grace Matson
Fall 2024 John Jay Fellow
Hometown: Fairfax, VA
College: Belhaven University
Degree: B.A. in Dance, B.A. in English
Grace Matson grew up just outside of Washington, D.C., studying ballet and reading every book she could get her hands on. Unable to decide between these passions, she earned a double major in English and dance (and a minor in theater) from Belhaven University, graduating summa cum laude in the spring of 2023.
While at Belhaven, she gained experience in every aspect of the performing arts, performing in theater and dance productions and working behind the scenes as a stage manager, props designer, dramaturg, and more. She spent two years as an officer for DOXA, Belhaven’s dance club, for one of those years serving in the role of Production Manager and organizing two concerts of student works. She also worked on campus as an R.A. and served on the worship team for Reformed University Fellowship.
In her final two years she began to focus mainly on choreography, creating a variety of dance works for university productions. In 2022, she was invited to participate in a choreography intensive at Ballet 5:8, a Chicago-based Christian ballet company, where she studied under professional choreographers and created a piece for students from the Ballet 5:8 school. She wrote her senior thesis on dance adaptation of literary works and choreographed her own modern-dance adaptation of the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Back home in Northern Virginia, she has choreographed for several local dance festivals as well as three musicals for community theater. She spent the last year working in an administrative role at a local ballet studio while also teaching dance and theater throughout the area.
As a member of Belhaven’s Honors Program, Grace discovered a love for sitting around a table and discussing the world of ideas, which has now led her to the John Jay Institute. She believes that dance has untapped potential for the communication of truth and wants to be equipped to engage with issues of culture and faith through her work. After her time with the John Jay Institute, she intends to pursue graduate studies in the arts, with the goal of taking a leadership role within a dance organization. She hopes to build bridges between dance and the Christian intellectual tradition, facilitating an approach that finds the intersection between creativity, intellectual thought, and spiritual truth.