- Name, job title, and location: LuLen Walker, Art Curator, Booth Family Center for Special Collections
- What do you do—in 10 words or less? I oversee the University’s Fine Art Collection, some of which is displayed throughout campus.
- Where are you from? I consider myself a native of the District of Columbia, or a citizen of the world. From a foreign service family, I traveled a lot and attended 12 schools. My childhood was spent in sub-Saharan Africa and London.
- Do you have any hobbies? Anything art related including visiting museums. I’ve juried art exhibitions at two venues in Annapolis (St. John’s College and the Maryland Federation of Art), and am a longtime board member of the Washington Print Club.
- What are you reading and watching right now? I’m reading James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird, a fictional account of the abolitionist John Brown and his raid on Harper’s Ferry. I’m also enjoying watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel series.
- If you could be present for any event of the past, present, or future, what would it be? That’s a tough one. Possibly the May 29, 1913, premier of Igor Stravinsky’s revolutionary ballet Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Choreographed by the Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky and performed by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, it so scandalized Parisian society that many in the audience stormed out of the theatre.
- If you had to live in a different time period, which decade would you pick and why? I’ve always been fascinated with the culture of Versailles. I would love to have attended a ball in the Hall of Mirrors and heard the young Mozart play for Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour in 1763.
- If you didn’t work in your current field, what would you be doing? Curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the NYPL Lincoln Center.
- What’s your superpower (or hidden talent)? I have something like a photographic memory.
- Who was your favorite teacher in school and why? Alexandra Danilova at the School of American Ballet in New York. She was one of the legendary ballerinas of the Ballets Russes. I was in total awe and semi-terrified of her, but it was an unbelievable privilege to be in her class.