Campus Connection

    The moral of Dylan Santee’s story? Love yourself, flaws and all. You probably figured that out after watching the performance about his life Sunday, Sept. 4 at UW-L’s Graff Main Hall auditorium. Santee and other students in the UW-L group Awareness Through Performance created skits based on their personal experiences. They exposed social justice issues and laid the groundwork for discussion about topics often considered taboo. About 15 skits were performed, along with video and dance. Santee’s story started his freshman year at UW-L when an eating disorder had him in constant pursuit of the perfect body. “Perfection and the perfect body don’t exist,” Santee now stresses. “And it’s a waste of your life to search for perfection.” But at the time, body image struggles caused him to drop out of college and go to a rehabilitation center in Chippewa Falls, Wis. It was there, in recovery, that he realized he wanted to be a part of ATP. “I don’t look at my personal past as a mistake,” he notes. “I don’t look at it as something to sit around and mope about, but to educate others about.” Santee and co-writers of the script wanted to give the audience a “different way to think” about body image. They noted this was one of the funnier skits they performed Sunday evening. Others were serious, covering topics such as sexual assault, racism, stress, relationships, binge drinking and suicide. ATP skits and poetry are “so real,” says Crystal Rosado, a UW-L sophomore. "You know it happens and you’ve seen it happen.” And these students want to contribute to changing that. They “name dropped” throughout the performance pointing out campus employees and resources who can help. While the end product — a performance — is important, ATP is more about the journey students go through during the week of rehearsals, says Matt Evensen, ATP adviser. “It’s really about sharing our stories,” he says. “We only have a week together, but we spend a lot of time together and the ATP troupe becomes a family.” The theme this year was “Generation Hope.” They are a generation who wants to break away from the norm and become as Santee says, “a generation within a generation where diversity is embraced.” Using their collective, creative energies they performed some amazing skits. They hope they made people laugh, cry and ultimately go home with a message, says Jackie Bisson, a UW-L senior in the group. “If even one person left the audience at the end of the night and said, ‘I can get help… I don’t have to live this way, I’ll be happy,” says Santee. “It really is about changing the world one person at a time.” If you go: Encore performance: 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 7, Graff Main Hall auditorium Admission: Free About ATP: The ATP Performance Troupe is a group of UW-L students who share a passion for diversity and social justice issues and desire to further explore them through dialogue, research, writing and ultimately performing on stage. Each semester a new ATP troupe is selected after interviews and auditions. The troupe performs twice during the semester on campus. People interested in applying or learning more can visit the ATP website at or call UW-L’s Campus Climate office at 608.785.5094.