Submersive Subversive Art

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 14:42:41 -0500
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While many know that Charm City is home to the wizard of weird himself, John Waters, along with the quirky American Visionary Art Museum, poodle skirts, and flamingos galore, most probably don’t associate UMBC with the same offbeat reputation. But take a splash in the wacky waters and you’ll find Retrievers all the way down.

By Janelle Erlichman Diamond

It’s a few minutes into her Fluid Movement water ballet scene, and while most of the swimmers have dropped the red cloaks that hid their bathing suits—a nod to The Handmaid’s Tale—and slipped into the pool as Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” plays on the speaker, Delana Gregg stands alone. As the song reaches its crescendo—“let the choir sing”—Gregg, still in her red cape, falls dramatically backward into the water as the audience gasps and cheers.

Gregg, M.S. ’04, Ph.D. ’19, has worked at UMBC for more than 20 years and is currently the assistant vice provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs, working with the Academic Success Center and with data and analytics supporting student success. But her summers are filled with swimsuits, glitter, and choreography sheets.

Fluid Movement is a Baltimore-based nonprofit performance art organization that creates joyful, inclusive, quirky, and accessible performances in public spaces, most notably their annual synchronized swimming shows in city pools. “Our art is a love letter to the city of Baltimore and its residents,” says Ashley Ball, Fluid Movement artistic director. “We focus on inclusivity and the empowerment that comes from movement.”

Baltimore City’s commitment to the quirk is well documented, but you might be more surprised to learn that UMBC may be one of the best breeding grounds for pursuing and creating non-traditional art. (John Waters, the kinky, eccentric, famous Baltimore-based filmmaker, writer, and artist known as the “Pope of Trash,” borrowed UMBC film equipment to make some of his early films.) UMBC, a school with an R1 classification for its high level of research and known by a national audience perhaps for the immensely successful STEM-focused Meyerhoff Scholars Program or the 2018 NCAA men’s basketball upset, has a long history of stirring the artistic pot—and current Retrievers play an active role in the weird and inclusive art world of Charm City.

Water ballet get STEAM-y

Photos by Erik Whipple

Gregg swam in her very first water ballet in 2014—Star Spangled Swimmer—and has starred in, stage managed, or produced almost every ballet since including her role as a fatberg in Sinkholes, Sewers, & Streams: A Water Infrastructure Ballet. This past summer she added directing to her repertoire with The Handmaid’s Tale scene in the Dive Into Banned Books: A Water Ballet of Resistance and Joy performance.

That her love for theatrics and performance might be nurtured at a school that has earned a national reputation for excellence in STEM education is not a surprise to Gregg. “Art and design are in everything, and you can’t have theatre without science and technology,” she says. Anyone who has ever built a set or mixed music can attest to that. “Performance is the ultimate interdisciplinary project, and community performance allows for all the different talents to find expression. You know how to sculpt, sew, run cable, create a program, design a logo, write a script, plan a budget, figure out how to create a waterproof, lightweight, affordable set design that can fit in a storage pod—so much geometry and engineering—we need all of those talents, along with sparkle.”

Ball, the artistic director, comes from a STEM background and has her master’s degree in environmental engineering. “People in STEM need art just as much as anyone else, and a Fluid Movement show is nothing short of an engineering marvel,” she says.

And it’s clear that this is a draw for Retrievers. “I’ve met so many UMBC people via Fluid Movement: former board members like visual arts professor Timothy Nohe and Kelly Quinn—people who are committed to creating art in Baltimore with people in our communities. UMBC alumni who live in the area, like Amelia Meman ’15; Maria Blanca, M.A. ’15; and Charlotte Keniston, M.F.A. ’14, Ph.D. ’24—it was so great to work with them at UMBC and to create art with them in Baltimore City. Other amazing artists, like Ann Tabor ’03 of the Mercury Theater, I met through Fluid Movement and realized the UMBC connection later,” says Gregg.

“People are validated by seeing people of all shapes and sizes and ages and ethnicities performing. My performing at age 60-plus as a full-figured, African American woman is affirming to many people in our audiences.”

— Judith “Judi” Reynolds-Stokes ’87, M.A. ’02

“I think there is something about working at a university committed to excellence that makes space for people to be excellent in many aspects of their lives,” says Quinn, managing director of The Choice Program at UMBC and a longtime Fluid Movement participant. “I’m really grateful that I have a boss who’s challenged me as part of my performance plan for this year to incorporate more of my artistic work with Fluid Movement into my leadership of our organization,” says Quinn. This next year she’s going to add “whimsy and creativity” to her storytelling. “I think that’s a testament both to Fluid Movement and my boss’s understanding of the value of arts in everyday life. People at UMBC—including our leadership—really take seriously our artistic and civic lives beyond our position descriptions.”

There’s a place in the pool for everyone

These artistic endeavors may hit the UMBC sweet spot because of the recognition that STEM and art go hand in hand, but the accessibility and inclusiveness of the programming also aligns with the Retriever spirit. “I first became acquainted with Fluid Movement while lifeguarding for Baltimore City Aquatics,” says Judith “Judi” Reynolds-Stokes ’87, M.A. ’02, who works as an instructor, advisor, and career counselor at the Caroline Center, a workforce development program for adult women. “I guarded many of their water ballet shows and loved their creativity and inclusivity. I decided that I wanted to be a swimmer in one of their shows.” Her Fluid Movement debut was in the 2019 show Fluid Movement: The Water Ballet in honor of the nonprofit’s 20th anniversary.

“I think the pull of Fluid Movement for UMBC folks is that you can be a big kid having fun dancing, swimming, and acting. You get to wear pretty costumes and outrageous makeup, and the best part is you get to bring others joy and laughter,” says Reynolds-Stokes.

Like Gregg, she loves that the quirky—in the best way possible—group brings her so much joy and affirmation. “People are validated by seeing people of all shapes and sizes and ages and ethnicities performing. My performing at age 60-plus as a full-figured, African American woman is affirming to many people in our audiences. It lets others know that they too can be in a Fluid Movement show and will be accepted just as they are,” says Reynolds-Stokes, who swims with Stephanie Johnson ’86, her aunt and a fellow UMBC alum. “I love to swim and dance and put on pretty things, so Fluid Movement is a perfect fit for me.”

Release the Kraken

The American Visionary Art Museum, adjacent to the Inner Harbor, is another incubator of Baltimore quirk. The distinctive landmark and home to Fifi, a 15-foot pink poodle on wheels, is dedicated to the preservation and display of outside art and features the work of self-taught artists. (Retriever Jess Owens-Young ’08, political science, recently showed her sports-inspired work in the museum’s galleries.) That includes the Kinetic Sculpture Race, for which teams build and pedal works of art for eight hours on Baltimore City streets, including a foray into the Baltimore Harbor.

In 2011, Steven McAlpine, assistant teaching professor in the Individualized Study Program (INDS), was at the race, as a casual observer with his son. “Dad, can we build one of these?” he asked in awe. McAlpine had also been blown away by both the artistry of the floats and the physical effort of the 15-mile human-powered, all-terrain race for custom-built amphibious sculptures. McAlpine was trying to figure out how he could construct a 12-foot high and 30-foot-long creature at his house when he had a lightbulb moment—the answer was UMBC.

In 2014, McAlpine started the Kinetic Sculpture Project, an interdisciplinary applied learning experience funded by the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship and UMBC community engagement organization BreakingGround. Students from INDS, mechanical engineering, computer engineering, visual art, psychology, geography and environmental systems, and mathematics all came together to design, build, and race the Kraken Upcycle in the 2015 race. “You need all those perspectives and disciplines to be that innovative,” says McAlpine.

In the 400-level class, students studied sustainable design methods and use of recycled materials (including plastic bottles and barrels as well as reclaimed metal and wood) that would often involve McAlpine dumpster diving—especially after the theatre department broke down a set.

“I wanted to explore something less traditional, where I could express new, wacky ideas and merge creativity with engineering.”

—Michael Webb, computer engineering student

Top and bottom photos courtesy of Steve McAlpine; Middle photo by Poulomi Banerjee ’16, M.P.P. ’21

That very first year UMBC’s team was awarded the “Grand Mediocre East Coast Champion,” and in the 10 years since, more than 100 students have passed through the class. Last year UMBC teamed up with a disability advocacy organization and took home the “Best Art Award” for IMAGE Man—in which a larger-than-life teal superhero sits in a wheelchair with a football in hand, flying over some of Baltimore’s iconic buildings, such as the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower and the Baltimore World Trade Center.

Of all the years UMBC has participated, McAlpine was especially proud of this one since it showed “the beauty of an infusion of a new partnership,” that, like the water ballet, also underscored UMBC’s commitment to accessibility for all.

“It’s a lot of work—but unconventional art that leans a little offbeat and weird is never all work because it’s playful too,” says McAlpine. “I think it’s absolutely essential for education to feel thrilling and full of discovery and adventure.”

An Out-of-the-Ordinary Spectacle

Dulcey Comeau, a sophomore computer engineering student, participated in the 2025 race with IMAGE Man. “The race day was super cool; we woke up early to get our capes and our helmets, and we spent some of the morning talking to people who wanted to know more about the float,” says Comeau. “It was a cool experience to have people cheering you along all throughout Baltimore,” she says. The race started a bit rocky—they were having some issues with the brakes—but once they were fixed, it was smooth sailing.

“Part of the race is to ride through the mud and I remember getting stuck, and it was so fun to be pushed up the hill through the rest of it,” she says. “Usually as engineers, we create something for a very specific reason with specific standards for the customer, so it was cool to create something for ourselves and really see the full engineering cycle. The opportunity to have creative freedom with such little specifications made the project that much more enjoyable, and I was able to find the fun in being an engineer again.”

Michael Webb had a similar experience. “As a computer engineering student, I was initially drawn to STEM-related clubs and activities like Baja SAE and UMBC’s chapter of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Those organizations are incredible for hands-on experience, but they tend to be more formulaic, focused on refining and improving designs from past generations,” the sophomore says. He wanted something a little more left-field and subversive. “I wanted to explore something less traditional, where I could express new, wacky ideas and merge creativity with engineering.”

The Kinetic Sculpture Race, like Fluid Movement, is a perfect blend of the new iteration of STEM—one that includes art with an emphasis on off-the-wall—and it’s in that combination that UMBC excels. The UMBC team and faculty Webb ended up working alongside helped challenge some of his established systems and beliefs and consider alternative perspectives.

“The Kinetic Sculpture Race is unlike anything I had ever seen before,” says Webb. “It was fun, quirky, and completely different from the structured world of engineering I’m used to. The whole event is just for fun, and the sculptures people bring in are absolutely wild: a giant poodle, giant alligators, even a platypus with a differential axle. The rules are just as wacky—you can even bribe the judges.”

It was the wake-up he needed. “In engineering, the goal is usually performance and efficiency,” he says. But in the Kinetic Sculpture Race, the goal is simply to make something imaginative and have fun trying to race it. “It’s messy, unpredictable, and just laughs; a reminder that engineering and art can come together and be creative, ridiculous, and fun at once.”