My name is Sela Sangwin. I’m a student at Mount Holyoke College majoring in Film, Media, Theatre and Anthropology, with a Nexus in Native American and Indigenous Studies.
Polignac in "Marie Antoinette" by David Adjmi. Photo by Tom Kelleher.
Antigone in "Antigone", directed by Michael Ofori. Photo by Tom Kelleher.
Directing "Heart Story", a new play by Charlie Watts. Photo by Lex Canon.
What I am up to at the moment:
As of 05/03/26:
It is the end of my fourth semester at MHC, and I have not even updated this blog since my gap year. I’ve been meaning to— I think about it around once a week, but it’s a lot of work to articulate and compile and my flimsy wish is different than action. In the efforts to record something, here is a quick recap of my two years so far:
YEAR ONE
Classes: Russian language, 19th c. Russian Lit, Intro to Theatre, American Peoples to 1865, a seminar called Performing the Self, STEM Requirement, and Intro to Anthropology
Acting: Played Duchess Polignac in a production of David Adjmi’s Marie Antoinette
Short films: Directed and produced two short films as final projects for classes, acted in two other short films by students
Assistant stage managed: a production of Much Ado About Nothing
Table read: Spearheaded and acted in a table read of a new play, Unauthorized Banksy Exhibit by Charlie Watts ‘25
Research projects: Kinship-making in African American Quilting traditions and secretive communications and affect mapping via Spotify.
Craziest thing that’s ever happened to me: auditioned, and was called back for an indie film by a favorite playwright
YEAR TWO
Classes: Acting, Decolonizing Museums, Histories of Performance, Androgyny and Gender in Chinese Theatre, Scene Study, Intro to Ballet and Modern, History of Anthropological Thought, and Contemporary Women Playwrights
Acting: Played Antigone in Antigone, directed by Michael Ofori.
Directed: A staged reading of a new play, Heart Story, by recent MHC alum Charlie Watts ‘25
Museums: Went through the Student Guide Program at the MHC Art Museum.
Short films: Acted in two short films by students.
Research Projects:
Analyzing Androgynous gender expression as empowerment in the Chinese plays The Peony Pavilion and The Fragrant Companions through Jungian individuation processes and yin yang energy imagery.
Chastity as goodness in Hildegard of Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum.
Exhibition proposals for the display of the Seven Sisters Cloak at the MHC art museum, and separately, for the papers of Wendy Wasserstein.
Archival research on Melville J. Herskovits’s contributions to a 1962 conference on the History of Anthropology, and what they reveal about his notions of who gets to create scholarship.
My “manifesto” as a theatre maker conscious of its humanist role in increasingly dehumanizing times.
Finals: As of right now, I’m working on a proposal for a screen adaptation of Betty Shamieh’s Black Eyed. This week I presented in a conference about my findings on Herskovits, reflected on a semester’s worth of “embodied practice” acting exercises, and wrapped up with the SGP at the MHCAM.
The Blog:
Musings
My Gap Year
I decided that I needed some time to prioritize and explore my divergent passions before I attend college.
The Gap Year Itinerary:
Summer working in theatre with NorCal SOTA.
Autumn in New York, learning as much as I can about the theatre industry— Auditions, classes with the Juilliard Extension and the Barrow Group, and interviews with industry professionals.
Applying to college (again.)
Spring volunteering at small-scale, sustainable farms through Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms.
About
I was born and raised in Northern California. My mother founded the non-profit ReCreate, which diverts waste to provide eco-art and STEAM hands-on education to our local schools. I grew up with sustainability, activism, and waste mindfulness on the forefront, as a result.
Theatre, literature, and history have always been my passions— the mediums of storytelling. I started out in theatre in elementary school, performing in school and local community theatre plays, then eventually writing and producing my own on the playground. I continued my theatre studies in Northern California School of the Arts’ Performing Arts Corps when I was in high school, where I discovered my deep love for Sondheim, Chekhov, Peters, and LuPone.
My hobbies include playing banjo, textile arts, journaling, and reading (check out What I’m Reading).
Hello from a rainy day in NYC. The window is open, and my lamp is on. On days like these it seems like the universe is whispering hints at me. Sparse phrases I overhear in the coffee shop, words on the NYT crossword puzzle, lines in a song that I’d never really understood before seem to be directed at me, infused with the wisdom I need right now.