Gina Ulysse: Using Her Total Person

There are a number of events on campus this week and next that will help to bring into focus what is going on in Haiti right now.  We are so fortunate to have faculty who can share their personal and scholarly understanding of this magnificent country with us as we try to grapple with the present-day horror and the necessities of the future.

If you have never seen Professor Gina Ulysse (Anthropology, African-American Studies and FGSS) perform before, you must.   I can guarantee that those who have will be flocking to see her again, so I suggest that you plan to arrive early this Thursday night when she performs her dramatic monologue Because When God Is Too Busy:  Haiti, me and THE WORLD.    We have moved the event from the CFA Hall to Memorial Chapel so that we can accommodate a larger audience.  According to the description in the Facebook event page, the monologue “considers how the past occupies the present.  Ulysse weaves spokenword and Vodou chants to reflect on childhood memories, social (in)justice, spirituality, and the dehumanization of Haitians.”  What Gina does that few other solo performers I have seen can do is to weave her scholarly critical analysis of her country with deeply personal experience and use the tools of the artist to integrate them and make them come alive for an audience.   The quality of the knowledge that we gain from her journey is not the same knowledge we would receive from having her read from a memoir or a scholarly article.  It is not the same knowledge we would receive from a spoken word or vocal music performance.  It is all of these multiple ways of knowing in one.  Gina uses her total person, her mind and body, to take us on a journey of words and music, and we feel lucky to have had the chance to take that journey with her.

Because When God Is Too Busy:  Haiti, me and THE WORLD
Thursday, February 4, 6:30-8:30pm
Memorial Chapel, Wesleyan University

The performance will be followed by a faculty panel that will include Alex Dupuy (Sociology) and Liza McAlister (Religion, American Studies) & Gina Ulysse to discuss earthquake.  Haitian Relief Action Team will be collecting a suggested donation of $3 and food and refreshments will be served after the performance.

Striving for Perfection

The CFA and the Dance Department were interested in having the Breaking Ground Dance Series acknowledge for the first time the truly innovative work happening in Minneapolis, a hotbed of creative work in dance. After months of planning, we are delighted to welcome Morgan Thorson and her company to campus this weekend. Thanks to support from the Andrew M. Mellon Foundation we were able to connect her work, HEAVEN, to faculty and students in Religion and Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and a number of activities are going on this week (see below) in conjunction with the performances of her work at the CFA Theater.

Morgan is a creative researcher… the movement and music in her work comes out of deep exploration and experimentation. In HEAVEN, she researches perfection: What is the nature of both corporeal and ecstatic perfection present in religious practices, and how does it manifest itself? When I saw the piece at P.S. 122 last November, I was struck by the power of her dancers and the sense of ensemble that she creates onstage, particularly integrating the musicians from the indie rock band, Low, with her company. While Morgan is exploring religious practices, she is also showing us the ritualistic power of dance and the emotional, physical and communal power of what a group of performers can achieve together.

Lydia Bell, ’07, wrote to me after she saw the work and said, “I felt like the piece was asking, if we don’t believe in X, what do we believe in? There is a sort of activism in this question that I like–re-framing things in the positive and of course, I felt like Morgan’s answer to this question was clear–everyone can take solace in art-making and being part of a community, which have always been core parts of any religious or spiritual practice.”

When I spoke with Morgan about the work she commented: “In this piece I try to communicate my devotion to space. With extremely simple material, the body and space unite in a powerful unison where temporal shifts underscore this relationship. For example, a quick acceleration leaves a ghostly residue, of what just was. The departure is the gesture. …The presence of various body types is very important. I purposely wanted to blend groups of variously gendered people—not to just convey the power of drag (creating your gender the way you want to), but to approach an all new manifestation of gender identity, a roving, third gender. We modeled this idea after angelic shape-shifters, which often play an important role in the Bible. I also wanted to convey the power of the voice and song. Tonal resonance and harmony can spark an energetic or emotional shift in the performer and viewer, and I really wanted to play with this power in HEAVEN, and juxtapose this kind of material to vigorously moving bodies. I intentionally complete the piece with shape-note singing, so that the focus is no longer corporeal, but sonic and vocal. The communal gesture of singing elevates HEAVEN beyond a physical presence, sending the piece off to a new expressive dimension, and revealing the essence of pure group intension. “

Many choreographers, including many on our series, have explored dancing with live music onstage, but few have succeeded in so fully integrating the musicians as Morgan has. When I asked her how she came to work with Low, she said she was introduced to them by one of her dancers: “We talked about religion in general and ideas of god, and performance structures for this piece. They are known for working the edges, for initiating delicate, soft tones or loud and abrasive gestures, and I was interested in those edges– that restriction– and what it forced me to do choreographically.”

You’ll have the opportunity to meet Morgan and discuss her work following each of the performances, and on Friday night, she’ll be joined by Nicole Stanton, Chair of the Dance Department and Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Assistant Professor of Religion and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, who will both share their perspectives on the work.

Morgan Thorson & Company
HEAVEN
Featuring live music by the indie rock group Low

Friday & Saturday, January 29 & 30, 8pm 
CFA Theater

Pre-performance talk by Debra Cash on Friday, January 29, at 7:15pm, CFA Hall (formerly CFA Cinema)

Related Events: January 27 at 7pm at Usdan Daniel Family Commons: A Dinner/Discussion about Queer and Transgender Themes in HEAVEN; January 29 at 6:15pm at the Bayit: Aaron Freedman ’10 leads a movement ritual Shabbat.

For complete listing of activities, visit http://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/events.html#breaking

Airlifted from Sweden

What’s it like to be airlifted from your university in Sweden to join the faculty at Wesleyan for a semester?  Erik Westberg was delighted to tell us.  He is the professor of choral conducting and choral singing at the Pitea College of Music, Lulea University of Technology in Sweden and is visiting this semester conducting Wesleyan’s Concert Choir and teaching choral conducting.

He’s here on a grant from STINT, the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education, which supports a visiting professor program with the idea, as Westberg says, “to bring ideas from here back to Sweden.” Historically, the program has selected history and literature professors–Erik is the first music professor to be chosen. A list of professors is sent to American universities, who then have the opportunity to choose a professor for a residency. As Westberg puts it, Angel Gil-Ordóñez, director of the Wesleyan Orchestra, and Krishna Winston, Dean of the Arts and Humanities, saw his name and “decided why don’t we bring this Swedish guy here?”

Westberg says, this year’s choir “had auditions… In the beginning I was a little bit worried about what was going to happen if no one showed up…because [the group] is my instrument. But it turned out that some 40 students applied and we chose 22 of them for the choir.”

When asked about his impressions of Wesleyan so far, he noted with appreciation “that students come from different cultures, from different countries… different backgrounds” and commented on the broad range of their interests. “Maybe one difference between my student chamber choir in Pitea is that a lot of the students are going to be music majors, maybe teachers in voice, or piano teachers,” he said, noting that Wesleyan students who participate in the choir come from a variety of departments. Invoking the Swedish word “smörgåsbord” to describe the freedom to explore academically at Wesleyan, that ability “to find your own way,” as Westberg puts it, is something he is keen to talk about back at home.

In addition to taking away an appreciation for the liberal arts college experience, quite a different scene from his home university with 700 students in the music program and where he is in charge of four concert choirs, Westberg has been a valuable and instructive presence for the Wesleyan community.  Hansel Tan ‘10, Westberg’s teaching assistant, says “the music we’ve made together with Westberg as a choir has been unlike anything else I’ve heard on campus: in an extremely good way. His genteel nature rubs off easily, and deep inside everybody wants to be a Swede!” Looking to integrate his own expertise within the Wesleyan context, in October the choir performed an evening of Swedish choral music combined with a tribute to John Cage and his work at Wesleyan. This Wednesday, Westberg’s Pitea Chamber Choir of Sweden will join the Wesleyan Concert Choir to put on a collaborative concert, Jul, Jul! A Winter Concert of Choral Music. Westberg says about a third of the repertoire will be a joint effort of both choirs. The Wesleyan choir will perform selections by Swedish and Norwegian composers, the Swedish Choir will perform the Lucia procession, and part of the concert will include a sing-along with the audience. Westberg sees the concert as an opportunity to exchange ideas and hopes his Swedish students will get to know the students here.

We are indeed fortunate to have Westberg in residence: not only has his experience been informative for his own career, but his presence has given our students new skills and perspectives, as well as exposure to new and challenging music. We hope you’ll join us for this evening of musical and cultural exchange.

The Wesleyan Concert Choir and The Pitea Chamber Choir (Pitea, Sweden): Jul, Jul! A Winter Concert of Choral Music
Wednesday, December 9, 7pm
Memorial Chapel
Free admission

And, a special performance by The Pitea Chamber Choir:
Thursday, December 10, 7 pm
South Congregational Church
9 Pleasant Street (across from the South Green)
Free admission

Dance and the Environment in Threshold Sites: The Ultimate Meal

It’s been a while since I’ve had the opportunity to write about Feet to the Fire, our campus-wide exploration of climate change from science to art. The initiative made possible the creation of four new works by members of Wesleyan’s arts faculty. If you haven’t been to the Feet to the Fire website recently, then you probably haven’t seen the podcasts we produced about two of them: Ron Kuivila’s The Weather, at Six and Alvin Lucier’s Glacier.

The video about Hari Krishnan’s work Liquid Shakti is still in production, but this Friday night in the Schoenberg Dance Studio, we’ll have the opportunity to see the fourth and final commissioned work performed live! Threshold Sites, choreographed by Nicole Stanton in collaboration with Wesleyan students and faculty, was originally scheduled to premiere last May, but because of the tragic events at the end of the semester, the performances were postponed.

Associate Professor of Dance, and Chair of the Dance Department, Nicole Stanton created the work over the course of last spring working with students in her Repertory and Performance course. In conjunction with the Feet to the Fire theme, Stanton invited three professors to co-create a curriculum with her that used research methodologies from social science, evolutionary biology, experiential anatomy, and dance to examine some of the relations between body/self, home/community, and environment/ecosystem, through the lens of food. The resulting multi-media performance weaves dance, song, spoken word…and a meal.

Gina Ulysse in Anthropology provided students with an understanding of theories emanating from the field of cultural studies as they relate to somatic, community, and ecological awareness. Michael Singer from Biology familiarized students with how an ecologist uses practices of scientific observation in the field, taking students out into nature to see how he sees. Andrea Olson, a visiting scholar from Middlebury College in Biology and Dance, conducted an intensive workshop that focused on the development of awareness and respect for the human body and for the environment and charted the relationships between the two. Stanton then synthesized the information into movement expressions and choreographed the work.

“This was a different choreographic experience for me,” she said in an interview I had with her yesterday. “Usually I take an emergent form or context that develops in the studio and the research springs from that investigation. Because of the Feet to the Fire commission, I took a topical approach for the first time.” Friday night’s performance includes a multi-generation cast–three of the original cast members (others graduated), two students who are new to the work, two faculty members (Stanton and Katja Kolcio, Associate Professor of Dance) and four guest artists (Kolcio’s parents and in-laws who are all professional performers!). The work features group segments, a solo by Stanton, and music from around the world, including Ukrainian, German, American, and Senegalese folk traditions. The performance is followed by a communal feast to be shared with the audience.

Threshold Sites: The Ultimate Meal
Schonberg Dance Studio, 247 Pine Street
Friday, December 4, 2009 at 8pm
Seating is limited; to reserve your seat, contact Michele Olerud in the Dance Department, molerud@wesleyan.edu, or call 860-685-3488

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts

Rhodessa and Noah

There are some people whose stage presence literally reaches out into the audience and grabs you, shakes you up and makes you listen. Rhodessa Jones is one of those people. She just arrived in Middletown today and will be here for several days hosted by the Outside the Box Theater Series, a series developed by the CFA and Theater Department. The idea to bring Rhodessa came from Sonia Manjon, Vice President of Diversity and Strategic Partnerships at Wesleyan, and Ron Jenkins, Professor of Theater, who is teaching a service-learning course that takes theater students to develop works with incarcerated women at the York Correctional Institution. Sonia and our President Michael Roth have both worked with Rhodessa when they were at the California College of the Arts, and Michael’s history with her dates back to his years at the Getty Research Institute.

Rhodessa has received numerous awards for her work, The Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women, a performance workshop that is designed to achieve personal and social transformation with incarcerated women. While she is on campus this week, she’ll be working with Ron’s students, as well as visiting theater classes and giving a workshop for teachers at the Green Street Arts Center. I hope you’ll take the opportunity to see this extraordinary artist live this Thursday night at Crowell. She’ll be performing excerpts from The Medea Project as well as segments from other highly acclaimed works including Big Butt Girls, Hard-Headed Women and The Love Project. (And p.s.: Rhodessa’s brother is trailblazing choreographer Bill T. Jones, who had a major residency at the CFA in the Fall of 2006).


I met with Noah Baerman in my office last week just as he was leaving for New York for the final rehearsal for his concert this Friday, Know Thyself. Some of you may know Noah through the many roles he plays in life: composer, jazz piano player, writer, professor, husband (to Kate TenEyck, the CFA’s Art Studios Technician) and father to three foster daughters. On any given week you can find Noah directing the Wesleyan Jazz Ensemble, traveling to New York for a gig at the Jazz Gallery, donating his services by playing for a local benefit, or attending parent/teacher conferences at Middletown High School. As the story goes: “I was in the kitchen just having pledged to myself after a year of being exhausted by all sorts of family happenings, that I would take a year off to just center myself again, when I got the call from Chamber Music America.” The Noah Baerman Trio had received one of only sixteen awards given out across the country to commission jazz ensembles to create a new work. What is unique about the grant is that it not only supports the composer’s time, but it also pays for their musicians to spend time on the development of the work.

“I tend to be a really visceral musician and come at my music from an emotional rather than an intellectual or conceptual place,” Noah said as his eyes got wider and his hands began to fly. “The work that I’ll be premiering next week is about the quest for self-knowledge…all of the facets of the exploration that goes into a journey of self-discovery. I hope that it is highly universal, but also know that it is deeply personal. Making the work forced me to organize my thoughts and make peace with certain parts of my past. It’s the most musically ambitious work I’ve ever created and I’m so fortunate that I can debut it at Wesleyan where I feel the support of my community and the trust of my ensemble.”

Like Ellington and Mingus did before him, Noah writes for the individual members of his ensemble in mind. “There was this great moment last week when we were coming to an explosive moment in the piece where Wayne Escoffery (who plays sax) has to take off. I heard him play this section and I thought to myself ‘yes, yes, that’s why you are playing this piece.’” Noah’s ensemble also includes vibrophonist Chris Dingman, class of 2002 and former student of Jay Hoggard.

The moment he knew he wanted to be a musician? Watching Stevie Wonder play Superstition on Sesame Street when he was five: “It was my introduction to soulful music….All these years later, I’m still on a quest to create jazz works that have that kind of emotional directness.”

Performance/Talk by Rhodessa Jones, Thursday, November 12 at 8pm, Crowell Concert Hall

World Premiere of Know Thyself by Noah Baerman, Friday, November 13, 8pm, Crowell Concert Hall

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts

A CFA Intern Returns

Amy Crawford ’05 was a government major who sang…actually, she didn’t realize she could sing until senior year. She was a keyboardist in the Jazz Orchestra, and music faculty member Jay Hoggard invited her to take the mic. She returns to Wesleyan this Saturday to perform an evening of her original music at Crowell Concert Hall.

We at the CFA are particularly excited about the concert because Amy was the first Center for the Arts “Arts Administration Intern.” Not only that, she stayed on after graduation to serve as the project coordinator for the town-wide event, Middletown Dances! In her first two years after graduating, she put together a life for herself that included arts administration jobs during the day and gigs as a jazz singer by night. Then she took the job of Education Coordinator for the Grammy award-winning, Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy. The chorus received an invitation to perform with Elton John, and that’s when everything changed: “I found myself preparing the children to sing this music that I had listened to when I was in high school…it was melodic and powerful. We ended up at a rehearsal on a Sony soundstage and I felt the energy of Elton and his band combined with the voices of these children, and I realized this was an energy I wanted to be a part of.” So after the sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden, she set about writing her own songs. Her influences are the Beatles, Dido, Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Stevie Wonder and Jon Brion. And today, after spending some time at the Berklee School of Music, she has officially made the transition from jazz singer to a more contemporary popular sound. I can tell you she has a beautiful, clear voice. Her sound is upbeat and polished with a vintage sheen.

In addition to working with her own band, most recently she has been touring the country with the band, DeLeon, playing keyboards, singing and co-writing songs with them. The band has opened for Ozomatli, Mike Gordon and Os Mutantes.

She talked about what was most important about her time at Wesleyan: “I discovered how much I cared about the arts… The enormous flexibility of the school… I was extremely indecisive during my time there, but I had the ability to explore what I wanted to explore. The idea that I was a government major but I was still able to do a senior recital was amazing. I can’t wait to be back on campus!”

And I can’t wait to see her.

Amy Crawford
Saturday November 7 at 8pm in 
Crowell Concert Hall

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts

Great Musicians; Good People

Rani Arbo and Scott Kessel ’88 and their beautiful son, Quinn, are regulars at the CFA. I remember when they sat in my office years ago talking about whether or not to live in Middletown or Northampton. I was so thrilled when they picked right! They are world-class musicians whose artistry is equaled by the generosity of their spirit. They were founding faculty members at the Green Street Arts Center, performing at Macdonough School when the Center was still only a dream. They did a fantastic outdoor concert for us in the summer of 2003; Scott, a Wesleyan studio art major, is not only a musician, but a fine artist. His work graces Kidcity among other Middletown locations and he designed the community mandala that was built in Olin Library when the Tibetan monks were here….the list goes on. In between all of their work in Middletown they manage to give 60-70 concerts per year with their band, Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem at venues across the country. Hailed by The Boston Herald as “one of America’s most inventive string bands,” The Vintage Guitar Review has said their work “explodes with energy and relaxed good humor…” We are so fortunate to have them in our midst and are delighted to present them (minus Quinn…but I get the feeling he could be onstage soon) with band-mates Anand Nayak ’97 and Andrew Kinsey this weekend. They will be performing selections from their first-ever family CD, Ranky Tanky, at Crowell Concert Hall at 2pm on Saturday, October 24.

Rani told me that this was a natural progression for the band. They are all parents now, and were interested in taking their original sound and turning it to younger audiences. Also, it will allow them to do more in the communities where they tour by providing a family concert option. “Ranky Tanky is very upbeat and fun,” she said. “It has a solid set of roots in older music: the sounds of the 30s to the 70s. It’s the kind of music that parents and grandparents will relate to. Kids seem to really love it. I had a pack of neighborhood kids in my car last week and they were all singing along.”

So call some friends, bring your kids and grandkids and come be charmed by this wonderful band…I can guarantee their warmth and energy will uplift you.

P.S. please take a look at their website…the writing is fantastic, the images are engaging (how can you resist the one of them jumping in the air by the side of the Connecticut River?). It’s a fine example of how artists should put themselves out there on the world wide web: http://www.raniarbo.com

CFA Student Profiles: Asa Horvitz ’10

What follows is the first in a series of profiles of Wesleyan students by Alexandra Provo, ’10, the CFA’s Arts Administration Intern. These students all have one thing in common: they became deeply engaged with one or more artists presented by the CFA. Sparked by the artist’s workshop, performance or exhibition on campus, they began a lasting relationship that affected the trajectory of their academic exploration. We hope you will send us your comments about these and future interviews.

Last week I sat down with Asa Horvitz ’10, a music major with a passion for performance. Though he was involved in physical theater prior to coming to Wesleyan, he marks his encounter with international artist Ang Gey Pin as a turning point in his artistic life and a true catalyst of his expression.

Gey Pin, originally from Singapore and of Hokkien Chinese descent, attended the University of Hawaii and studied in California in the 80s in the Objective Drama program at UC Irvine. There, she worked with Jerzy Grotowski, an influential Polish theatre director. She went on to work with him in Italy from 1994-95 and 1998-2006 and was the lead performer in One breath left (1998-2002) and Dies Irae: My Preposterous Theatrum Interioris Show (2003-2006).

Theater Faculty member Claudia Tatinge Nascimento suggested Gey Pin to the CFA’s Outside the Box Committee. Nascimento had included Gey Pin’s research methods in a recent book. Gey Pin was invited to teach a quarter-long course and present public performances in the fall of 2006.

Grotowski is actually what drew Asa to Gey Pin’s course. He saw a poster advertising the class and recognized Grotowski’s name, which his high school theater teacher had mentioned as a strong influence. For Asa, the class “already held this aura for me…I had this sense about the work of this group of people.”

Though he was initially put on the waiting list, he was eventually admitted to the course. There, he and roughly 16 other students unlocked blocks in their bodies through intense physical training. According to Asa, it was “very linked to play, very much like a game but with specific images associated.” There was also a singing element to the class and students each developed a short individual project, which Asa compares to an etude.

Though the course lasted only one quarter, Asa developed a strong relationship with Gey Pin. He attributes this partly to the eagerness of first year students and their willingness to throw themselves into projects wholeheartedly. He also accounts for his intense involvement in terms of loss: in high school he had worked with a theater company for five to six hours per day for credit, and without that full time commitment “I was honestly freaking out,” he says. “I approached [the course] with desperation.”

He reported a curious response to seeing Gey Pin’s public performance later in the semester. “It made no sense to me, I didn’t really like it…afterwards I couldn’t stop shaking and I had sort of an embarrassing public meltdown underneath World Music Hall. I’m tempted to say that something in her mode of presence, her extreme embodiment, spoke to my body directly…I had a vivid sensation of being reminded of something that I already knew but had forgotten. It was a reminder of the needs of my body and that the freedom I had experienced as a kid could be something to work and rediscover as an adult living in a de-physicalized society. It was a serious wake up call.”

After returning home for winter break and digesting what had happened, he wrote her a letter asking to work with her again. She replied that she was going to be in Poland that summer, and why didn’t he come? “So I went to Poland, not knowing what I was getting into.”

Well, what he got into was two weeks of intense study with Gey Pin (sometimes working from 7 am to 1 am!) and exposure to other performance groups. According to Asa, what’s been valuable for him is that “she is empathetic but also has really high standards.” He notes that it was transformative for him to have “someone who is a professional treating me seriously, holding me to professional standards. To have that kind of pressure put on you, the growth is just exponential.”

Back at Wesleyan, Asa’s growth as an artist is certainly evident. After his summer in Poland, he returned to Wesleyan in the fall of 2007 and formed a theater company, called No Face Theater, with Mark McCloughan ’10 and Gedney Barclay ’09. They are still working–their most recent performance was last spring.

Rather than seeing his experience with Gey Pin as an opportunity to engage in theater outside of his academic life, Asa noted that he views the two as “a network of things that inform each other.” His understanding of his own artistic production and that of others “has been tempered by my critical education…I couldn’t do without either.”

The relationship continues to thrive. Asa spent this past summer with Gey Pin and her partner in Tuscany and Umbria, and next year will be apprenticing with Theatre Zar (a Polish performance group he met through Gey Pin). “When artists take you seriously you realize if you want to make it happen you can,” says Asa.

— Alexandra Provo, ’10

Be Transported: The 2009 Navaratri Festival

I graduated from Wesleyan in 1984 and, while a student here, attended a Navaratri performance of South Indian vocal music by T. Viswanathan. I was completely seduced by the rhythms, the soaring heights and the visceral lows of his voice. I felt that in one evening I was transported out of my student existence into a culture that was new to me–one where both the pleasures of deep listening as a means to spiritual transcendence and the virtuosic capacity of the human voice were celebrated. Viswa founded the Indian music program at Wesleyan, and I had the great pleasure of working with him in my early years as CFA director (Viswa died in 2002). He taught me so much about his music, his negotiating skills, and his belief that this festival should annually give people on our campus and in our community an opportunity to see some of the finest Indian musicians and dancers working today.

Music faculty members B. Balasubrahmaniyan (Balu) and David Nelson (on mridangam) will open the Festival on Thursday night. I spoke with Balu in between classes today and he told me that in 1990 he was one of only eight students selected to learn Viswa’s family tradition in a six-month workshop in Chennai. Seizing on Balu’s talents, Viswa regularly invited Balu to perform with him on tours in India. Balu now leads our South Indian vocal program at Wesleyan. He has a truly “extra” ordinary voice — sometimes when I close my eyes, I think I’m hearing Viswa.

Friday night brings North Indian music on the sarod, a beautiful guitar-like instrument, performed by rising star Alam Khan. Alam is the twenty-seven year old son of the legendary Ali Akbar Khan, who was widely recognized as one of the leading musicians to introduce Indian music to the West. On Saturday, you can attend free workshops in South Indian dance and in ghatam, a clay pot instrument with a rich, distinctive sound. Also, Avon, Connecticut resident and filmmaker Gita Desai will show excerpts of her new film Raga Unveiled, giving audiences a fascinating window into the world of North Indian Hindustani music. And on Saturday night, the CFA welcomes Karnatak music giant Kadri Golpanath, one of the few players of this tradition on the saxophone. “It’s extraordinary how he is able to play the nuances of this music on a keyed instrument,” Balu said. “He has led a whole generation of musicians who are attempting to play this traditional music on new instruments. We are lucky to have him.”

Finally, on Sunday, A.V. Srinivasan, a great friend of the CFA’s, will lead a Hindu Puja, a religious service celebrating the victory of good over evil, followed by a performance of a work entitled “TriShakti” by Chicago’s acclaimed Natya Dance Theatre, a young vibrant group of classical dancers that are some of the best practitioners of Bharata Natyam working in our country today. I had the pleasure of seeing them in New York and I was taken by their energy, their beguiling facial expressions and the joy in their dance.

So please join us for this year’s Navaratri Festival. You will be transported.

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts

The Awesome Transience of Weather: Stephen Petronio Company

Stephen Petronio is known for his collaborative interactions with pop culture, high art, contemporary music and fashion. So, it’s no wonder he was able to attract trailblazing photographer Cindy Sherman and genre-crossing composer Nico Muhly, among other artists, into the creative process of building his latest work, I Drink the Air Before Me, which comes to Wesleyan’s CFA Theater this weekend. When I spoke with Stephen yesterday, he was heading out of rehearsal and he reminisced about the last time he was at Wesleyan. It was the Spring of 1998 and he brought NOT GARDEN with music by Bach, Gounod and Sheila Chandra.

His newest work is a “meditation on the speed and power of weather in all its awesome transience.” Wesleyan is in the middle of this year’s Feet to the Fire initiative–an exploration of water in both its power and scarcity. When I heard that Stephen was creating a work that would evoke the movement of water, wind and weather events on stage, it seemed to me that we could offer our audiences a visceral experience of this precious element.

The title of the piece comes from Ariel’s line in Act V of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. In his program notes, Petronio explains that he was struck by “Ariel’s desire to hurl himself through a raging storm, with unthinkable speed and utter certainty, in pursuit of his goal” and that the work was inspired by “the whirling, unpredictable, threatening, and thrilling forces of nature that overwhelm us.”

When I asked Stephen what audiences should look for as they watch the work, he said: “Don’t work hard to find literal meanings in the work: look at how the movement is built…I’m an abstract artist that makes ideas in the body, not in the mind.”

Stephen is a hugely charismatic leader in the American contemporary dance scene. He began to dance at Hampshire College in 1974 and went on to become the first male dancer of the Trisha Brown Dance Company (1979-1986). Founding his own company in 1984, the Stephen Petronio Company is celebrating its 25th Season and has performed in 26 countries around the world. He is noted for works of breathtaking speed, heart-wrenching stillness and great sensuality. He is interested in making compelling contemporary dance that resonates with the moment and culture in which it is made. While he often features pop or rock music in his works, for I Drink the Air Before Me, he turned to composer, Nico Muhly. “Nico is his late twenties; a wildly creative classical composer with an electronic music edge,” states Petronio.

Muhly also wrote sections of the score to be performed by a youth chorus recruited at each tour site. I had just heard Michael Gosselin’s Chamber Choir from Middletown High School perform as a part of Wesleyan Music Professor Neely Bruce’s Ives Vocal Marathon, and it seemed a wonderful way to showcase the high caliber of music education we have in Middletown.

I will also note that this work will open the 10th anniversary of the Breaking Ground Dance Series at Wesleyan’s CFA. To our dance-loving patrons who have returned year after year to see new works by established artists like Bill T. Jones and Trisha Brown or artists you may never have seen before, such as Brian Brooks and Rubberbandance, we thank you for taking this journey with us and look forward to celebrating this season with you.

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts