that discomfort, but to teach students how to create through it. 

“The goal is to allow them to lean into the anxiety, to begin to get comfortable in the uncomfortable, to then begin to question and then begin to allow and then begin to release it in a more kinesthetic and embodied way,” Jackson said. 

It is an approach rooted in the belief that there is no singular way to become an artist or even to become a Spelman artist. 

“There isn’t a way,” Jackson said. “There are many ways. There are many infinite ways to do this because we’re unique beings.” 

Creating Beyond the Gates and Bringing It Back 

“I’m most excited about introducing students to people that we’ve worked with so that they know they have a network of individuals that are artists, that are makers, that are thinkers,” Jackson said. “They’re creating things outside of the gates and they willingly bring it back.” 

For Jackson, that network is at the heart of what excites her most about leading Spelman Dance Theater. She wants students to see the community surrounding them as an extension of their education, one filled with alumnae, artists and creative professionals who have taken what they learned at Spelman into the world and remain willing to reach back. 

That cycle of leaving, building and returning is central to Jackson’s own Spelman experience. 

She credits the College for teaching her not only about sisterhood, but also how to build and sustain relationships within it. 

“Even connections that have gone distant, they’re still there,” she said. “There’s opportunity for students to know, no matter how long, no matter how far, no matter what the circumstance, there’s still a grounding landing pad here at Spelman.”