Center for the Arts

Director of the Center for the Arts Pamela Tatge discusses the intersection of art and science being explored at Wesleyan and as part of the Reintegrate New Haven project.

Many of you will remember the groundbreaking work by the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange commissioned by the Center for the Arts that premiered in February 2006, Ferocious Beauty: Genome. It was a movingly beautiful work that looked at the repercussions of genetic research raising prospects that previous generations may scarcely have imagined: of prolonging life and maintaining youth indefinitely, of replicating an individual, of choosing the bodies and brains of our children, and of creating new species to feed and serve us. The work toured for five years following its Wesleyan debut bringing audiences to their feet, and bringing many people in contact with scientific subject matter they might not otherwise have considered.

Reintegrate: Enhancing Collaborations in the Arts and Sciences. Photo by Kike Calvo.

Fast forward to today: one of the Wesleyan scientists who began her partnership with Liz Lerman and the Dance Exchange over eight years ago has teamed up with one of the dancers/choreographers in the company to create a new work funded by Reintegrate New Haven, a project of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. Dr. Laura Grabel is the Lauren B. Dachs Professor of Science in Society and Professor of Biology at Wesleyan; and Elizabeth Johnson is now a dancer/choreographer/educator at Arizona State University. (If you’re not sure who Elizabeth is, she danced the role of Miss Tata in Genome, and in September 2005, for Middletown Dances, she choreographed the waiter dance in downtown Middletown, and the famous dog dance for owners and their dogs that was staged on Andrus Field).

The two submitted a proposal which was funded by Reintegrate to create the Plurpotency Dance, an interactive, multi-media performance piece, exploring stem cells and the ethical implications of stem cell research. The piece addresses the fact that many non-scientists have opinions about stem cell research, and that their opinions may not be based upon a full understanding of the relevant science and ethics. Particular focus will be placed on how individuals will bring their full thoughtful and emotional selves to both scientific exploration and artistic creation. In science classrooms at Wesleyan, Grabel, Johnson and the Wesleyan Science Choreography team have been experimenting with allowing students to bring emotion to their biology subject matter. According to Grabel:

“This may be a jarring concept for the traditional scientist or science students, but there is a long tradition of scientists expressing affection for their work and recognizing its inherent beauty. Making an emotional connection to the science can help to increase the level of commitment and provide a new perspective that uses regions of the brain not typically activated in designing, executing, and interpreting experiments. This approach may lead to unexpected insights.”

All of the seven Reintegrate teams will give a free, 90-minute TED-type talk at New Haven’s International Festival of Arts & Ideas on Wednesday, June 19, 2013 at 5:30pm at the Yale Center for British Art, located at 1080 Chapel Street. [Click here for more information about the Reintegrate: Enhancing Collaborations in the Arts and Sciences talk.] I encourage you to go and hear Grabel and Johnson speak about their work, along with others who are exploring the potential of art/science collaboration.

Tags: Breaking Ground Dance Series, CFA Theater, Dance Department

Van Cliburn International Piano Competition

Be the first to discover who will be performing at Wesleyan! During the 2013-2014 season, Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts will be celebrating their 40th anniversary (the CFA opened in September 1973). On February 14, 2014, the 39th annual Crowell Concert Series presented by Center for the Arts and the Music Department will feature a concert by the Gold Medalist of this year’s Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, which begins this upcoming weekend. You can watch the entire Van Cliburn competition online for free, and be the first to discover who will be performing an evening of classical and Romantic music at Wesleyan on Valentine’s Day 2014!

The sensational victory by pianist Van Cliburn (1934-2013) at the first Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow in 1958 heralded a new confidence in the quality of American music-making, as well as a new era in cultural relations between East and West.

The 14th edition of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, which has been dedicated to the discovery of the world’s finest pianists every four years since 1962, starts this Friday, May 24, and concludes on Sunday, June 9, 2013, at Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas.

All performances will be streamed live in their entirety starting at 11am this Friday, and will also be available on demand at www.cliburn.org. Watch 30 pianists from Australia, Chile, China, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States compete for the coveted Cliburn medals, more than $175,000 in prizes and awards, and three years of commission-free career management.

Enjoy over 110 hours of live broadcasts of performances, interview segments, and awards ceremonies over 17 days, along with symposia, competitor profiles, special tributes to Van Cliburn, and other behind-the-scenes glimpses and featurettes on the competition.

All competitors will perform two 45-minute solo recitals in the Preliminary Round (May 24-30). Then, twelve semifinalists will be selected to perform an hour long solo recital (June 1-4), including a specially commissioned work by American composer Christopher Theofanidis, and a piano quintet with the world-renowned Brentano String Quartet. Six finalists will perform two piano concerti with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leonard Slatkin (June 6-9).

Make comments and submit questions to the Cliburn team and webcast host, pianist Jade Simmons; and vote for your favorite competitors (the winner of this vote will receive an Audience Award to be given during the Final Awards ceremony on June 9.)

Watch a teaser of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition on YouTube here: 2013 Cliburn Competition Teaser

And stay tuned for an announcement on June 25 about the rest of the programming for the 40th anniversary season of the Center for the Arts!

Van Cliburn International Piano Competition
Gold Medalist Concert
Friday, February 14, 2014 at 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
Tickets on sale Monday, July 1, 2013

“Besides its illustrious list of laureates, the importance of its prizes, quality of its judges and rigorous selection process sets [the Cliburn Competition] apart.”
—Gramophone

Tags: 40th Anniversary Season, Crowell Concert Hall, Crowell Concert Series, Music Department, Performing Arts Series

Tickets for Gallim Dance and Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s Word Becomes Flesh are now on sale online! Click here to buy your tickets.

EVENING PERFORMANCES

• Hartford Steel Symphony – Tuesday, July 2, 7pm, CFA Courtyard, FREE! (Rain Location: Crowell Concert Hall)
• Gallim Dance – Thursday, July 11 & Friday, July 12 at 8pm, CFA Theater (New England Premiere of “Mama Call”)
• Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s Word Becomes Flesh – Thursday, July 18, 8pm, CFA Theater (New England Premiere)

FREE NOONTIME TALKS AND PERFORMANCES

• Stephen Bennett: Harp Guitar – Tuesday, July 2, 12:10pm, Crowell Concert Hall, FREE!
• Anne Cubberly: How I Became the Puppet Lady – Tuesday, July 9, 12:10pm, CFA Hall, FREE!
• A Talk by Marcela Oteíza – Tuesday, July 16, 12:10pm, CFA Hall, FREE!
• Souleymane Badolo: WATIDSOWBO–Come Dance With The World – Tuesday, July 23, 12:10pm, Crowell Concert Hall, FREE!

Tags: CFA Courtyard, CFA Hall, CFA Theater, Crowell Concert Hall, Summer at the CFA

CFA Arts Administration Intern Monica M. Tinyo ’13 discusses the MiddletownRemix Festival, taking place on Saturday, May 11, 2013 from 2pm to 5pm. All festival events are free, and will take place rain or shine. The Festival Information Center will be located at 575 Main Street, Middletown, CT (in front of It’s Only Natural Market). Click here to download the MiddletownRemix Festival Schedule and Map (opens as a pdf).

This Saturday, MiddletownRemix: Hear More, See More – A Festival of Art and Sound will celebrate the city’s acoustic identity with four world premieres of works commissioned for the festival, three live DJ sets, two commissioned art/sound installations, a laptop orchestra, a flash mob dance, food trucks, graffiti art, improv sketches, and a gallery walk.

MiddletownRemix is part of Wesleyan’s year-long initiative Music & Public Life, as well as part of the Center for the Arts’ greater initiative to foster community engagement using the arts as a catalyst. Not since Middletown Dances in September 2005 on Main Street, and the Feet to the Fire Festival in May 2008 at Veterans Park, has there been such an opportunity for Wesleyan students and the greater Middletown community to collaborate and celebrate the space they share. Gabriela de Golia ’13 explains this collaboration is exactly why “the Wesleyan Student Assembly’s Middletown-Wesleyan Relations Committee is so excited for this festival. For a whole afternoon, students, residents, families and renowned artists will be able to experience the artistic culture of Wesleyan and Middletown, and celebrate the work of talented community members. This is a special chance for the University and town to come together and engage with one another on a more personal and interactive level than is usually possible.”

The MiddletownRemix project stemmed from the interest of Wesleyan Assistant Professor of Music Paula Matthusen in UrbanRemix, a project created by Georgia Tech composer Jason Freeman and his collaborators. The project includes a smartphone application and website, and allows people to easily record, geographically tag and share sounds from everyday life. Over the past year, campus and community members have been uploading sounds that characterize Middletown. After monthly meetings with Middletown’s arts stakeholders group, a committee of 25 dedicated community members and members of Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts, WESU 88.1 FM, and Green Street Arts Center together shaped the MiddletownRemix festival, including partnering on a successful grant proposal to the Connecticut Office of the Arts.

This Saturday’s festival will premiere a total of eight commissioned works from Middletown artists, Wesleyan students and faculty; including “MTRX” (2012) by Jason Freeman, which will be performed by Wesleyan University’s Toneburst Laptop & Electronic Arts Ensemble, directed by Paula Matthusen, at 2pm, 3pm and 4pm at the Green Street Arts Center (located at 51 Green Street).

Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to listen and dance with your neighbors. There will be a flash mob dance at 2:30pm on Main Street between Liberty and Ferry Street. It’s not too late to learn the flash mob dance, which is open to all levels of dancers. Learn the dance on YouTube here and perform it as part of the flash mob on May 11 (participants should plan to arrive at the Festival Information Center, located at 575 Main Street in front of It’s Only Natural Market, at 2pm, and then perform the dance at 2:30pm).

For more information about six of the commissioned MiddletownRemix festival artists, check out these interviews from the Creative Campus blog:

Aletta Brady ’15 talks to DJ Arun Ranganathan
Michelle Agresti ’14 talks to Ronald Kuivila
Aletta Brady ’15 talks to Joe McCarthy and Peter Albano
Michelle Agresti ’14 talks to Jason Freeman
Michelle Agresti ’14 talks to Marc Pettersen
Aletta Brady ’15 talks to Kelsey Siegel ’13

Tags: Dance Department, Feet to the Fire, Music & Public Life, Music Department

Wesleyan University’s Dance Department honors Artist in Residence Urip Sri Maeny and celebrates her retirement following four decades of teaching Javanese dance. Sofia Warren ’13, Press & Marketing Assistant at the Center for the Arts, spoke to fellow seniors Kimberly Ladd ’13 and Kelsey Siegel ’13 about their experiences studying with Maeny. 

Urip Sri Maeny

This Thursday and Friday, Wesleyan is celebrating the incredible tenure of Urip Sri Maeny, an Artist in Residence who has taught Javanese dance at Wesleyan for 40 years. Born in Java, Indonesia, Maeny became a dancer of great renown at an early age, performing in the Royal Court of Surakarta, and in major cities all across Indonesia, as well as Hong Kong, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Iraq, and Australia. Since coming to Wesleyan in 1972, she has touched the lives of generations of students. I was lucky enough to sit down with two of these students, Kimberly Ladd ’13 and Kelsey Siegel ’13, whose glowing appraisal of Maeny made me understand, at least in part, the immense impact she has had on the Wesleyan community.

In describing Javanese dance, both Kelsey and Kim emphasize how different this form is from others taught here at Wesleyan. Kelsey tells me that originally, courts in Indonesia considered watching Javanese dancers to be a form of meditation, and would bring in dancers for this purpose. “It’s really slow and it’s very articulate with your hands,” she says, “it’s very therapeutic.” Coming from a hip-hop background, Javanese dancing was a radical change of pace for Kelsey, but one that Maeny made inviting and manageable. “She introduced me to the culture in a way that was so comfortable for me that I didn’t feel like it was something I could never understand. I had no idea what Javanese dance was, but immediately I wanted to be a part of it.”

It is apparent from the enthusiasm with which both Kim and Kelsey talk about Maeny how much she has influenced them. When I asked what distinguishes her as a teacher, Kim tells me how willing she is to take time for her students. “She has a really open schedule—she’ll come in on a day when she’s not teaching to work with you.” Kelsey adds that her style is very unique, and one that puts a lot in the hands of the students. “She doesn’t need to show you every detail, but she’ll do it with you and then correct you at the end. She has a way of not really showing you the movement, but you just kind of do it, and you don’t really know how it happens.”  Kelsey and Kim both emphasize how it is her care and complete attention to students, as well as her complete understanding of her craft, that set Maeny apart as a teacher.

This week, both Kim and Kelsey will take part in a piece choreographed, adapted by, and featuring Urip Sri Maeny [excerpts from the dance drama "Ramayana"] to be performed at the World Music Hall on Thursday, May 2 at 7pm. “You don’t say no to Maeny!” Kelsey laughs, explaining how she became a part of the project. “She’s just a brilliant mastermind,” Kim adds, and tells me about the mythic narrative dance. “It’s this whole drama which she conceived and put together and edited, and brought us all with our different experiences to dance one form. It’s really astounding.” Maeny’s approach to the choreography, all of which is her own, is to let everyone take the dance and put it into their own styles and their own bodies, in a way that is very unifying. As Kim puts it, “she knows the whole story, and we’re still discovering how we fit in. But that will happen.”

Before I leave her interview, Kelsey tells me her lasting impression of Urip Sri Maeny, which I can’t help but to quote at length. “I just have an image of Maeny that will always stay in my head,” she says. “It’s just me walking into the Center for the Arts and I see her—she’s the cutest woman—just running out, and she comes up to me and is always hugging me and kissing me and making me feel so welcome. I’m a dance major and a huge part of being a dance major is Maeny. She’s one of the reasons why I feel so safe in this community, and so loved. Just so loved.”

Celebrating Four Decades of Javanese Dance: A Retirement Celebration Honoring Artist in Residence Urip Sri Maeny
Thursday, May 2 at 7pm
World Music Hall
FREE!

The celebration begins with a performance of excerpts from the dance drama “Ramayana,” choreographed, adapted by, and featuring Urip Sri Maeny in her last production at Wesleyan, with Adjunct Professor of Dance Susan Lourie, undergraduate and graduate students, and Middletown community members; accompanied by the Wesleyan Gamelan Ensemble, under the direction of I.M. Harjito and Sumarsam.

Annual Dr. Cynthia Novack Lecture and Celebration Honoring Decades of Javanese Dance at Wesleyan
Friday, May 3 at 2pm
World Music Hall
FREE!

The annual Dr. Cynthia Novack Lecture will address cultural reconstruction in post-genocide Indonesia with a free talk in World Music Hall by dance scholar, choreographer, and cultural theorist Dr. Diyah Larasati, author of The Dance That Makes You Vanish (University of Minnesota Press, 2013).

The talk will conclude with a tribute to Urip Sri Maeny and the legacy of Javanese dance at Wesleyan by special guests. The lecture and tribute will be immediately followed by a reception and book signing in World Music Hall.

Tags: Dance Department, Music Department, World Music Hall

CFA Arts Administration Intern Monica M. Tinyo ’13 talked with Director Jeffrey Sichel, S. Dylan Zwickel ’14, Alma Sanchez-Eppler ’14, and graduate students Gabriel Kastelle and Huan Li about this weekend’s Theater Department production of “Peony Pavilion.”

Peony Pavilion

I found out very quickly that Director Jeffrey Sichel is true to his word. Mr. Sichel is a specialist in Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Performance Practice and Theory who holds an M.F.A. in Directing from Columbia University and is working toward his Doctorate in Performance Studies from The Shanghai Theatre Academy. Within a couple minutes of talking with him about his collaborative, process-driven ideology, he extended our interview to include the entire ensemble, or what he calls the “brain trust,” insisting I stay for part of the rehearsal and talk with each and every ensemble member.

Two hours later, I emerged from the intimate setting of the theater and realized that I had experienced something unique, something I wouldn’t have grasped from interviewing just one member of the ensemble. The specialty of the ensemble’s work lies in the safe but energized space that it produces; the play is a product of close-knit collaboration and a genuine eagerness for new modes of acting and thinking.

Peony Pavilion is a 400 year old Chinese opera that has been transformed, seemingly by magic, into a story of love, death, and empowerment that is as simple in essence as it is aesthetically beautiful. “Part Romeo and Juliet, part Orpheus, and part Edgar Allen Poe,” the narrative is “weirdly relatable, in the way that musical theater is relatable. There are these people that are doing these things that they wouldn’t do in real life, but it makes sense why they are doing them in the context of their world,” explains S. Dylan Zwickel ’14, one of the three student dramaturges.

Mr. Sichel goes on to explain the work is “not experimental, or even particularly strange, its just the other.” The work is intercultural in theme and style, but it is not what we think of as experimental from a Western perspective; it is more formal in narrative and structure than most plays performed at Wesleyan and in contemporary professional theater, but unlike anything most people have seen before.

As part of their intercultural learning process, the ensemble learned Chinese acting methods that forced them to learn characters “from the outside in, rather than the Western method of learning characters from the inside out.” The actors learned traditional choreography as well as masculine and feminine physicalities before they learned about and developed the characters, which made them see the characters in a different light. The students were surprised that they “noticed specific physicalities in the characters, but not gender.”

The actors in the all-women ensemble explain that although it is an “all female cast, it is not a specifically feminist play; Chinese traditional culture is heteronormative and we did choose to have an all-woman cast, but gender is not important in the play. The all-woman cast allowed characters emerge in which gender doesn’t matter.” Alma Sanchez-Eppler ’14, the student dramaturge who took on the daunting task of adapting an almost 400 page manuscript, explains that the play is a story of self actualization and empowerment of a female protagonist, but is more about a character’s journey than dichotomies of gender.

With the support of her ensemble and incredible stamina, Alma narrowed the script to 40 pages, extracting the love story that follows the protagonist. Although she was not initially expecting a job of this magnitude, part of Jeffrey’s talent “is forcing a project to be everyone’s project and pushing [ensemble members] into roles that [they] would have never imagined they could do.”

The play is accompanied by a live music ensemble with original music by Gabriel Kastelle, a Wesleyan graduate student of experimental music and composition. The music was able to incorporate melodies from the score of the opera. The journey of the score is as epic as the protagonist’s journey in the play. After finding the score and receiving Wesleyan Library funding, another graduate student, Huan Li, was tasked with picking up a version of the score from China that had been poured over by scholars and meticulously translated from the ancient notation to the more legible, modern Chinese notation. He almost giddily explains, “I have fallen in love with lyrics; they are so urgent and earnest to communicate. Lyrics want to share, want to communicate and get out—I love handling that.”

His original compositions mirror the passion he and the rest of the ensemble have exhibited throughout this process. This fervor will surely be translated into the performances that run from Thursday through Saturday.

Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu
Directed by Jeffrey Sichel
Thursday, April 25 & Friday, April 26, 2013 at 8pm
Saturday, April 27, 2013 at 2pm & 8pm
CFA Theater
$8 general public; $5 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/students, non-Wesleyan students; $4 Wesleyan students

Tags: CFA Theater, Music Department, Theater Department

This weekend Wesleyan hosts performances by the Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra, directed by Adjunct Professor of Music Jay Hoggard; the Wesleyan Jazz Ensemble, directed by Jazz Ensemble Coach Noah Baerman, and a much-awaited, sold-out performance by the legendary South African trumpeter, composer, producer, and activist Hugh Masekela. The weekend also features a free performance by Connecticut’s own Lee Mixashawn Rozie and his “Ghostly Trio” on Saturday night, as the final event of the 12th annual Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra Weekend. CFA Arts Administration Intern Monica M. Tinyo ’13 talked to Mixashawn about his upcoming performance, and his personal philosophy of music and life.

Mixashawn

Mixashawn is “more powerful each time I hear him…” (Stanley Crouch). Internationally-acclaimed composer, performer, educator, and maritime artist Lee Mixashawn Rozie has captivated and enlightened audiences in the United States and Europe for more than three decades. His incarnation as The Wave Artist draws upon a heritage of multicultural innovation that spans four centuries, and both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In applying to his arts an ancient understanding of waves in their multiple manifestations—sonic, aquatic, percussive, and harmonic—Mixashawn expresses a reverence for the unique and universal qualities that all waves possess, and celebrates the unity of existence. Mixashawn comes to Wesleyan at the invitation of Jay Hoggard, and I had the pleasure of talking with him.

Monica Tinyo: You praise music with “hemispheric principles.” What does hemispheric principles mean exactly?

Lee Mixashawn Rozie: [American music is] music of the hemisphere. So often, when you say “music of the Americas,” people assume Latin, but I always thought [of American music as] an embodiment of the whole continent. I like Latin [music], but I also like swing, rock, funk, and country, and I don’t like to be limited by those categories. The fact that we don’t think of American music as “hemispheric music,” or music of the Americas, is one of the reasons why this hemisphere is in turmoil. We don’t look at ourselves as Americans. We are the only continental people that don’t look at ourselves as such; Europeans are Europeans, Africans are Africans, but in the Americas, American means originating from the United States, not the continent. All this does is weaken us as a people.

Do you think that hemispheric music can bring us together?

What binds us all together is the indigenous aspect of spontaneity. The Objiwae’s traditional name for themselves translates to “spontaneous beings.” Spontaneity is what all music has in common, especially all jazz music. Think about American music: all the greatest musicians come from the people. What binds all this music beyond spontaneity is another definition of spontaneity, swing. “You ain’t got a thing when you ain’t got that swing.” It’s a cliche, but it holds some truth. When you swing, it’s a high state of creativity—you are not thinking, just acting. You don’t think with your right side of your brain [and allow creativity to flow]; hemispheric music is [about] not being caught up in the right side of your brain.

What will the music this weekend be like?

I consider my music omnipop, or pop from the last 500 years. For this weekend’s concert, we will be going from “Purple Haze” [Jimi Hendrix] to southern-style indigenous music to original music.

How long have you had a relationship with Wesleyan? I assume this isn’t the first time you are playing here.

Even though I never attended here, it was very prominent in shaping me musically. I used to come down here [when at Trinity College] and hang out. I would play with a lot of the students and got to know some of the professors. [Wesleyan] always affected me.

12th annual Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra Weekend
Thursday, April 18 through Saturday, April 20, 2013

Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra
Thursday, April 18, 2013 at 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
FREE!

The Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra and the Wesleyan Jazz Ensemble perform classic jazz compositions, including tunes by Wayne Shorter, Charles Mingus, Ted Dunbar, Kenny Barron, Duke Ellington, and Charles Lloyd.

Hugh Masekela
Friday, April 19, 2013 at 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
Pre-concert talk at 7:15pm by Professor of Music Eric Charry
(SOLD OUT)

The concert will open with a performance by students of West African Drumming at Wesleyan, directed by Master Drummer and Adjunct Professor of Music Abraham Adzenyah.

A Conversation with Hugh Masekela
Music and Public Life: The Role of the Artist as Activist
Saturday, April 20, 2013 at 11am
Crowell Concert Hall
FREE!

A conversation with Hugh Masekela, moderated by Professor of Music Eric Charry.

Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra and Mixashawn’s “Ghostly Trio”
Saturday, April 20, 2013 at 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
FREE!

The Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra performs classic jazz compositions by Thelonious Monk, Tadd Dameron & Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Thad Jones, Charles Mingus, and Oliver Nelson. Special guest flutist, saxophonist, percussionist, vocalist and mandolin player Mixashawn brings his “Ghostly Trio,” featuring Wesleyan Private Lessons Teacher Pheeroan akLaff on drums and Bill Arnold on percussion, plus special guest Jay Hoggard on vibraphone.

Tags: Crowell Concert Hall, Crowell Concert Series, Music & Public Life, Music Department, Performing Arts Series, Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra Weekend

CFA Arts Administration Intern Monica M. Tinyo ’13 talks to playwright Christina Anderson, who will be giving the free talk “The Theater as Apparatus: Why This Play? Why Now?” on Friday, April 12, 2013 at 4:15pm in CFA Hall.

Christina Anderson

When asked in an interview “why theater?”, Christina Anderson answered “I love the fact that adults are willing to pretend for 90 minutes.” Christina fell in love with the play and power of theater as a child and hasn’t stopped writing since. Lucky for me, she did put down her keyboard for a few minutes to chat with me about her work, process and upcoming talk.

Monica Tinyo: What will you be talking about this Friday?

Christina Anderson: The goal of the speech is to talk about my background and relationship with theater and [how to have it] be a part of my life, rather than it be my life. I want to look at different ways that social responsibility can play a part in the stories we tell and the importance of using theater as an apparatus because, in all honesty, we can’t compete with television or film, but on the flip side, they can’t compete with us, either. Its really about finding these ways that theater is unique and necessary, and using the apparatus of theater in celebrating live performance.

I love theater. There are things that frustrate me about the business, but there are things about it that I love. I just hope that my day [at Wesleyan] will offer some insight into the early stages of making a career out of [playwriting and a love of theater].

Can you talk a little about your recent projects? Maybe Hollow Roots (performed in January as part of The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival in New York City) and this idea of the neutral narrative?

Hollow Roots is about a female protagonist who goes on a quest to find a person of color with a neutral narrative—neutral narrative being a narrative by someone who is not affected by their race or gender; she is in this fictitious New York-like city on a quest to find this person and it ends up being her.

I was just really interested in this [solo performance] structure, and as I was starting to do research, I noticed that a lot of solo shows featured people of color who embodied various characters—the theatricality being that all these different people live in this one body. On the other hand, solo performances by white men were usually solo narratives—sitting for an hour and telling a story. I was really fascinated by that. I wanted to challenge myself to create a lone ["neutral"] narrator, who we would visually identify as a black person.

Is this indicative of how you normally create a work? What is your process as a playwright?

With all my plays, it starts from a series of questions. The purpose of writing isn’t about finding a single solution or answer. It’s about exploration and discovering possibilities. For Hollow Roots, it was “what is it like to live as a person of color in a society that considers itself post-racial?”

I do a ton of research before I start any play; I usually come in to it with a theme and read a ton of books, essays, analytical writing, music, art, blogs, plays by playwrights I admire. I just get a big pot of information, stir it up, and start thinking about the theatrical world that I am trying to create. I always try to challenge myself when I write—a two character play, or a solo play, and then I develop a character or a few characters and figure out what the relationships between them are. I make an outline of all this and then I just write.

Christina is a rare talent who is equally a teacher and a story-teller, making us question all the certainties we take for granted. Her openness and curiosity are infectious. I will leave you today with a few wise words from Christina:

Be present. Don’t bother posting a picture of the meal you cooked. Don’t post the song you just danced to. Don’t tag the friend you just hung out with. Just do it. Be present. Let the experience, the memory live in your muscles, your limbs—not on Facebook. Nourish is a verb. Give yourself the things you need to grow, to be healthy, to be your ideal self.

For more, visit this post and come hear her speak this Friday at 4:15pm in the Center for the Arts Hall. An Outside the Box Theater Series event presented by the Theater Department and the Center for the Arts, co-sponsored by the Center for African American Studies and the Wesleyan Writing Programs.

Tags: CFA Hall, Outside The Box Theater Series, Theater Department

CFA Arts Administration Intern Monica M. Tinyo ’13 surveys this week’s offerings at the Center for the Arts.

What are you doing this weekend? Are you rocking out to the music of the Grateful Dead? Watching an outdoor puppet show? Maybe you are listening to an orchestra of laptops, or expanding your idea of art. If you aren’t, you should be. This weekend holds a ton of exciting performances, exhibitions, and lectures that are as diverse in subject as they are in medium.

On Friday at 1:30pm, get your dance fix with a free studio showing by the Philadelphia-based choreographer Moncell Durden, President and Founder of Dance Educators of Funk and Hip Hop.

Time Stands Still: Notation in Musical Practice Festival-Conference, April 5 & 6

If music is more your thing, there are a number of senior and graduate recitals, like Henry Robertson’s tribute to the Grateful Dead, “Transitive Nightfall of Diamonds” (Thursday at 9pm). You could also explore musical notation with international experts at the Time Stands Still festival-conference this weekend (starting Friday at 1:30pm). Along with symposium sessions and roundtables, there will be two concerts (Friday and Saturday at 8pm), including the U.S. premiere of London’s Vocal Constructivists, alongside Wesleyan students in the Toneburst Laptop & Electronic Arts Ensemble.

A little overwhelmed? Take a break and have some quiet contemplation with artwork at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery. There you can see the brilliant art studio thesis work (Noon to 5pm). The students featured are so talented, you won’t believe that not one of them has yet lived a quarter of a century. You can also see artists taking action in a collection of protest posters at the Davison Art Center (Noon to 4pm).

Last but definitely not least is the outdoor puppet show (Thursday through Saturday at 9pm), with handmade puppets and complimentary tea. You really don’t want to miss Frog’s journey to prevent Tokyo’s destruction by enlisting the help of a lowly collections officer, Katagiri!

Instead of your normal weekend routine, come to an event at the Center for the Arts. I promise it will be more fun, valuable and out of the ordinary than anything you were planning!

Tags: Art & Art History, Bessie Schönberg Dance Studio, CFA Courtyard, CFA Hall, Crowell Concert Hall, Dance Department, Davison Art Center, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies, Memorial Chapel, Music Department, The Russell House, Theater Department, World Music Hall

“figures” by Ilyana Schwartz ’13

For the next four weeks, Wesleyan will celebrate the talents of seniors in the Art Studio Program of the Department of Art and Art History.  There’s a new exhibition every week, with opening receptions every Wednesday from 4pm to 6pm. This week (through Sunday, March 31) features theses by Allison Kalt, Tiffany Unno, Ilyana Schwartz, Anna Shimshak and Christina You. CFA Arts Administration Intern Monica M. Tinyo ’13 talked to Tiffany Unno and Anna Simshak about their work in the exhibition.

Week one of the Senior Thesis Exhibitions includes diverse media, from process-focused wood blocking to conceptual photography. Earlier this week, Tiffany Unno and Anna Simshak took a break from installing and chatted with me about their work. Ms. Unno’s  “Excavations” disintegrates the boundaries between drawing, print-making and sculpture, and Ms. Shimshak’s “Translatio Corporis” is a photographic thesis that provides an intimate examination of Catholicism in a modern world.

Tiffany Unno’s work pushes the boundaries of what one can do with paper. When you first look at it, it seems so certain of itself; beautifully organized chaos. Ms. Unno managed to successfully create work that is conceptual without being intimidating. It is fascinating to hear that there was so much difficulty and irritation in her process this year. Ms Unno explains that her work “came out of irritation—a frustration that turned into something more.” After many trials in which she hated the outcome, she explains, “I decided to not think of my thesis as a thesis with deadline [and] to undo my critical learning and questioning everything I do. I was at a point where I need to fix how I make art now instead of 20 years from now. Thesis is a time to intensely explore and not lock yourself in.” She began to think of her work as “an extension of creating” that “unravels what I learned [formally].”

Ms. Shimshak’s work delicately investigates Catholicism in her own life and in the lives of others. “This photographic body of work was inspired by my upbringing. I was brought up Catholic, not strictly traditionally Catholic, but I grew up religiously. It was something that I grew apart from as I got older, and I began to realize, especially through art, that it did affect how I grew and how I saw the world. I was interested in what Catholicism meant with regards to modernity. How do you reconcile a 2000 year old institution with a modern society that really wasn’t conceived of when the religion was created? I have been spending the majority of my time with members of the church, mainly clergy members and nuns, to figure out how the individual is influenced by religion, especially living so thoroughly in religion (after taking vows). How does [clergy life] affect your perception of self and God?”

Ms. Shimshak focused on capturing the sentiment of individuals that she spent time with; she never spent less that a full day shadowing an individual before photographing them. The photographs are “not documentary but metaphorical—[there is a] heavy stint towards gesture. I think [gesture] is the best way to convey both a sentiment and an action, and to capture the psychology of a situation.”

Senior Thesis Exhibitions
Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, 283 Washington Terrace, Middletown
Tuesday, March 26 through Sunday, April 21, 2013 from Noon to 5pm
All receptions are from 4pm to 6pm
FREE!

Tuesday, March 26 through Sunday, March 31, 2013
Reception: Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Allison Kalt, Tiffany Unno, Ilyana Schwartz, Anna Shimshak, Christina You

Tuesday, April 2 through Sunday, April 7, 2013
Reception: Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Piers Gelly, Zoé Albert, Ally Bernstein, Ryu Hirahata, Charles Ellis, Nicholas Kokkinis

Tuesday, April 9 through Sunday, April 14, 2013
Reception: Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Melissa Arroyo, Christian Lalonde, Emily Schubert, Kerry Klemmer, Ethan Cohen, Marissa Napolitano

Tuesday, April 16 through Sunday, April 21, 2013
Reception: Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Alahna Watson, Adam Forbes, Caitlin Palmer, Arin Dineen, Jessica Wilson, Kevin Brisco

Tags: Art & Art History, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery