The following is an interview of Class of 2011 ICU graduate Lilla Dent. Lilla graduated from the Division of Languages at ICU and is currently pursuing a career as a visual artist. You can see her work by visiting her website.

Tara: Thank you for agreeing to do this interview, Lilla. Do you mind if I ask how you got your name and why you choose to go by “Lyra” on social media?

Lilla: Sure.  “Lilla” is a flower, meaning “lilac”. My parents chose it because it’s musical and works phonetically in both Japanese and English.

I chose “Lyra” because it sounds like “Lilla,” especially in Japanese.  When I was in Japan, I was studying aerial ring or hoop, a kind of circular trapeze, and lyra is the technical name for those hoops.

Tara: That’s interesting! Before I ask you more about those interests, tell me about your background and how you decided to go to ICU.

Lilla: Growing up, I went to the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. The school is affiliated with the University of Chicago, and was initially an experimental offshoot educational project.

I chose ICU because my Mom is an alumna and she was always keen for me to go. Since 8th grade it was a topic of discussion in my household. Also, at the time of applying in high school, I had been at the same school for 15-16 years and I was kind of getting sick of Chicago and wanted to get out of there.

I didn’t have any places in the States I was bent on attending and Japan was attractive because I felt like it was part of my cultural heritage – and also, it was just about as far away as I could go, so I felt like it would be a pretty big adventure. So I applied to ICU!

Tara: That’s nice that your mother was one of your influences. Had you been to ICU or Japan before you began studying there?

Lilla: I’ve always been comfortable in Japan, and have been traveling back and forth a few times a year since I was a baby. A year before applying to ICU, I visited the campus with my parents on one of our family trips to Tokyo.

I ultimately chose ICU because I personally felt dissatisfied with my ability to speak Japanese. I wanted to become truly bilingual, not just passively fluent, and I figured that the best way for that to happen was to live in Japan and attend ICU.

My friend Naomi for example, who I met at ICU, was lucky enough to grow up perfectly bilingual. But me, my knowledge was more on the passive side where I could understand other people speaking, but reading and speaking for myself was difficult. Going to ICU was a great decision in terms of improving my Japanese language skills.

Tara: That’s wonderful to hear. Now, please tell me how you began doing the lyra (aerial ring) while you were at ICU!

Lilla: Actually, I got into the aerial thing via acrobatic pole right after senior year of high school. Timing wise, the aerial trend at that time was just emerging. Now I feel like it’s old news. Back in the day though it was still pretty fresh and “out there”.

So, I started out doing that then met new people doing different types of acrobatics and ‘circus stuff’. I tried doing new things and one thing lead to the other.

Tara: Did you find a club on campus that fit these interests?

Lilla: No, actually, I went out on my own after I started at ICU. First I went to two different pole studios, and then to an aerial/circus studio.

It was an adventure mainly because my Japanese wasn’t that good yet. It was also really interesting to be exposed to this new sub-culture in Japan. At my first pole studio in Shibuya, they all thought I was funny, cute and a little strange for being a foreigner doing this. I made some good friends.

Eventually I went to another pole studio in Akasaka-Mitsuke that obviously was going for a classier image; their clients were more OL’s (“office ladies”) and the “madamu”-type of older women looking for a “cool” hobby for their free time.

From there I went to the circus studio in Kinshicho which was by far the most serious experience. They really focus on making you a professional performer. So, I learned a lot both on campus and off-campus.

Tara: I bet! Tell me more about your time on campus. What did you study?

Lilla: I entered ICU in 2007. I was the last year that had to pick a division in Freshman year and I chose Division “L,” or Languages. I thought the whole division system was a bit contrived and stressful, because you had to pick your division immediately as you entered, and most of us weren’t ready for that at that point in time. I personally wished sometimes that I had picked “H” for Humanities instead.

But, I stuck with “L” because there would have been just too much coursework juggling and catching up to do. Thankfully, you could still focus your senior thesis on pretty much whatever you wanted.  I think it’s great that ICU finally changed its policy so that you don’t have to declare a major until the beginning of your Junior year.

Tara: I agree. Choosing a major is hard to do when you first begin your university years. It’s much better to wait and find out what you are really interested in. How did you end up in choosing art as a career?

Lilla: When I graduated, I was like most people my age – just focusing on figuring out what to do. I applied to grad schools focusing on comparative literature following the humanities and linguistics line, but didn’t get in. My parents are both literature and humanities majors and so I come from a very language/literature heavy background.

It was a process of elimination to get to visual arts. It also took a lot of courage getting up to it. I’ve always loved art since kindergarten. Doodling was always something I did on the side. In high school, I went to a standard prep school so art was still just a hobby. And at ICU, there were no visual arts classes, or even an interest in this field to speak of whatsoever, which was the only real academic disappointment I had while there. When I brought up the lack of a visual arts department, I was just met with puzzled looks and the suggestion that I should attend Professor Wilson’s art history class!

Either way, throughout college, I consistently managed to make time for art on my own free time. And this is one of the reasons I began to think about it seriously as a career after college – the fact that I had kept working independently for such a long time made me realize how much it mattered to me.

Part of the struggle is that unless you come from a family of artists, it’s always a bit of a step to say “Hey Mom and Dad, I want to be an artist”. As I mentioned, I did try a few other things, but when they didn’t work out, I almost felt relieved and I realized that also meant something.

Tara: It is funny how we can be looking for something and then we realize we were doing it all along… So, what are your next steps?

Lilla: Well, I’m trying to get out there more in the art scene in Chicago. Going to art fairs, sending things into shows, doing live painting at art events, that sort of thing.
It helps that I’ve done and still do so many different things across the art medium – photography, painting, aerial…

Tara: You are a renaissance woman!

Lila: Haha, I guess so!

I am also back to applying for grad schools, but this time I’m focusing on MFA programs –  a few in Chicago, NYC, Boston, Hawaii, Pittsburgh and Finland.

I have actually been thinking back to my times at ICU as I decide which school to go to. I do miss the ICU campus environment. There were so many international people all over the place. I took it for granted at the time, but now I find I do miss that, and am trying to see if there are any MFA programs out there which would place me in a similar environment.

Tara: That’s great! Do you keep in touch with other ICU alumni?

Lilla: I do a little bit on Facebook. We don’t really talk all the time, but it’s cool to know I have friends all over the world from my time on campus. As ICU students, we were all exposed to so many different cultures and countries – the only problem was, after graduation of course, we all dispersed to the four corners of the earth, which makes keeping in touch in the long-term kind of difficult.

Tara: That’s very true. Ok, one last question. Do you have any message or advice for current ICU students or other ICU alumni and friends that will be reading this?

Lilla: Don’t take for granted what an awesome, cosmopolitan, international environment ICU’s campus is. It’s hard to find that later on in life. Take the time to meet the OYR’s, the four year students, everyone. Unless you’re going into international work you might not have an opportunity to be in such a multicultural and exciting crowd in the future!

Tara: Thank you, Lilla, for your time and for sharing so much about yourself and your experience with ICU. We look forward to seeing more of your artwork and staying in touch!