Center for the Arts Story: I found the Center for the Arts through an unexpected route: my extracurricular activities in the Environmental Organizers Network (EON). As an Art History person, I’d always been involved in what was happening on the other side of the CFA green, but it wasn’t until I by chance attended a meeting about the first Feet to the Fire Festival that I really got to know the CFA. I kept going to planning meetings, and before long I found myself co-leading a student forum on environmental art and helping with logistics for the festival. As part of the student forum, I co-created an animation about the carbon cycle, but the best part about the actual day of the festival definitely wasn’t seeing my own work: it was getting to see the work of so many artists and thinkers (dancers, musicians, biologists, sculptors, and more) and the Middletown community (professors, students, and citizens) come together. That was really when the value of interdisciplinary work became clear to me.
The Feet to the Fire Festival in May 2008 allowed me to deepen interests I already had, while simultaneously discovering things totally new to me. At the same time that my two major passions serendipitously came together, I was introduced to the related (but new for me) field of performing arts. That became another passion, and as a senior I returned to the CFA as the Arts Administration Intern.
Interdisciplinary work and cultural planning became dominant threads in the rest of my Wesleyan experience. Even though I spent most of my time in the same corner of campus (between the CFA and the Davison Art Center), I found a lot of boundary-breaking activity there, and that broadness defined my time at Wesleyan. Actually, it’s still defining me: I found my current path (library and information science) through a studio art class about information theory I took with Jeffrey Schiff.
Favorite Course: Topics in Studio Art
Favorite Professor: impossible to choose just one!
Thesis Title: “Notions of Method: Text and Photograph in Methods of Connoisseurship” (Art History)
CFA Arts Administration Intern Chloe Jones ’15 discusses the 37th annual Navaratri Festival at Wesleyan, which takes place from Thursday, October 10 through Sunday, October 13, 2013.
The sound spirals from Shashank Subramanyam’s bamboo flute, lingering in the air, each note like a bird taking flight. The cadence flutters, falls, and rises again. He sits at ease before the mesmerized audience. He has done this a million times before and traveled all over the world to perform, from the President’s Palace in New Delhi to the Improvisation Festival in Switzerland to the World Flute Conference in Nashville. His next destination? Middletown, Connecticut for Wesleyan’s 37th annual Navaratri Festival.
One of India’s major festival traditions, Navaratri literally means “nine nights.” During this time, there are nine consecutive nights of music and dance performances all across India. 37 years ago, Wesleyan’s first ever visiting artist for World Music and his brother began the tradition of celebrating Navaratri at Wesleyan. The festival has become one of the University’s most cherished and unique traditions, and Wesleyan Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music B. Balasubrahmaniyan (Balu) says there are no other festivals of its nature or scale in the United States. This year’s festival brings two world famous artists to campus, one for the second time, and the other for the first.
Shashank Subramanyam
Mr. Subramanyam performed at Wesleyan’s Navaratri Festival in September 2003 [during the 30th anniversary season of the Center for the Arts], and it is a great honor to welcome him back this year. Deemed a child prodigy, he has played a defining role in classical Indian music for the past three decades. In 1984, only six years old at the time, he played with a top-ranking accompanist in his debut performance. At age twelve, he became the youngest musician to ever perform the senior-most slot at the Music Academy, Chennai, a performance typically entrusted to legendary musicians. Since then, he himself has become a legend of classical Indian music.
Balu describes Mr. Subramanyam as a “self-made musician” and speaks to his extraordinary talent and remarkable versatility. According to Balu, “he can handle any type of composition with ease.” Mr. Subramanyam has collaborated with many other musicians, including jazz and folk musicians, and in 2009 he received a Grammy Award nomination for the album Floating Point with John McLaughlin. At Wesleyan, Nishanth Chandran will join him on violin and Sai Giridhar on mridangam. The performance will take place in Crowell Concert Hall on Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 8pm. Earlier that day, at 3pm in Crowell Concert Hall, Mr. Subramanyam will give a free lecture/demonstration.
Aparna Ramaswamy
On Sunday, another world famous artist, dancer Aparna Ramaswamy, takes the stage in Crowell Concert Hall for the Connecticut premiere of Sannidhi (Sacred Space). Ms. Ramaswamy has also performed all across the globe, but never before at Wesleyan [or in Connecticut]. She is a disciple of Alarmel Valli, one of the greatest Bharatanatyam dancers today, and like her legendary teacher, Ms. Ramaswamy infuses traditional Bharatanatyam dance with her own contemporary aesthetic. Wesleyan Assistant Professor of Dance Hari Krishnan explains, “Aparna uses the classical grammar of Bharatanatyam as a framework, a kind of empty canvas upon which she imprints hues, colors and tints of her personality.”
A new solo dance work, Sannidhi (Sacred Space) explores how the stage can be transformed into a spiritual site. The performance employs the rich tradition of Bharatanatyam dance as a means of posing timeless questions about space and spirituality. “Aparna has created an exciting, brand new repertoire of dances that take audiences on a journey of kinesthetic spectacle, emotional intensity, and gorgeous musicality,” Mr. Krishnan said. “She is always present on stage and engages with the audiences with every fiber of her being.” Sannidhi (Sacred Space) will take place at 3pm on Sunday, October 13, 2013 and will include a post-performance question-and-answer session with Ms. Ramaswamy.
Navaratri is a celebration of music and dance, a time to rejoice, share food, and be with family and friends. We hope you will join us in welcoming Mr. Subramanyam and Ms. Ramaswamy into our community.
37th annual Navaratri Festival Henna and Chaat hosted by Shakti Thursday, October 10, 2013 from 7pm to 9pm Olin Library Lobby FREE!
B. Balasubrahmaniyan: Vocal Music of South India Friday, October 11, 2013 at 8pm Crowell Concert Hall $12 general public; $10 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students
Talk by Assistant Professor of Dance Hari Krishnan:
“Celluloid Classicism–Intertwined Histories of the South Indian ‘Dance Revival’ and Early South Indian Cinema” Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 1pm CFA Hall FREE!
Lecture/Demonstration by Shashank Subramanyam Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 3pm Crowell Concert Hall FREE!
Shashank Subramanyam Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 8pm Crowell Concert Hall $15 general public; $12 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students
Saraswati Puja (Hindu Ceremony) Sunday, October 13, 2013 at 11am World Music Hall FREE!
Aparna Ramaswamy: Sannidhi (Sacred Space) Connecticut Premiere
Sunday, October 13, 2013 at 3pm Crowell Concert Hall $15 general public; $12 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students
Made possible by the Music Department, the Center for the Arts, the Jon B. Higgins Memorial Fund, the Madhu Reddy Endowed Fund for Indian Music and Dance at Wesleyan University, the Raga Club of Connecticut, the New England Foundation for the Arts, Middlesex Community College, Haveli Indian Restaurant, and individual patrons.
Center for the Arts Story: Most productions of The Tempest do not feature a death scene in which the clown Trinculo delivers a dying soliloquy composed entirely of duck-quacks, as he is devoured by a Balinese dragon puppet. And I humbly believe that they are the poorer for it. In Wesleyan University’s 2005 production Caliban Remembers: A Balinese Tempest, Ron Jenkins and Nyoman Catra transformed the massive Center for the Arts Theater into a small, intimate venue, blocking off the regular seating section and bringing the audience onstage so that they could get a closer view of the masked actors and intricate shadow puppets used in this unique adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. I was lucky enough to play Trinculo in this ensemble, whose rehearsal process involved everything from master classes with Bill Irwin (who played Trinculo in the New York Theatre Festival production) to traditional Balinese dance training from Nyoman Catra, one of Bali’s most renowned performers. We worked intensely with masks, with musical instruments, with shadow puppets and with one another to create a piece that drew from myriad cultural traditions and theatrical movements. Not only did that production introduce me to a diverse array of theatrical techniques, it also showed me how an author like Shakespeare—who epitomizes the Western canon—can find new expression and vitality when combined with Eastern influences.
Favorite Course: Solo Performance
Favorite Professor: Ron Jenkins
Thesis Title: “America’s Madwomen: Jewish Female Comedians in the 20th Century”
CFA Arts Administration Intern Chloe Jones ’15 discusses the Center for the Arts’ 40th Anniversary Celebration Concert featuring music alumni of the past decade Amy Crawford + STORM and mamarazzi, which will take place during Homecoming/Family Weekend on Saturday, November 2, 2013 at 8pm in Crowell Concert Hall.
This year the Center for the Arts celebrates its 40th anniversary and a number of Wesleyan alumni artists are returning to campus to join in the festivities. These alumni are photographers, musicians, creative bloggers, installation artists, painters, performers, and more. Together they represent a microcosm of Wesleyan’s thriving and diverse art world. They majored in music, government, art history, neuroscience, and just about every other subject. They work across disciplines and with mixed medias, constantly pushing the boundaries of creative expression.
The Alumni Show II is currently on view in the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery; and on Saturday, November 2, 2013 at 8pm, Amy Crawford and Eric Herman, two graduates from the class of 2005, will perform in Crowell Concert Hall along with other alums during the CFA 40th Anniversary Celebration Concert. Featuring music alumni of the past decade, the concert promises to be as diverse as the Wesleyan arts community itself.
Amy Crawford ’05
Having performed her senior recital in Crowell Concert Hall, Amy Crawford returns to that same stage with jazz ensemble STORM featuring guitarist Jesse Lewis, drummer Jared Schonig, bassist Ike Sturm, and vibraphonist Chris Dingman ’02. Ms. Crawford and Mr. Dingman did not know each other at Wesleyan, but they connected soon after when she reached out to him for some alumni advice on surviving as a musician in the Big Apple. Although they’ve become good friends and worked together on a number of projects since then, this will be the first time Ms. Crawford performs with STORM.
Ms. Crawford describes STORM as a quartet with incredible chemistry, and says she’s been itching for an excuse to work with them. Last year she wrote, recorded, and produced a number of original songs independently. At Wesleyan, she and the members of STORM will play from this catalogue of original material, with a favorite cover or two thrown in for good measure. She is excited to see how the studio-produced songs come to life in a live performance with other musicians.
mamarazzi
Eric Herman takes the stage with Brooklyn-based band mamarazzi and his bass guitar. The band, which Mr. Herman describes as a “Wesleyan expat project” that traces its beginnings to 2008, also includes guitarist Andrew Aprile ’06, keyboardist Rob Cohen ’06, percussionist Sam Bathrick ’04, tenor saxophonist Tacuma Bradley ’04, vocalist Tavi Fields ’02, and drummer Andrea Belfiore. Not easily categorized into one genre, mamarazzi fuses together funk, jazz, hip hop, salsa, and Afro-funk.
mamarazzi draws from a range of influences, including Thom Yorke, Maceo Parker, Frank Zappa, Fela Kuti, and Wesleyan’s own Adjunct Professor of Music Abraham Adzenyah, who teaches “West African Music & Culture.” Mr. Herman thinks everyone in the band took at least one class with Professor Adzenyah, and they continue to incorporate what they learned from him into their music. Professor Adzenyah’s class inspired many of mamarazzi’s members to travel to Ghana, not as a band but on their own, and Mr. Herman says these trips have informed their music.
Both Mr. Herman and Ms. Crawford attest to the influence that Wesleyan professors have had on their music, careers, and lives. Ms. Crawford found a mentor in jazz musician and Adjunct Professor of Music Jay Hoggard. “I never considered myself a singer,” she says. “He was the one who pushed me in that direction. He helped me build myself into a better musician.” Both alumni give a shout out to John Spencer Camp Professor of Music Anthony Braxton for encouraging them to pursue music. “He was a huge inspiration for me,” Mr. Herman says.
Shaped by their experiences at Wesleyan, Ms. Crawford and Mr. Herman will help shape this year’s music scene as they return to the CFA for the 40th Anniversary Celebration Concert. The concert presents an opportunity for current students to see what alumni artists are working on now and for our community to see how far our graduates have come.
Center for the Arts Story: Someone had to leave Yuri Kordonsky’s production of Peer Gynt my senior year, and I got the part. We had just a couple weeks left until opening. One of Yuri’s directorial choices was to have the actors visible on the edges of the stage at all times, watching. I remember sitting off to the side one day during rehearsal in the main theater at the CFA. I didn’t have any lines in the scene, so I sat on the floor, finishing my thesis or some other homework. Yuri came over to me and said something about trying to be present for everyone else. I pretended to understand. Mostly out of guilt, I put my notebook away. I watched for a little bit, and remembered getting in trouble with Cláudia Nascimento the previous year. She had given me a similar scolding. I spent the ends of rehearsals for her production of The Deceased Woman staring at my watch, and Cláudia suggested I might learn to be grateful for every second of rehearsal. I guess I had to learn it twice. I’m still learning it. But when I put my notebook away in Yuri’s rehearsal, I was bored, at first. But then I started to notice my castmates were coming up with brilliant storytelling ideas. My castmates were arguing about different translations of the play. My castmates were acting really, really well. Suddenly I saw why I was earning university credit hours. And, I got a taste of what presence and generosity felt like. (Just tastes. I’m sure I’m still a monster to some degree.) The classes and programs at Wesleyan’s CFA aren’t for hobbyists. They aren’t supplemental. The seriousness, rigor, and passion for education found in this mini-campus match or beat any other department.
Favorite Course: Modern Dance III
Thesis Title: “Over Lunch: Lord Halifax, Anthony Eden, and the Fictions of Appeasement”
CFA Arts Administration Intern Chloe E. Jones ’15 discusses Dan Froot and Dan Hurlin’s “Who’s Hungry,” which will receive its Connecticut premiere at Wesleyan on Friday, September 27 and Saturday, September 28, 2013 at 8pm in World Music Hall.
Dan Froot and Dan Hurlin’s “Who’s Hungry.” Photo by Rose Eichenbaum. Pictured (left to right): Rachael Lincoln, Darius Mannino, Zach Tolchinsky.
This weekend in World Music Hall four puppeteers will gather around a 24-foot-long dinner table, transformed into a runway-style puppet stage, for the Connecticut premiere of Who’s Hungry, a work of experimental theater.
From Los Angeles performance artist Dan Froot and New York puppet artist Dan Hurlin comes a story about the struggle of hunger across America and the strength of community. A deeply collaborative endeavor, Who’s Hungry weaves together the oral histories of five residents of Santa Monica, California who have faced either hunger, homelessness or both. To bring their stories to the east coast, Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts and Theater Department have partnered with two remarkable organizations: the New England Foundation for the Arts and St. Vincent de Paul Middletown.
A grant from the Expeditions program of the New England Foundation for the Arts has made it possible for Who’s Hungry to tour the region. Each of the partner organizations hosting the performance interviewed members of their community who have either experienced hunger first-hand or seen it up close. The interviews were compiled into the sound score Who’s Hungry New England, which will be incorporated into each performance. At Wesleyan, this sound score, a powerful montage of voices meant to raise awareness about the impact of hunger in New England, will play as the audience gathers before the performances begin.
Wesleyan is also partnering with St. Vincent de Paul Middletown, an organization that provides food to individuals and families through their community Soup Kitchen and the Amazing Grace Food Pantry. The Soup Kitchen serves nearly 250 prepared meals each day to Middletown residents. The Food Pantry provides food to more than 1,000 households every month.
Representatives from St. Vincent de Paul Middletown, including community members who frequent the Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry, will be on hand at both performances of Who’s Hungry. They will have a table in the lobby where people can learn more about their work and pick up a copy of Soup Stories, a booklet they’ve created from local stories. Following each performance there will be a live Skype discussion with some of the residents of Santa Monica whose stories are featured in Who’s Hungry. Representatives from St. Vincent de Paul Middletown will be there as the voice of the local community. As St. Vincent de Paul’s Executive Director Ron Krom said, “Hunger is not just a Cali problem; it’s a local problem, too.”
Additionally, St. Vincent de Paul Middletown loaned a series of portraits to the CFA depicting guests of the Soup Kitchen to be displayed before each performance. The simple yet stunning pencil sketches are the work of illustrator/artist and Wesleyan alumna Abby Carter ’83. As a long-time Soup Kitchen volunteer, Ms. Carter chronicled her experience using a camera and a sketchpad. Over 50 of her portraits are now on display at the Soup Kitchen, a gallery of local faces and a beautiful representation of the community. Mr. Krom says the gallery continues to grow as new people arrive and want their portrait proudly displayed on the wall of the Soup Kitchen.
Born of two strong and generative partnerships, the Connecticut premiere of Who’s Hungry is an opportunity to engage with an important issue on a local, regional, and national scale. A product of great collaboration, Who’s Hungry is a catalyst for continuing to work together in confronting hunger within our own communities and across the country. Grab a seat at the table this weekend.
Dan Froot and Dan Hurlin: “Who’s Hungry” Connecticut Premiere Friday, September 27 & Saturday, September 28, 2013 at 8pm
World Music Hall
$23 general public; $19 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students
A Outside the Box Theater Series event presented by the Theater Department and the Center for the Arts.
Please note that this performance contains mature themes and language that may not be appropriate for all audiences.
Center for the Arts Story: Meeting Center for the Arts Director Pamela Tatge, interning at the CFA and learning the ropes of arts administration under her incredible leadership. I responded to an ad in the Argus for the CFA arts administration intern opportunity. Prior to that I didn’t know much about Pam and what the rest of the CFA staff were accomplishing. The internship gave me a different perspective on what happens at the CFA and also set me up with the skills to work in arts administration and produce concerts and projects in NYC after I graduated. Pam provided me with invaluable guidance and advice during my first year in the professional world – she is a gem and I will always consider her a mentor!
Favorite Course: Not a course, per se, but the independent study opportunities that Jay Hoggard offered me (I would receive early wake-up calls from Jay on lesson mornings to make sure I was on my way to the CFA!), and playing jazz standards with Anthony Braxton outside of class were some of my favorite and most formative musical experiences at Wesleyan.
Favorite Professor: James McGuire.
Thesis Title: My major was Government, and the title of my thesis was “Cold War, Hot Jazz: American, German and Soviet Policy Responses to Jazz Music Pre- and Post-World War II.” But I completed a senior music recital under the supervision of Jay Hoggard, “just for fun,” as well.
An update from Pamela Tatge, Director of the Center for the Arts, about exciting developments for “SPILL,” a work that the Center for the Arts commissioned from playwright Leigh Fondakowski which had a workshop performance at Wesleyan in February 2012.
“SPILL” portraits and photos by Reeva Wortel.
For those of you who don’t know SPILL, in 2010, playwright and director Leigh Fondakowski teamed up with Wesleyan Professor and Environmental Studies chair Barry Chernoff to co-teach an interdisciplinary course bringing together documentary theater and science. Students traveled to the Gulf Coast to conduct interviews and scientific research on the devastating British Petroleum (BP) oil spill that occurred earlier that year. Upon returning to campus, students developed original performances and visual art based on their research findings. Ms. Fondakowski too went on to create an original performance from her own research conducted in the Gulf, a work created with visual artist Reeva Wortel entitled SPILL.
Originally commissioned by the Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University, SPILL tells the story of the BP oil disaster through a deeply personal lens. Over the course of two years, Ms. Fondakowski interviewed oil rig workers, clean-up volunteers, community leaders, fishermen, scientists, environmentalists, oil industry proponents, families who lost loved ones in the explosion, and others—chronicling their stories into one compelling narrative that asks us to consider the true cost of oil. Much like The Laramie Project—Ms. Fondakowski’s wildly successful previous play (co-written with Moises Kaufman and Tectonic Theater) about the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, an openly gay student from the University of Wyoming—SPILL engages its audience in a challenging but vital dialogue about critical issues.
While the first half of SPILL focuses on the oil rig explosion, the second deals with the aftermath and its effects on the people and land of south Louisiana. After each performance, the audience is invited to view an art installation comprised of life-sized portraits of the interviewees, painted by visual artist and collaborator Reeva Wortel. The striking installation creates a colorful space in which the conversation can be continued long after the performance itself has ended. In this way SPILL goes well beyond the average play. It is also an art installation, a conversation, a history, and a starting point for social change.
Following the workshop performance at Wesleyan in February 2012, the work went on to have several work-in progress showings including presentations/discussions at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Louisiana State University, and the Women Center Stage Festival at Culture Project in New York. In the spring of 2014, SPILL will return to the place where the project was first conceived, taking the stage at theaters across Louisiana for its world premiere and a five-city tour.
Click here to read an article about SPILL from the New Orleans Gambit newspaper.
To learn more about SPILL or make a contribution, click here.
Within the open and accepting microcosm of the CFA, I had the tremendous privilege of studying under Ron Kuivila in the electroacoustic music studio. In that studio, I found the voice that was deep within me but unable to speak using conventional ‘language.’ Ron and the CFA—and Wesleyan as a whole—enabled me to finally find *my* language—not one of words, but one of sound: The one language that makes sense to me.
Wesleyan Dancelink Fellow Naya Samuel ’14 discusses her experience with Doug Varone and Dancers, who will present “Stripped/Dressed,” featuring “Rise” and the Connecticut premiere of “Carrugi,” on Thursday, September 12 and Friday, September 13, 2013 at 8pm in the CFA Theater.
Through the Center for the Arts Dancelink Fellowship program, I got the opportunity to intern with Doug Varone and Dancers in New York this past summer, and I’ve become a huge fan of their work. The company was founded in 1986, and is the resident company at the 92 Street Y Harkness Dance Center, which has been home to some of the biggest names in modern dance, from Martha Graham to Merce Cunningham to Alvin Ailey. Since its founding, Doug Varone and Dancers has toured extensively across the United State and in Europe, Asia, Canada, and South America. They’ve won 11 New York Dance and Performance Awards, also known as Bessies, and just celebrated their 25th anniversary. The New Yorker noted that “few choreographers can move people around the stage like Varone can. He is able to see overlapping and intertwining groups clearly, and to create movement for them that turns them into breathing organisms.” After spending a summer with the company I agree that Doug’s work is an astonishing blend of touching humanity and complex detail.
One of my favorite nuances of this company is their Stripped/Dressed performance format. This unique method is a beneficial and inventive way to make a specific art vocabulary less foreign to someone who is not immersed in that field. The first half of the program, Stripped, offers a bare version of a performance that focuses on the choreography and the creation of a piece as explained by Doug. This section is performed with the dancers in rehearsal clothes and with minimal lighting. At Wesleyan, the company will start by performing Rise, which premiered in October 1993 and represented a huge choreographic shift for Doug. It’s a high-energy, demanding piece requiring great physicality from its dancers, and it always leaves me excited about the work. The costumes in the piece have become well known, so it’ll be an interesting reflection on the theatrics of putting a piece on stage to see it without them, and how this change affects the way it is perceived.
Doug Varone and Dancers. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.
The second half of the program, Dressed, has the company performing Carrugi fully produced, with costumes, lighting and sound. Doug will have walked us through its conception and creation before intermission. It’s pretty exciting for me to watch or rewatch a piece once Doug has walked us through it. He gives us a context that we otherwise lack while watching most dance companies perform. Carrugi premiered in March 2012, and was inspired by the winding pathways in between small towns on the hillside of Italy’s Liguria region. Set to music by Mozart, the piece is intricate and attentive to detail, and ultimately satisfying both in its dynamic musicality and the relationships between dancers.
The focus of my Dancelink Fellowship was marketing and promotion, especially via social media, but during my time with the company I became familiar with almost all of the necessary components of running a non-profit. The internship was completely immersive. The company had been preparing for their summer intensive in Brockport, New York, and when I started interning the workshop was about two weeks away. Along with another intern, Ellyn, and my supervisor and company member Eddie Taketa, I headed up to Brockport, six hours away, to stay for about a month with 70 dancers and the company.
In addition to running the company’s social media campaign, I also got to participate in classes, which was thrilling. It’s a small company, eight dancers, which made for an intimate class setting. It felt like we really got to know all of the dancers as crucial components of the company as well as as individual artists. Everyone was so open and eager to share their knowledge of the field, which was helpful to the handful of us there who were getting ready to graduate and trying to figure out what we wanted to do in the dance field. It was an incredible experience to switch back and forth between watching rehearsals and performances, which gave me a much deeper insight into what I was watching, as well as the different ways in which choreographers work.
I was able to learn about Doug’s method, and his use of choreographic games and dancer participation. The company members were so passionate about everything they were doing that it was impossible to not feel energized. I can’t think of a better finale to my Dancelink Fellowship than to be in the CFA Theater to welcome Doug Varone and Dancers to Wesleyan.
Click here to watch an interview with Doug Varone and company members Xan Burley and Alex Springer, conducted by Wesleyan DanceLink Fellow Naya Samuel ’14.
Doug Varone and Dancers: “Stripped/Dressed” featuring “Rise” and “Carrugi” Thursday, September 12 & Friday, September 13, 2013 at 8pm CFA Theater $25 general public; $21 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students Pre-performance talk by Wesleyan DanceLink Fellow Naya Samuel ’14 on Thursday, September 12 at 7:30pm in the CFA Hall. Free master class with Doug Varone and Dancers Company Member Eddie Taketa on Friday, September 13 at 2:45pm in Bessie Schönberg Dance Studio, 247 Pine Street, Middletown. Please call 860-685-3355 to register in advance. Only one spot left for Dine/Dance/Discover on Friday, September 13 at 5:30pm—add $15 to your regular ticket price above. Please call 860-685-3355 to purchase.
