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Dustin Luca
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SALEM, MASS. – TVƵ’s Center for Creative and Performing Arts held its annual Creativity Awards and Celebration of the Arts Wednesday night, celebrating 10 students and their artistic achievements in the 2024-25 academic year while also issuing a lifetime achievement award to The Floor Lords.
The Creativity Awards, the top arts award at the university, recognizes the outstanding achievement of 10 student artists across the disciplines of art + design, creative writing, dance, music, and theatre.
The students who received awards this year include:
- art + design
- Jacob Gray, of Peabody, an art + design major
- Miles Smith, of South Windsor, CT, an art + design major
- Creative Writing
- Olivia Heenan, of Plymouth, a combined English and secondary education major
- Sara Desrocher, of Danvers, an English major
- Dance
- Aiden Jones, of Shrewsbury, a dual dance and elementary education major
- Mackenzie Trainor, of Methuen, a dance major
- Music
- Abrianna Madden, of Salem, a music major
- Paul O’Brien, of Bellingham, a music major
- Theatre
- Alecia DiCicco, of Quincy, a technical theatre major
- Ian Tomarakos, of Medway, a theatre performance major
Student award recipients are chosen by the faculty in their respective disciplines for their outstanding achievements in their creative discipline, as well as their contributions to their departments as a whole. Ten students are chosen annually across the disciplines of art + design, creative writing, dance, music and theatre.
In addition, the evening honored The Floor Lords, Boston’s multi-generational breakdancing crew, as this year’s recipient of the Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award. The Floor Lords, first formed in 1981, are foundationally responsible for moving hip hop culture forward in Boston and beyond.
“Several things are considered when selecting the Lifetime Achievement Award recipient,” said Karen Gahagan, director of the Center for Creative and Performing Arts. “These include how the honoree has created transformational change in their creative field, created opportunities for other artists, and how they have had a broader impact through education, advocacy and/or community building work. The Floor Lords have been doing all of this for over 40 years through live performance, community outreach and youth education in Greater Boston and around the globe.”
In accepting the award, Floor Lords co-founder and b-boy Mike “Mad Mike” Daugherty said the honor was “unforeseen to a group of kids that were just outside having fun. But 44 years later, we’re still going.”
Mad Mike continued, explaining that everybody has a dream to chase—and dreams only become realities through action.
“No matter how simple, crazy, or outlandish—from selling peanut butter on pancakes to building a flying bicycle—a vision is only that until you allow yourself to take the first step, to bring it into fruition,” Mad Mike said. “No matter how crazy it seems, if you’re passionate about it, just go for it.
“Just do it,” he concluded, “because 44 years later, you could be up here like this. Who knows?”
