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(03/23/16 11:52pm)
The first Japanese Art Deco exhibit to ever be held outside of Tokyo is open in the Middlebury Museum. Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920-1945 uses an incredible breadth of mediums – including metalwork, ceramics, lacquer, glass, furniture, jewelry, sculpture and graphic design on paper, painting and woodblock prints – to convey the complex social and cultural tensions in Japan during that period. Beyond displaying spectacular craftsmanship and sophisticated design, the exhibit also represents Japan’s cosmopolitan evolution.
The Art Deco style grew into prominence between WWI and WWII, when rapid industrialization was transforming cultures around the world. In Japan, as in Europe, the era constituted dramatic social and technological change combined with political and cultural turmoil. Japanese society was caught between imported western liberalism and traditional isolationist ideologies. The Deco era was marked by growing totalitarianism as Japan’s invasion of Asia gained pace, but also by giddy fantasies of luxury and internationalism fed by the burgeoning advertising and film industries. The compelling contradictions of the age are best seen in the Art Deco style, where a facade of elegance parallels a totalitarian gravity and themes of luxury run alongside faith in social progress.
To more fully tell the narrative of this art, the exhibition has been divided into five sections, each building upon the last to convey the interconnection of the cultural, social and formal aspects of each piece: Cultural Appropriations, Formal Manipulations, Over and Under Sea, Social Expressions and The Cultured Home. While the broad ranges of style represented in the gallery certainly offer a fascinating blend of the fundamental Deco characteristics – rich color, bold geometry, elegant ornamentation and the Japanese modifications on themes such as Art Noveau and Cubism – the social and cultural implications tell the complex story of Japan’s development.
The pertinence of this exhibit is immediately apparent from the first section. Deco’s eclectic nature draws strongly from both ancient and contemporary cultures across the globe, creating a fascinating web of connection and meaning. The opening pieces explore cultural diversity by evoking Euro-American modernity and capitals like Paris, New York and Hollywood via representations of fountains, skyscrapers and the film industry.
The spectacle of modern western culture is further expressed in the theme of competitive sports and the Olympic games. In contrast is the historic classicism of pharaonic Egypt, reflecting the Tut craze of early Deco. In an Asian parallel to the “Nile style,” the great 1920s tomb discoveries of ancient China were transformed into Shang dynasty-inspired designs in ceramics and bronzes. Japan’s own classical past is referenced in objects that adapt familiar bird and animal motifs.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this exhibit and of Japanese Deco as a whole is the way in which the style depicts Japanese social and political themes of the time, from militant nationalism to personal liberation. Within the historical context, familiar motifs take on vibrant meaning. For instance, one lacquered box displaying a heron catching a fish in its beak can be seen as symbolizing hope for victory in decisive battles. It is equally interesting to consider the different meanings of otherwise common motifs, such as the sunburst, between European and Japanese Deco periods. In the first, it suggests progress, but in the second, it is an emblem of imperial power and military expansion.
This exceptional collection is also notable for its secondary focus on the theme of the “modern girl.” Depictions combine traditional Japanese norms with those burgeoning in the West to show the emerging jazz-age style icon of pleasure and consumption, complete with progressive behavior like drinking and smoking – symbols of the emerging personal and social freedom.
All the pieces are part of the Levenson Collection, the world’s premier private collection of Japanese art in the Deco and Modern styles. It is open in the museum until April 24. Stop by and take advantage of the full-color catalogue and featured essays to learn about each work and major themes of the movement.
(03/17/16 1:22am)
According to Nimrod Sadeh ’17.5, cellist and co-President of the Middlebury College Orchestra, “Attending a chamber recital is watching and listening to four people conjure a temporal realm, a celestial world where the creative energies of all members are understood without words, a communicative work of art in real-time. Playing chamber music is the closest thing we have to telepathy, and Jupiter’s magic is that they have mastered it. “
As we welcome Jupiter String Quartet’s seventh Middlebury performance this Wednesday, March 23, we invite you to join the party. Performing with the dastardly duo of duos will be violist Roger Tapping and cellist Natasha Brofsky. This will mark the eighteenth time Tapping has graced our halls. Together, the group will perform works by Schubert and Brahms, as well as Schoenberg’s haunting and beautiful “Transfigured Night.”
The Jupiter String Quartet is known around the world for its blazing, passionate and energetic performances. What truly sets the group apart, however, is the unparalleled chemistry and communication visible in every piece. Chamber music is unique in that it vigorously diminishes the stodgy barriers that could keep new audiences from enjoying the genre. Equally important to hearing the music is watching the interplay between musicians as they form an organic composition that is built on sheet music but can tower as high as the group can take it. For Jupiter String Quartet, the stars are the limit.
The quartet’s strong sense of connection is partly due to their intense musical attention to one another, but it is also due to the fact that they are literally family. Within the quartet, violist Liz Freivogel and second violinist Megan Freivogel are sisters, and Megan is married to cellist Daniel McDonough. Violinist Nelson Lee rounds out the quartet. Their guest artists — violist Roger Tapping and cellist Natasha Brofsky — are also a married couple. This level of intimacy between players adds a layer of dimension to their playing that unlocks pieces in a way that is rarely experienced.
Performing Arts Series Director Allison Coyne Carroll writes, “It’s only into the hands of family that I would entrust a story as intimate as Schoenberg’s ‘Transfigured Night.’ This lush, dense and highly chromatic work is inspired by a poem by German poet Richard Dehmel, describing a couple in love walking through the woods on a moonlit night. She reveals she’s pregnant with another man’s child, a man she never loved. The man lovingly accepts her, and the child as if his own; and the unborn child, man, woman and the night itself are transfigured from darkness into light.”
Now in their thirteenth year of making music together, the members of this tightly knit ensemble perform across the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and South America. As winners of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America, they have enjoyed playing in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress. From 2007 to 2010, the Quartet was in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two. Now, they are the String Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, where they maintain private studios as well as responsibility for running the chamber music program.
Doors for the Jupiter String Quartet concert with Roger Tapping and Natasha Brofsky will open on Wednesday, March 23 at 7:30 p.m. in the Mahaney Center for the Arts.
Tickets are only $6 for students. To find more information or purchase tickets, stop by either of the box offices in McCullough or the MCA. Visit go/freetickets to learn about the MCA’s various opportunities for complimentary tickets.
(03/10/16 12:20am)
I was rash in my youth and often dismissed Beethoven as inaccessible and inapplicable to my grandiose existence. I realize now that Beethoven and I actually have quite a bit in common. For instance, he originally planned to write his last three sonatas in quick succession, but after completing the first, Op. 109, in the fall of 1820, he was side-tracked by illness and other projects. We all know how that goes – the exact same thing happened with my final papers last semester.
Coincidentally, this week’s Performing Arts Series artist has made it her life’s mission to elucidate misguided youths such as myself as to the power of classical music. As part of her “Partitura Project,” a cooperative venture allowing musicians of different generations to exchange artistry and mentorship, world-renowned Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires will perform at the College on Saturday, March 12. She will share the stage with her protégé Julien Brocal in a concert that flits between Debussy, Ravel and Beethoven.
The duo will begin the evening with a beautiful four-handed rarity, the likes of which have not been played on our stage in 15 years. Prélude à l’après midi d’un Faune is based off a poem that was inspired by a painting and has been described as “soft chirps and calls … heard over a syncopated accompaniment, bursting into the wayward panic of a lost bird calls” by John Henken of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The song has been transcribed for a four-handed performance – two people sitting on the same bench, playing different parts of the melody together as 20 fingers dance over the keyboard. The rest of the show will alternate between Mr. Brocal and Ms. Pires, from Ravel to Beethoven and back again. 43 years apart in age, the two master pianists are sure to deliver juxtaposed performances and offer a unique comparison of style.
Henken describes Op. 110, the first piece that Pires will play solo, as “wearily lamenting.” He suggests that the Arioso is “a half-step lower in a symbol of exhaustion … the melody itself is now full of sighs and little gaps, as if the music were short of breath.” If only my professors looked so fondly upon similar qualities in my assignments.
Pianist Alfred Brendel wrote that the conclusion “reaches out beyond homophonic emancipation, throwing off the chains of music itself.” Yes, that’s right, the strength of the hills was Beethhoven’s also.
In addition to these pieces, the concert program will include favorites such as Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata No. 14 and Op. 111 – the final, towering masterpiece whose opening Henken calls “savagely anguished.”
As one of the finest musicians of her generation, Maria João Pires continues to transfix audiences with the flawless integrity, eloquence and vitality of her art. Born in Lisbon in 1944, Pires gave her first public performance in 1948 and has not stopped since, studying and performing with some of the greatest pianists of our time and now sitting among their ranks.
Over the past 40 years, Pires has also dedicated herself to reflecting upon the influence of art on life, community and education. The Partitura Project is the ultimate expression of this love, as it is a shared endeavour with a group of highly gifted young pianists. The aim of this project is to create an altruistic dynamic between artists of different generations, offering a supportive and convivial environment amidst a world too often entrenched in competition.
Born in 1987 in Arles, France, Julien Brocal has been praised by Pires and just about everyone else for his “poetry, spontaneity, restraint and a profound sense of structure and awareness of sound.” He began learning the piano at the age of five and was performing by the time he was seven.
19 years later in January 2013, Pires took Brocal under her wing at the Cité de la Musique in Paris, when she invited him to participate in the birth of the Partitura Project. They have since shared performances and recitals in the world’s most famous concert halls, given workshops and offered educational programs to children, all with the aim of introducing classical music to a broader audience.
This Saturday, March 12, you are that audience.
The Maria João Pires/Julien Brocal piano concert will take place on Saturday, March 12 at 8 p.m. in the Mahaney Center for the Arts. Tickets are only $6 for students. To find more information or purchase tickets, stop by one of the box offices in McCullough or the MCA, or visit go/boxoffice.
(03/03/16 12:04am)
Fun fact: Vermont is home to more writers per capita than any other state in the country. Must be all the Frost in the air. Now, as the sun’s warmth makes the campus shed its crystal shell, the wonderful works of those writers emerge to our very own stage, to be performed aloud by your friends and peers.
In the tradition of Public Radio International’s Selected Shorts, six student orators will read selections from the New England Review (NER) literary magazine in this second annual live performance of NER Out Loud, at 8 p.m. on Friday, March 4 at the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA). This event combines the masterful language of gripping stories with the animated delivery and performance of public speaking and spoken word.
The excerpts will be followed by a “S’more Readings” reception with the readers and NER staff, along with representatives of several student literary magazines and lots of snacks. Both events are free and open to the public.
This year’s assortment of prose and poetry, carefully chosen from all works published in 2015 by NER, offers a thoughtful medley of topics. For instance, “Forty-Two,” read by Kathleen Gudas ’16.5, intimately conveys the pains of loving a man who is married to someone else. Meanwhile, “High School in Suzhou,” read by Mariah Levin ’16.5, inspects women’s roles across different cultures.
Sally Seitz ’17 reports that the piece she will be reading, “The Red Painter,” depicts “any artist’s struggle to create work and be happy with the work created;” a sentiment that should echo through Middlebury students.
And according to Alexander Burnett ’16, his story, “To Bundle or to Tarry,” is essentially about “bed-sharing in early America … essentially colonial spooning.” It differs from the rest in that it was originally published in 1871 but banned in 1872 because it offended Victorian sensibilities at the time – even though the author, Henry Reed Stiles, was only proving what had been common practice for hundreds of years.
Melanie Rivera ’19 will read “At the Tribunals” by Patrick Rosal, and August Rosenthal ’17 will perform “Eleven Girls” by David Ebenbach.
As someone who is relatively inexperienced with public speaking and definitely frightened by it, I enjoyed the opportunity to ask a few questions to several of this year’s orators.
Middlebury Campus (MC): What do you like about public speaking?
Sally Seitz (SS): “Well, particularly with NER it’s less about public speaking for me, and more about storytelling. It’s rare to get a chance to just sit and hear a story out loud. As students, we are exposed to plenty of written stories, but being told a story orally is a completely different experience and art form.”
Alexander Burnett (AB): “This will be my first performance with Oratory Now, but I did Speech and Debate all throughout high school, so I’ve always enjoyed public speaking. It’s a powerful feeling to command a room.”
MC: Do you ever get anxious before speaking?
Mariah Levin (ML): “To this day, I get nervous before talking in front of people. I think it is just a normal part of being exposed. But, with more experience I know how to calm my nerves and channel the energy to be helpful instead of harmful.”
Kathleen Gudas (KG): “Although I’m a Theatre major, I still get stage fright. I usually deal with my pre-performance anxiety by listening to music and taking deep, low breaths.”
NER Out Loud is the result of a new partnership between the New England Review, the Mahaney Center for the Arts and Oratory Now, the student speech society.
Oratory Now is committed to helping people speak with conviction, sincerity and persuasive power. Members believe that by learning to speak and listen effectively, we can become a more connected and resilient community. In addition to public speaking contests and events like NER Out Loud, Oratory Now also offers workshops and classroom coaching to help hone students’ public speaking skills. Visit go/oratorynow to see upcoming opportunities.
Meanwhile, the New England Review seeks to provide a place outside of mass culture where meticulous craft and steady thought are the norm instead of speed and information overload. The publication accepts submissions year-round in nearly every form of the written word.
Editors and contributors to the student literary magazines Blackbird, Frame, MiddGeo and Translingual will also be on hand at the post-show reception to discuss their publications and give sample readings from their pages.
(02/25/16 12:52am)
“To be born branded by history, burdened by responsibility and inspired toward greatness requires a committed heart and an opulence of integrity.”
—Christal Brown
As part Middlebury’s Black History Month celebration, our very own Assistant Professor of Dance Christal Brown will be producing her original dance-theatre work, The Opulence of Integrity, Feb. 26 and 27 at 7 p.m. in the Town Hall Theater. The performance promises to act as a thought-provoking catalyst for dialogue in our current campus climate.
The piece uses the career of Muhammad Ali, and his life as a social activist, public martyr and human being, to explore the struggle for identity faced by many men of color in the United States, with a special focus on the social, economic and spiritual trappings that continually prohibit freedom.
According to Brown, the performance incorporates elements of boxing, hip hop, martials arts and modern dance to “deploy an eclectic movement vernacular” that illustrates “the turmoil of a life infused by divinity, yet misinterpreted by humanity.”
Brown has designed the piece as four movements that each reflect a different period in Ali’s life. The first section is meant to depict, as she put it, “the cultural shift between that of Malcolm X to Muhammad Ali, how Ali came under Malcolm’s tutelage and became this other kind of cultural icon in his own right.”
The second is “more along the lines of legendary Ali, at the time where Ali was treated more like a superhero than that of a real person.” Movement three, “No Vietnamese Ever Called Me N*gger,” invokes Ali’s refusal to participate in the Vietnam War. The final section references “the transcendent nature of who Ali has become in the lives of people as a cultural icon, as a historical figure, as a boxer, as a man and as the legend that he lives as today.”
Throughout the performance, movement and text connect with both traditional and nontraditional dance audiences. In addition to the live artists, a projection plays in the background, creating another level of engagement. And of course, the show’s inspiration is a living legend who will draw viewers into seeing the parallels of war, resistance and perseverance through a historical lens.
Christal Brown is a choreographer, educator, performer, writer and activist. She received her BFA in dance and minor in business from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In addition to teaching at the College, Brown is the founder and executive director of INSPIRIT, a performance ensemble and educational conglomerate dedicated to bringing female choreographers together to collaborate and show new work. The Opulence of Integrity is Brown’s first foray into working with an all-male ensemble.
She dedicates the work “to her father, brother, and uncle — who fought but did not win — and to her own son, whose battle has not yet begun.”
“I think one thing that I really want people to take away after seeing the piece is for them to find their own opulence in life, to find out what they can do to the fullest, to think about how integral that is to who they are and never let go of that,” Brown stated. “I think that’s one thing we’ve gleaned from the legacy of Ali, that he held onto what his truth was, no matter what.”
Two public performances of The Opulence of Integrity will be presented on Feb. 26 and 27 at 7 p.m. in the Town Hall Theater. Tickets are $15 for students. Visit go/boxoffice or stop by McCullough or the MCA to book yours now.
(02/17/16 11:50pm)
If you made plans to leave campus this weekend, cancel them. Don’t have any? You do now. First, you will witness one of the most captivating trumpet prodigies of our time, Bria Skonberg, on Friday at 8 p.m. in the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA). What’s that, you don’t like Jazz? You will.
The next evening, Saturday at 8 p.m., you will be sitting in Wright Theater, enthralled by Tina Packer’s ‘Women of Will’ as she artfully deconstructs Shakespeare’s most famous female characters in world-class performances that will make you laugh out loud while also considering the Bard from an entirely fresh perspective. After watching Part One of the show, not even this weather will stop you from going to Part Two on Sunday at 7 p.m.
If Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald were one person, that person would be Bria Skonberg. Seriously, after going to her performance, put on “Dream a Little Dream of Me” — the resemblance is uncanny. The Wall Street Journal calls her “one of the most versatile and imposing musicians of her generation.” And although Skonberg may not be Louis reincarnate, she is pretty close.
According to All About Jazz Magazine, “It’s a rare talent that can straddle — and dare request membership in — the trumpet artist continuum emanating from Louis Armstrong ... However, with her bravura performance on ‘So is the Day,’ Bria Skonberg confirms that she is not only indeed a triple threat musician — player, vocalist, and composer — but also that that esteemed lineage, consummate entertainers all, would heartily approve her membership.”
But Skonberg is not just a powerful vocalist, musician and songwriter: she is also a consummate entertainer. She is a young, hip woman who wields a trumpet like Thor wields a hammer.
On Friday, Skonberg will lead her quintet in a dynamic program that includes an ode to Satchmo himself as well as mix of jazz standards and her own original works that explore worldly rhythms and modern jazz variance.
Speaking of powerful women, the incredible scholar and actor, Tina Packer, will perform “Women of Will,” her masterful summation of over forty years spent investigating all things Shakespeare. Through a combination of riveting scenes and trenchant analysis, Packer draws upon her astonishing wealth of knowledge to explore themes of love, loss, freedom, control, violence and power in the heroines of Shakespeare’s texts.
The two consecutive performances, “Force and Heat: The Early Plays” and, “Chaos and Redemption: The Later Plays” will open at 8 and 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday nights, respectively, in Wright Memorial Theatre. The New York Times call this performance by Packer and her costar, Nigel Gore, “Marvelous!” while the Associated Press hails it as “Boundless and irresistible!”
Packer is the founding Artistic Director of Shakespeare & Company. She has directed almost every single Shakespeare play, acted in several and taught the whole canon at over 30 colleges in the U.S., including Harvard, MIT, Columbia and NYU.
Packer began her career in England, where she trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Soon after winning their Ronson Award for Most Outstanding Actor, she became an associate artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since risen to become an authority on everything Shakespeare. She has also proven her acting chops on BBC Television, where she played Dora to Ian McKellen’s “David Copperfield” and was a love interest for Patrick Troughton’s “Doctor Who.”
Packer came to the U.S. in 1974 on a Ford Foundation-funded project to research the visceral roots of Elizabethan theater. Ford Foundation awarded her two subsequent grants to travel the world, looking at the relationship of mind, body, sacred texts, stand-up comedy, voice and actor–audience relationship in her studies. Based on this work, she founded Shakespeare & Company in 1978 at Edith Wharton’s derelict mansion in Lenox, Massachusetts.
“Women of Will” promises to deliver a deeply thought-provoking but accessible performance that delves into our favorite playwright’s feminine side, tracing the developmental arc of his female characters along his own personal journey.
The Bria Skonberg Quintet concert will take place on Friday, Feb. 19, at 8 p.m. in the MCA. “Women of Will” will open at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 20 and 7 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 21 at Wright Theater.
Tickets for either event are only $6 for students (first-years and Febs, watch your email for a free ticket offer). To find more information or purchase tickets, stop by either of the box offices in McCullough or the MCA or visit go/boxoffice.
(01/28/16 12:36am)
Join your peers this Saturday, Jan. 30, at 8 p.m. or Sunday, Jan. 31, at 2 p.m. in the Mahaney Center for the Arts Dance Theatre to enjoy the Dance Company of Middlebury’s annual performance.
From Somewhere culminates the two-semester creative process of the group, guided by Artistic Director Tzveta Kassabova in collaboration with Joshua Bisset and Laura Quattrocchi of Shua Group. The program includes the award-winning piece “The Opposite of Killing,” as well as “Motorless Park,” a work that draws on images, sound and energy derived from the group’s residency in Detroit, Michigan, offering a simultaneously beautiful and haunting portrait of human geography.
I was able to speak with two Company performers, Miguel Castillo ’17.5 and Huirong Jia ’17, to learn more about their upcoming performance.
What has been the creative process behind From Somewhere?
Miguel Castillo: The piece “Motorless Park” was conceived in the heat of Sept. in Detroit. To begin DCM’s season, we conducted a movement research trip, pulling inspiration from the urban decay of the city, the abandoned buildings and tires left behind by the collapse of the automobile industry that once drove Detroit’s economy. We made the piece in an abandoned parking lot, with the heat of the asphalt, the grime of salvaged tires and the sweat of our exertion informing the movement vocabulary.
Huirong Jia: The bigger question behind our piece asks how we can deal with the consequence that we created. Detroit used to be the great symbol of industrial prosperity. Various reasons drove people out of Detroit. What is left and how should we deal with it? When we came to Detroit, tires were everywhere. Tires, unlike the ruins of the antiquities, were the materialized history of Detroit. Through the performance with tires, our piece intends to build that empathy, which could link anyone with that period of history, and to ask the bigger question of what have we created in the past century.
Why does this piece matter to Middlebury and to a larger audience?
MC: It is difficult to pin down why any piece of art matters, exactly. Dance especially plays with those realities and experiences which speak in physicality and sensation rather than rational, verbal expression.
However, particularly in “Motorless Park,” the use of tires may bring into question the results of urbanization and the motor vehicle industry, and in turn the relationship we humans have with our technologies and the infrastructures and industries that we create and end up shaping the way we live our lives.
HJ: The whole dance experience challenges the idea of the liberal arts and the relation between depth and width in education. I, as a humanities major, always spend extra hours to achieve the same quality of the movement as that of other dance majors in the Company. These hours, which I used to spend on reading and writing, are spent on technique training, building relations with dancers and trying to disentangle the idea of art. Though I do not spend all of my time reading Nietzsche and Burke, I better understand the part of me which I never explored before: I have acquired another non-verbal way of expression, I have started to appreciate another way of life and I have discovered there are so many different kinds of intelligence that have are not recognized or defined by various authorities. I think we could all thicken our texture of life by both diversifying and deepening these experiences.
What is it like dancing with the Company?
MC: The Dance Company of Middlebury is an opportunity to simulate the experience of being in a real dance company. It is a particularly rich experience because of the intensity of the commitment. Over the entire fall semester and then into our J-term tour and performance period, we spend a generous amount of time getting to know our director and the members of the company in a way an academic engagement can’t quite match. It is also somewhat exciting to be in the Company that tours to represent Middlebury’s Dance Program to the wider world – this year, DCM travelled to Detroit and Washington D.C.
HJ: Dancing with the Company is an adventure to me. During each rehearsal at Middlebury, we come up with new ideas of movements to experiment. During our trips, we have to deal with every kind of accident, especially weather, and come up with a new plan for the next day. This whole experience has been really disorienting but also fruitful. I have learned to experience a life with uncertainty and spontaneity.
Tickets for either performance are $12 for the general public; $10 for Middlebury ID holders; and $6 for students. To find more information or purchase tickets, visit go/boxoffice or stop by either of the box offices in McCullough or the MCA.
(01/21/16 12:09am)
The Middlebury College Performing Arts Series is proud to engage the acclaimed Heath Quartet as its first-ever Quartet in Residence to kick off 2016. The U.K.-based ensemble will spend all of Middlebury’s Winter Term on campus. Their first free concert on Jan. 14 is being proclaimed as one of the best performances to ever grace our stage. They will give another free concert on Jan. 21 and a ticketed concert on Feb. 4.
The dynamic and charismatic Heath Quartet — comprised of violinists Oliver Heath and Cerys Jones, violist Gary Pomeroy and cellist Christopher Murray — was formed in 2002 at the U.K.’s Royal Northern College of Music. The quartet has earned a reputation as one of the most exciting British chamber ensembles today. Among their many honors are a Borletti-Buitoni Special Ensemble Scholarship and the 2012 Ensemble Prize at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In May 2013, they became the first ensemble in 15 years to win the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artists Award.
Performing Arts Series Director Allison Coyne Carroll knew the Heath Quartet were rising stars when she heard their U.S. debut at Middlebury in April 2014.
“What makes them special is their desire to express each composer’s intention with great integrity — and they’re able to do so with incredible skill and an impeccable sense of ensemble,” Carroll stated.
The Quartet recently released their latest CD, a recording of the complete quartet cycle of British composer Michael Tippett. Their next two recordings, due out this year on the Harmonia Mundi label, will feature Tchaikovsky quartets (studio recording) and Bartók quartets (recorded live at the Wigmore Hall).
The Heath Quartet’s 2015/16 season focuses heavily on the string quartets of Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. Their first two concerts at Middlebury will feature the complete Bartók cycle, performing quartets 1, 3 and 5 on Jan. 14, and quartets 2, 4 and 6 a week later on Jan. 21.
Violinist Cerys Jones reflected on the intensity of playing Bartók.
“From the moment the bow first touches the string, this music demands 100 percent commitment from every member of the quartet,” Jones said. “Every moment of the music is high energy, high impact — from the depths of depression to the heights of euphoria — so it’s not a challenge so much as a thrilling prospect. I think these quartets suit us as a group because they’re so physically dynamic. We’re often told, and I think it’s true, that we’re a very physical quartet, so it feels natural to us to express this music with mind, soul and body.”
The Jan. 14 and 21 concerts are offered free of charge, thanks to generous support from the Sunderman Family Concert Endowment Fund, in memory of Dr. F. William Sunderman Jr. and Dr. Carolyn Reynolds Sunderman.
The Heath Quartet’s third and final concert, on Feb. 4, will feature a mixed repertoire program including Haydn’s Op. 20 No. 5, Beethoven’s Op. 135 and Tchaikovsky’s Quartet No. 3.
While on campus, the quartet will also engage in master classes and coaching sessions with students of all ages, including composition and electronic music students, the Middlebury College Orchestra and elementary school audiences from Weybridge, Aurora and Shoreham schools. They may even work with student members of the Performing Arts Series Society to stage “pop-up” concerts in the dining halls.
The three concerts by the Heath Quartet will take place on Thursday, Jan. 14 (free), Thursday, Jan. 21 (free) and Thursday, Feb. 4 (ticketed), all at 7:30 p.m., in the Concert Hall of the Mahaney Center for the Arts. Tickets for the third concert are $20 for the general public; $15 for Middlebury College faculty, staff, alumni, emeriti and other ID card holders; and $6 for students. To purchase tickets or find more information, visit go/boxoffice or stop by either of the box offices in McCullough or the MCA.
(12/03/15 2:06am)
I am tired of the empty, easy-come-easy-go gratification of most of the things I watch these days. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes all I want is two hours of slack-jawed vegetation, but recently I have been thirsting for more.
Middlebury’s event listing describes Clickshare as a play about “a group of employees at a popular news website who live and die by the viral content of their pieces. But when they break a story that’s bigger than anything they’ve ever seen before, their lives hang in the balance.” I am here to promise you that it is so much less melodramatic and so much more gratifying than such a description would suggest. Rather than hiding out in your room this weekend and putting on a unfulfilling movie that you will forget as you shuffle back from your post-credits bathroom visit, come down to the MCA and immerse yourself in a play that will leave you both stimulated and satisfied.
The playwright, Lucas Kavner ’06.5, is a Brooklyn-based writer, performer and comedian from Plano, Texas who possesses an incredible gift for what New York Magazine describes as “artfully underwritten, unaffectedly colloquial and often uproarious dialogue.” Since graduating from Middlebury, Kavner has been filling newspapers, televisions, stages and websites with his evocative and critically acclaimed works.
Like the best of Kavner’s writing, both his major 2011 play, Fish Eye (a critic’s pick in Time Out and a featured work in New York Magazine’s Best Theatre of the Year list) and his 2013 play, Carnival Kids (a critic’s pick of The New York Times), approach intimately pertinent topics with brilliant ingenuity and humor.
According to one critic, Fish Eye “explodes the traditional chronology of romance and offers a modern take on the impossible exhilaration of love — when nothing means everything and everything means nothing — and the entire world shrinks down to a single moment.” Meanwhile, Carnival Kids was hailed by The New Yorker as “a hilariously funny ode to slightly immoral and irresponsible losers.”
When asked what motivates his writing, Kavner stated that he likes “writing that doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be smarter than everyone else in the world” and loves “when even the most serious of plays with the most serious of topics manage to be hilariously funny.”
Most people would agree with Kavner’s sentiment that he wants “more messy plays that don’t wrap up in a nice little package and you forget about five seconds later.” Clickshare is certainly one such play.
Onscreen, he has acted in or written for projects with Comedy Central, ESPN, VH1, ABC, Netflix and Dreamworks. His comedy videos have garnered millions of views online, and have been featured on the BBC, MSNBC, NPR and online in The New York Times, Huffpost, Time, Gawker, Vanity Fair and The Atlantic, among other places.
When not writing for the stage and screen or acting, Kavner composes essays for The Washington Post, The Believer, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, Slate, Dallas Morning News, The Billfold, Flavorwire and McSweeney’s. Along the way, he also spent three years as a staff reporter and videographer at The Huffington Post.
Scrolling through his hundreds of articles and projects, I was most captured by The Days of Yore, a website Kavner co-founded in 2013 to host interviews with some of the most celebrated artists and writers in the country about their pre-fame years.
When asked what kind of theater he finds most inspiring, Kavner responded, “I love plays that don’t go where you think they will. I hate things that are too clean or overwritten or plot-heavy. Any time I see the writer’s writing onstage, when a character is too consciously well spoken, I immediately tune out. Early on, I tried really hard to always write to the left of what the characters really wanted to say, so when they say exactly what they’re thinking, it becomes startling, rather than some over-eloquent norm. I also tend to love things I’d never think of writing myself … I like seeing plays about underdogs, about people whose stories aren’t getting told anywhere else.”
Although Kavner has not said where the vision for this particular work originated, Clickshare was first developed at the Middlebury Summer Play Labs. Taking place in August, the labs offer students the opportunity to flourish creatively in a non-academic setting. Current students are paired with experienced alumni to develop ideas, generate art pieces and learn valuable career skills related to the theatre and film industries.
Kavner absolutely loves what he does, but if he could change one thing about theatre, it would be the cost of attendance.
“We all say it,” he said, “but affordability is just the biggest thing. If the people who actually love theater, who are active members of the community, can’t afford to see it, that’s such a profound problem. The affordability thing ends up playing into so many other things, too. Because when only old, rich, white people can afford to see new plays, then the plays have to cater to the old, rich, white people. And that often leads to very boring plays.”
Luckily, the College has adressed the affordability problem. Tickets to Clickshare are only $6 for students, so show your support by walking down to the MCA this Thursday, Friday or Saturday (Dec. 3-5) at 7:30 p.m. or Saturday at 2:00 p.m. Friday’s performance will also feature a talk with Kavner, Theatre Professor and Director Alexander Draper and the cast. You will not want to miss this hilarious and evocative play as it offers a dark satire of Internet culture in the age of viruses, both real and imagined. It was written by a Midd kid and directed by a Midd kid – it is only right for it to be attended by Midd kids. Visit go/boxoffice or stop by either of the box offices in McCullough or the MCA for tickets.
(11/19/15 12:54am)
How often do you get the chance to watch one of the best films of the year about one of the most influential people in the last century and listen to a follow-up lecture given by the world’s leading expert on the topic? Not often enough. Frame that within the context of a Nazi invasion, a desperate race to crack an infamously tricky code and a genius mathematician who saved the English-speaking world only to be persecuted for his sexuality, and you have a pretty entertaining night.
The Hirschfield International Film Series screens extraordinary foreign and independent films every Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m. in Dana Auditorium, and pairs each with special events and lectures that complement the movie and facilitate greater understanding. This week’s picture won the 2014 Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay, and was nominated for seven others, including Best Motion Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Original Score. The American Film Institute awarded it with Best Movie of the Year.
The Imitation Game is based on the true story of Alan Turing and a team of cryptanalysts who struggled to crack the most infamous coding machine of all time, the Enigma. Spoiler alert: They succeed. While the story itself is incredible, intoxicating performances by Benedict Cumberbatch, Kiera Knightly and the rest of the cast elevate the experience to even more mesmerizing heights. Though universally acclaimed, the film is not without its controversies. To add a layer of depth not found in Hollywood, Middlebury has brought in one of the world’s foremost experts on the main topic of the movie: cipher machines.
Dr. Tom Perera’s lecture, “The Real Story of The Imitation Game and the Enigma of Alan Turing,” will correct and enhance bits of the film, as well as comment on the complexity and excitement of the time period. As the author of the only definitive book on the Enigma, Perera is very uniquely situated to discuss the fact and fiction behind The Imitation Game.
Code-breaking was arguably one of the most critical components of World War II. Germany’s various military branches transmitted thousands of coded messages every day, conveying critical information about everything from situation reports given by Hitler himself to the contents of supply ships. The Allies’ inability to access such correspondences wreaked havoc on the United States’ defenses for years. Cue Alan Turing.
Turing was a brilliant mathematician recruited during WWII to work in England’s code breaking hub at Bletchley Park. Although he did not singlehandedly crack the Enigma code, as The Imitation Game suggests (Perera is sure to discuss how his work was based on significant advances by the Poles), he is accredited with designing an anti-Enigma machine that could quickly and consistently discern the appropriate ciphers.
By 1943, Turing’s machines were cracking approximately 84,000 Enigma messages every month. When the Germans upgraded the Enigma into the much more sophisticated “Tunny” machine, it was another Turing breakthrough that allowed its messages to also be deciphered. It is not a stretch to say that Turing’s advances not only changed the course of the war, but also shortened it by as many as two to four years, thereby saving 14 to 21 million lives.
To this day, he is recognized as the father of computer science. His achievements reach far beyond simply cracking some of the toughest ciphers of our age. Currently, the Turing Test is recognized as a benchmark for evaluating the effectiveness of artificial intelligence. In the test, a human converses with an A.I unit. If the human cannot tell the difference between talking with the machine and talking with another human, the machine is considered intelligent.
In addition to being one of the most brilliant minds of his era, he was also gay at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England. Found guilty of gross indecency, Turing was forced to choose between jail and hormone therapy. He opted to take a year of estrogen supplements, and one year after the course’s completion, committed suicide by eating a cyanide-laced apple. Two years ago, the Queen of England granted Turing a Royal Pardon and an apology for the treatment he suffered. In terms of accuracy, the film gets some things right and some things wrong. That is where the second half of the Hirschfield event comes into play.
While the basis for The Imitation Game – Andrew Hodges’s book, Alan Turing: The Enigma – is the biography of one man, Dr. Perera’s book is the most comprehensive tomb on the inner workings of cipher machines ever published. In 1987, he established the Enigma Museum to collect and preserve antique cipher, telegraph, scientific and communication devices. We can expect his lecture to discuss how the Germans developed and used the machine during the war, how cracking the codes at Bletchely Park changed the course of the war and how the science behind cryptography works. The Imitation Game offers a remarkable snapshot of one man’s contribution to the war, while Dr. Perara provides a panorama of how that man fit into a much larger scheme of codes, espionage and triumph.
Dr. Perera’s lecture will take place on Saturday, Nov. 21, at 5:45 p.m. in Dana Auditorium of Sunderland Hall. It is sponsored by the Department of Mathematics and the First-Year Seminar program. Screenings of The Imitation Game will bookend Dr. Perera’s lecture at 3 and 8 p.m., with an expected runtime of 114 minutes. Both events are free and open to the public.
(11/13/15 4:15am)
They dress like debonair secret agents, win over more hearts than a basket of puppies and sing like angels. Founded in 1968 at King’s College in Cambridge, England, The King’s Singers are one of the world’s most foremost vocal ensembles. While Pentatonix and Pitch Perfect have rekindled popular interest in the vocal arts, The King’s Singers have been using their musical virtuosity and irresistible charm to garner international fame for decades, performing for hundreds of thousands of people each season all over the globe. Now, they are coming to Middlebury.
Instantly recognizable for their immaculate intonation, vocal blend, diction and incisive timing, The King’s Singers are consummate entertainers. If you love our campus a cappella groups half as much as I do, this performance offers an exceptional treat and insight into the very highest level of talent. Tickets are selling out so quickly that the venue was changed from the MCA to Mead Chapel.
Since the group’s founding, there have been 25 King’s Singers — the original six and 19 replacements, each joining as somebody else leaves. Current members include: countertenors David Hurley and Timothy Wayne-Wright, tenor Julian Gregory, baritones Christopher Bruerton and Christopher Gabbitas and bass Jonathan Howard. The longest tenured is Hurley, with 26 years to his credit as a King’s Singer. This is his final concert tour with the ensemble.
“I am now into my twenty-sixth year standing at the left hand (as you look at it) end of The King’s Singers, and I don’t know where the time has gone,” he said. “I still love the variety that each day brings as we travel to wonderful places around the world, and I always get a buzz from sing- ing to a live audience. I was the youngest child of three, with older sisters, so I rather enjoy the novelty of being the oldest in the group.”On the other end of the spectrum, Julian Gregory is the group’s youngest member, having joined just last year.
“I will always remember the summer of 2014: the time when I was having an incredible time living in Aix-en-Provence, singing in two inspirational operas at Le Festival d’Aix, exploring the stunning Mediterranean coastline nearby and, one wholly unsuspecting morning, being called out of the blue by The King’s Singers to ask whether I’d like to be flown out to Riga in Latvia the following week to audition for the tenor spot of their group,” Gregory said.
Auditions are only offered when a current member is ready to step down. This alone makes them exceedingly rare. Furthermore, auditions are never open to the public. You do not go to the King’s Singers; The King’s Singers come to you. When it is time to replace a member, they evaluate the best vocal talent in the world and invite a few for a chance at the spot. Members come from all walks of life, but the presiding thread is an unparalleled love for and appreciation for singing. For Timothy Wayne-Wright, that recognition came when he was just six years old, singing the daily services as a boy chorister at Chelmsford Cathedral.
With almost all the group’s members initially finding their love via singing in church choirs, it is appropriate that The King’s Singers perform in our beloved Mead Chapel. The chapel was built in 1916, and while service requirements disappeared decades ago, it is still the favorite place of many choral and a cappella groups on campus, from the College Student Choir to the Mamajamas to Dissipated Eight. According to Christopher Gabbitas, although The King’s Singers have performed in the world’s most renowned venues, he is happiest in chapels like ours.
To Christopher Bruerton, being a King’s Singer is more than simply astounding audiences all over the world with vocal prowess and presence: It is an unparalleled opportunity to guide and inspire those who will keep the tradition alive.
“Since making my debut in The King’s Singers I have loved every moment,” he said. “I am so fortunate to have had the chance to sing in world-renowned concert halls from New York to Sydney with Beijing in between. However, I get the biggest buzz from being able to pass on my experience to the next generation through the workshops we do across the world. There is no greater joy than seeing others making their first steps in a cappella and ensemble singing.”
The group’s diverse repertoire includes more than 200 commissioned works, including landmark pieces from leading contemporary composers such as Luciano Berio, György Ligeti, Sir James MacMillan, Krzysztof Penderecki, Toru Takemitsu, Sir John Tavener, Gabriela Lena Frank and Eric Whitacre. The King’s Singers have also commissioned arrangements of everything from jazz standards to pop chart hits, explored medieval motets and Renaissance madrigals and encouraged young composers to write new scores. They are two-time Grammy award-winning artists, and were recently voted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame. For Jonathan Howard, a King’s Singer since 2010, the music never gets old.
“The breadth of our repertoire also staggers me,” he said. “I smile seeing pro- gram sheets that list all of Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsaries for Maundy Thursday and our staged Great American Songbook show in consecutive concerts. But most of all, it brings me such joy to think that, as the group grows and we approach our 50th anniversary, we still dare to defy musical classification. We’re not just classical singers, folk singers, jazz singers or pop singers. We’re simply six friends who love to sing, and we’re thrilled there still seems to be a place in the market for groups like ours that aren’t bound to a stereotype.”
The King’s typically either sing a set of Renaissance music or more contemporary pieces. However, The King’s Singers have agreed to do a very unique program for Middlebury. The first half of the show, drawn from the group’s recording Pater Noster: A Choral Reflection on the Lord’s Prayer, will include sacred music from the English Renaissance. After intermission, The King’s Singers will take a musical tour around the globe with songs from their “Postcards Project,” a collection of folk and popular songs amassed on their travels. This half will include works from Canada, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Italy, France and the United States.
Special thanks to our amazing Performing Arts Series Director Allison Coyne Carroll for arranging this incredibly unique program in reflection of the College’s international strengths and outreach.
To learn more about The King’s Singers, come to the pre-concert lecture given by Jeffrey Buettner, Chair of the Department of Music and Director of Choral Activities, at 6:30 p.m. at Mead Chapel. Audience members are more than welcome to come to hear more about the ensemble, their musical tradition and the works to be performed.
The King’s Singers concert will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Mead Memorial Chapel.
Tickets are $6 for students. Visit go/ boxoffice or stop by one of the offices in McCullough or the MCA.
(11/09/15 9:30pm)
Known worldwide for their technical wizardry, breathtaking intensity and extensively diverse repertoire, the California Guitar Trio will perform an innovative evening of classical and contemporary works this Friday, Nov. 6, at 8 p.m. in the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA).
With a set list that spans from unique originals to dazzling, cleverly arranged interpretations of jazz, classical, rock and world music, the group is uniquely suited to the breadth of musical interest on campus. That is one of the beauties of guitar: these guys are playing the same instrument we hear all over campus, whether during WOMP or emanating from your neighbor’s room, but at an awe-inspiring level.
While it often requires specialized knowledge to fully appreciate other performances, everyone has heard enough guitar to recognize the unparalleled talented of this group. The Middlebury program will have something for everyone, with a showcase spanning from Bach fugues to an inventive rendition of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
In addition to exciting musicianship and interplay, the California Guitar Trio’s shows are full of captivating stories and humor that enable concertgoers to feel as if they are a part of the music, not just spectators. In fact, the group’s goal is to transcend their instruments so that the music becomes people’s first focus, and its considerable technical prowess a distant second.
The Trio — comprised of Paul Richards of Salt Lake City, Utah; Bert Lams of Affligem, Belgium; and Hideyo Moriya of Tokyo, Japan — has been fearlessly crisscrossing genres together since 1991. Richards was kind enough to take a few minutes out of their current tour to speak to me about the group and their music.
You have been playing together as a group for over 25 years, and you have each been playing separately for even longer. Why do you stay at it?
Paul Richards: That’s a good question. The great thing about this group is that we’re always open to new ideas and trying new things. We’ve never come to a point where we feel like we’re getting tired; the music and the excitement we get from the music keeps me going. There’s some new music we’re working on right now that I feel is the best music we’ve written yet. I think a lot of that excitement transfers over to the audience.
History has shown that the audience agrees. The trio’s output has made a major global impact as the soundtrack for Olympics coverage and programs on CNN, CBS, NBC and ESPN. Their music was even used by NASA to wake the crew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Their music is literally out of this world.
The California Guitar Trio’s 14 albums, streamed over 47 million times on Pandora, offer diverse snapshots of the group’s mercurial muse. The trio’s most recent release, Masterworks, showcases its classical side, with expansive takes on Bach, Beethoven, Arvo Pärt and Schubert. Speaking with Richards, my trepidations as to how this genre would mesh with Middlebury’s acoustic vibe were quickly assuaged.
PR: I’m sure we’ll play a bunch of music they’ve never heard before, but maybe in a context with guitar and in a way of doing it that might be more appealing. When we’ve done shows at colleges in the past, I’ve always got kids coming up to me and saying ‘Wow, I’ve never heard something like that but I’m way into it.’ So, for example, you have the classical music; maybe those kids do not want to go see an entire concert of classical music, but in our concert, where we mix it up, maybe it makes listening to a piece from Bach or Beethoven more approachable because we’re going to play with some pieces that are more approachable or accessible.
There’s a cover tune that we play that’s some music from the 60’s; it’s a tune called “Sleepwalk.” It’s originally by Santo and Johnny, but it’s one of those tunes that everybody knows but not a lot of people know where it came from. We’ll include that and we’ll do some other covers like Bohemian Rhapsody; that’s another of our favorites that gets a lot of airplay and that people enjoy hearing live. And we’ll always include a little bit of classical.
For guitarists of all ages and skill levels, the trio will give a public workshop from 5- p.m. in the MCA Concert Hall. It is unlikely that you will have many opportunities to work with a group this gifted.
Tickets are $6 for students. Visit go/boxoffice or stop by either of the offices in McCullough or the MCA.
(11/04/15 11:25pm)
Known worldwide for their technical wizardry, breathtaking intensity and extensively diverse repertoire, the California Guitar Trio will perform an innovative evening of classical and contemporary works this Friday, Nov. 6, at 8 p.m. in the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA).
With a set list that spans from unique originals to dazzling, cleverly arranged interpretations of jazz, classical, rock and world music, the group is uniquely suited to the breadth of musical interest on campus. That is one of the beauties of guitar: these guys are playing the same instrument we hear all over campus, whether during WOMP or emanating from your neighbor’s room, but at an awe-inspiring level.
While it often requires specialized knowledge to fully appreciate other performances, everyone has heard enough guitar to recognize the unparalleled talented of this group. The Middlebury program will have something for everyone, with a showcase spanning from Bach fugues to an inventive rendition of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
In addition to exciting musicianship and interplay, the California Guitar Trio’s shows are full of captivating stories and humor that enable concertgoers to feel as if they are a part of the music, not just spectators. In fact, the group’s goal is to transcend their instruments so that the music becomes people’s first focus, and its considerable technical prowess a distant second.
The Trio — comprised of Paul Richards of Salt Lake City, Utah; Bert Lams of Affligem, Belgium; and Hideyo Moriya of Tokyo, Japan — has been fearlessly crisscrossing genres together since 1991. Richards was kind enough to take a few minutes out of their current tour to speak to me about the group and their music.
You have been playing together as a group for over 25 years, and you have each been playing separately for even longer. Why do you stay at it?
Paul Richards: That’s a good question. The great thing about this group is that we’re always open to new ideas and trying new things. We’ve never come to a point where we feel like we’re getting tired; the music and the excitement we get from the music keeps me going. There’s some new music we’re working on right now that I feel is the best music we’ve written yet. I think a lot of that excitement transfers over to the audience.
History has shown that the audience agrees. The trio’s output has made a major global impact as the soundtrack for Olympics coverage and programs on CNN, CBS, NBC and ESPN. Their music was even used by NASA to wake the crew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Their music is literally out of this world.
The California Guitar Trio’s 14 albums, streamed over 47 million times on Pandora, offer diverse snapshots of the group’s mercurial muse. The trio’s most recent release, Masterworks, showcases its classical side, with expansive takes on Bach, Beethoven, Arvo Pärt and Schubert. Speaking with Richards, my trepidations as to how this genre would mesh with Middlebury’s acoustic vibe were quickly assuaged.
PR: I’m sure we’ll play a bunch of music they’ve never heard before, but maybe in a context with guitar and in a way of doing it that might be more appealing. When we’ve done shows at colleges in the past, I’ve always got kids coming up to me and saying ‘Wow, I’ve never heard something like that but I’m way into it.’ So, for example, you have the classical music; maybe those kids do not want to go see an entire concert of classical music, but in our concert, where we mix it up, maybe it makes listening to a piece from Bach or Beethoven more approachable because we’re going to play with some pieces that are more approachable or accessible.
There’s a cover tune that we play that’s some music from the 60’s; it’s a tune called “Sleepwalk.” It’s originally by Santo and Johnny, but it’s one of those tunes that everybody knows but not a lot of people know where it came from. We’ll include that and we’ll do some other covers like Bohemian Rhapsody; that’s another of our favorites that gets a lot of airplay and that people enjoy hearing live. And we’ll always include a little bit of classical.
For guitarists of all ages and skill levels, the trio will give a public workshop from 5- p.m. in the MCA Concert Hall. It is unlikely that you will have many opportunities to work with a group this gifted.
Tickets are $6 for students. Visit go/boxoffice or stop by either of the offices in McCullough or the MCA.
(10/21/15 11:09pm)
This week’s Performing Arts Spotlight features guest writer Su Zheng, Associate Professor of Music at Wesleyan University. She previews the upcoming concert by Wu Man and the Shanghai Quartet, Thursday, Oct. 29 at 7:30 p.m. at the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA).
“The pipa is a lute-like instrument with a history of more than two thousand years. During the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.–220 A.D.), instruments with long, straight necks and round resonators with snakeskin or wooden soundboards were played with a forward and backward plucking motion that sounded like “pi” and “pa” to fanciful ears. Hence, all plucked instruments in ancient times were called “pipa.” During the Tang dynasty, by way of Central Asia, the introduction of a crooked neck lute with a pear-shaped body contributed to the pipa’s evolution. Today’s instrument consists of twenty-six frets and six ledges arranged as stops and its four strings are tuned respectively to A,D,E,A. The pipa’s many left and right hand fingering techniques, rich tonal qualities and resonant timber give its music expressiveness and beauty that are lasting and endearing.”
— notes by Wu Man, “What is a pipa?”
The pipa was a major instrument in the teaching of Buddhism in early China, as witnessed by its portrayal in numerous murals in the Buddhist caves near Dunhuang, along the ancient Silk Road in western China. Throughout Chinese history, the pipa has also been a prominent instrument for female entertainers at the imperial courts in rich households, and at teahouses or pleasure houses, where the performers were known as singsong girls. Depictions of these singsong girls’ expressive performances and graceful voices constitute an important aspect of classical Chinese literature. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368–1911), literati (or scholar-bureaucrats) began to take an interest in playing pipa and, as a result, more elaborate compositions were created and preserved in the earliest pipa music collection, published in 1818.
What kinds of new sounds and songs will emerge when a classical string quartet is in conversation with the ancient pipa? What emotions will this music evoke for childhood friends and schoolmates who meet again on tonight’s stage, and for those in the audience? To find out, I spoke with Wu Man, widely recognized as the world’s premiere pipa virtuoso and as a leading ambassador of Chinese music in the West.
When she was just 13, Man was accepted into the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. It was there that she met Yi-Wen Jiang, the Shanghai Quartet’s second violinist.
“He was my classmate at the conservatory,” Man said. “A few years later, I met Honggang Li, the viola player, at the same conservatory. Through him, I met his brother Weigang Li, a very talented violin player.”
But Man didn’t collaborate musically with her friends back then.
“We took many cultural and required political doctrine courses together, but we never played music together,” she said. “We belonged to different departments. They played Western instruments, and I played a Chinese instrument. We were separated by two different musical worlds.”
After conservatory, Wu Man came to realize that her lifelong creative journey would be to combine her instrument, her voice and her body to create unprecedented sounds and new modes of performance for the pipa. “I feel pipa is my voice,” she said. “I communicate with people through my pipa.”
The year 1992 marked the first time in history for musical dialogue between a string quartet and a pipa, and a new musical form was born. One of the most memorable performances is Man’s collaboration with the Kronos Quartet on Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera in 1995.
What is unique and exciting about Wu Man’s present tour with the Shanghai Quartet is that it not only promises the cross-cultural and genre-defying musical experiences that Man is now well known for around the world, but the collaboration has also been a deeply personal one for the performers.
“We have the same cultural heritage,” she said. “We are so familiar with the repertory. We have a visceral understanding of the meanings of these folk songs and contemporary compositions because we grew up in China in these sounds. In rehearsals, we were able to ‘jump into’ the music immediately. We were transported back to our childhoods by the music; all the memories came back with the music. It is something very special to us.” After a brief pause Wu Man added, “very emotional.”
Wu Man and the members of the Shanghai Quartet are particularly looking forward to sharing their musical journey and emotions with college students.
“I love to answer [students’] questions about pipa,” she said. “I love to share my creative processes with them, and it’s so inspiring to see the sparkles in their eyes. I am always thrilled by their curiosity.”
Wu Man’s adventurous journey with the pipa seems to have radically departed from the aesthetics of those pipa masters recorded in China’s historical texts. Her journey could never have been imagined by innumerable pipa singsong girls throughout China’s long history. Yet, Man plays a pipa that belonged to one of her teachers and that was bestowed upon her when he passed away, a significant gesture to recognize her central role both as a guardian of the pipa tradition and a pioneer of a new path for this ancient instrument.
Tickets are $25 for the general public; $20 for Middlebury College faculty, staff, alumni, emeriti, and other ID card holders; and $6 for Middlebury College students. Visit go/boxoffice or stop by the box offices in McCullough or the MCA.
(10/14/15 11:40pm)
According to Cocoon organizer August Hutchinson ’16.5, “You’ll hear about inner-city ballet and Picasso erotica, middle-aged thieves of little pink bikes and cultural clashes from across the globe. You’ll learn how these people met lovers, found success, overturned their beliefs and, of course, found their roots.”
“This event will show students and the wider Middlebury community the universal pervasiveness of storytelling, how it transcends all backgrounds and is something that students can be involved with as well,” co-organizer Celia Watson ’17 said.
Apart from being imminently quotable, Watson and Hutchinson are also the students responsible for building this year’s performance of Cocoon, which will take place at 8 p.m. on Oct. 17 in the Concert Hall of the Mahaney Center of the Arts (MCA). Working alongside Liza Sacheli, Director of the MCA, Watson and Hutchinson have used their experience as head organizers for Middlebury Moth-Up to recruit an impressive panel. This year’s lineup is comprised of Middlebury alumna Bianca Giaever ’12.5, Alexa Beyer ’15.5, Jabari Matthew ’17, Naomi Eisenberg ’18, Associate Professor of History Rebecca Bennette and Burlington-based storyteller Deena Frankel.
We know the theme of “Roots” stems from the 50 Years Celebration of Environmental Education and Leadership, but is there more to it? Why not leaf? Or trunk?
August Hutchinson: We picked “Roots” to creatively unify stories which, in a variety of ways, share something about important personal origins — stories which are emblematic of where a person is from or who they have become, or stories of experiences which have shaped them.
Celia Watson: We felt like “Roots” had a strong connection to not only potentially feeling rooted to the earth, but also how it speaks to the roots of who we are — what brought us to where we are today. People may find it speaks to family, place or ancestry, but also just like a path of life, such as the roots we create for ourselves.
How do you see live storytelling events such as Cocoon fitting into the overall social fabric of the school? What is Cocoon’s value?
AH: Oh my. As a student of history and co-leader of Middlebury’s Moth-Up, I could go on for hours about why storytelling matters. Cocoon itself is meant to be many things, including a pleasant and thought-provoking way for individuals to communally spend an evening, and an experience through which they can better understand the minds and lives of others.
Storytelling generally is central to who we are. Try to imagine having an acquaintance, a best friend or a true lover with whom you have never exchanged a single story. It’s an extremely alien idea. You’d be utterly alone in so many ways, because you wouldn’t know what happens in the lives of others when they’re not around, or how they think and feel about it. They, in turn, wouldn’t know those things about you.
Done well, storytelling is also one of the most effective ways to communicate. Stories, like us, exist in the medium of experience, so they’re naturally relatable. We float about in a sea of analyses, ‘hard facts,’ platitudes and the like, but some of the most memorable and compelling cases come in the form of a beautifully painted human experience.
CW: I feel like there are three main things we can gain or learn from storytelling. First, it’s cathartic. This summer, I assisted at an applied theatre community project, where we worked with survivors of intimate partner violence. That experience showed me the power of interview and monologue, and helped me see how much emotion and healing can be conveyed and created through story.
This leads to the second insight, perspective. Stories give the audience a lot to learn about humility. They inform us of how we can draw from others’ experiences.
Finally, it offers a space for a societal voice by giving access to a community that otherwise might not be heard.
How were the storytellers chosen?
CW: I find that all our storytellers possess a great stage presence. They are comfortable with public speaking, but also know how to enjoy the simple act of making an audience feel engaged in their story. We aim for as diverse of a lineup as possible, not only in terms of experience but also of representing the student body, the faculty, alumni and greater Vermont community.
We’ve got a good mix this year of reflective experiences, some serious tones, and definitely some humor. We like to encourage any storyteller, whether it be for Cocoon or The Middlebury Moth-UP, to tell the story just how they would to friends over a meal. That sort of genuine excitement of getting to share an experience with others is something that I think Cocoon and the Moth-UP encourage well through a live interaction with the audience.
AH: Celia, Liza and I unanimously agreed on the people whom we wished to approach. My almost-sole criterion was that each storyteller had proven her or himself to be an excellent speaker with excellent stories.
Tickets are $12 for the general public; $10 for Middlebury College faculty, staff, alumni, emeriti, and other ID card holders; and $6 for Middlebury College students. Check with your commons office for any remaining complimentary tickets. For further information, visit go/boxoffice or stop by our offices in McCullough or the MCA.
(10/07/15 11:20pm)
“Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light,” Michael Caine intoned, bringing the great words of the 20th-century poet Dylan Thomas into the cultural mainstream as mankind’s last hope shudders through space and time. This Wednesday, Oct. 7th, adventurers and innovators will once again invoke Thomas’s words to describe their explorations into the human experience.
The evening of Oct. 14 will feature several unique but cohesive performances. Before we mothernaked fall is choreographed by Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance, Scotty Hardwig, and explores the poetic processes and expressionist sensibilities of poet Dylan Thomas. Meanwhile, This is your Paradise, a composition by Salt Lake City-based dance artist Molly Heller, confronts struggle, resistance, hope and faith. “A Duet Called Blue” is a collaboration between Heller and Hardwig that follows the creation, disconnection and cracking undercurrent of energy that runs beneath the sea of human sensation.
Before we mothernaked fall references Thomas’s interest in the male form and its place in the world. Hardwig adapts the sentiment for modern times by sketching the homosensual body in an attempt to create a space “where the individuals identity melts into a group body,” according to dancer Doug LeCours ’15.
“It’s not about sex or identity but sensation, a shared sameness among the three bodies on stage moving through a physical experience together,” LeCours said.
LeCours will return to campus as one of the piece’s three performers. Noting that he has always had a strong advisor-advisee relationship with Hardwig, he is proud to make his professional debut at the College.
The sound score from the performance features text by poet Dylan Thomas. Unlike contemporaries such as T.S Elliot and W.H Auden, who focused on specific social and intellectual issues, Thomas is celebrated for writing that is emotionally lucid yet narratively obscure. By conveying the feeling of his subject more clearly than its definite form, his work possesses a quality that corresponds naturally with dance. Thomas’s storied life funnels into often-metaphysical idolatry, with a percussive rhythm that hammers lines in time with the reader’s heart, covering topics ranging from death to the human condition to lost childhood and the sea of coastal Wales. Hardwig played his works aloud as they worked to generate content, drawing from both his delivery and subject.
Both Hardwig and Heller have unusually organic and communicative creative processes, in which the final performance evolves organically from a continual dialogue between dancer and choreographer. Heller views the process as collaboration, both in terms of movement and the exchange of energy. A successful project invokes a strong sense of catharsis.
“Choreography helps me understand that I’m not any label; I’m no perimeter, I’m no thing. I am experience,” Heller said. “I actually believe that we are our experiences. The energy produced by a situation translates into our body and it’s felt and it’s manifested physically and we are those things, so we are our DNA and we are also our experiences. Identity is our way of negotiating those two things.”
Heller works and studies in Salt Lake City, UT, where she uses dance as a medium for healing. Her movement seeks to mend trauma through a heightened awareness of energy channeled through the physical body. Supported by Zen beliefs surrounding introspection and mindfulness, she also operates a teahouse, with the goal of supporting the individual within a greater community.
Her research into the healing powers of dance is interwoven into her pedagogical beliefs. The differences between her passions – dance and tea culture – allow her to expand the ways in which she perceives the world and to further appreciate ritual, sacred spaces and inner stillness.
This particular performance is bursting with a passion so potent it is felt tangibly amongst the audience. Explicit consciousness on behalf of onlookers or the dancers only impedes the journey to the liberation that this raw expression allows. Instead, the audience is encouraged to relax their minds and embrace the stillness of honest movement.
The first performance will begin at 7:00 p.m. on Oct. 14 in the Mahaney Center for the Arts. All performances are free and open to the public.
(10/01/15 4:00am)
Andrea Olsen gives me hope. If you are anything like me, you have also spent countless hours deliberating over various premade professions, wondering which hole fits your peg best, only to be frustrated by incompatibility at every turn. Nothing seems to match that idyllic happiness we have always been told to seek without compromise and yet, people like Olsen embody an independence and creativity that discard social expectations and remold the norm.
Olsen has traveled the globe over the past four decades, teaching, touring and creating nature-based dances that reconnect the body with its environment. This Sunday, Oct. 4, at 2:00 p.m. in the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA), Olsen will offer the capstone per- formance of her 33-year career as a professor of dance and environmental studies.
In “Dancing in Wild Places: Seaweed and Ocean Health,” Olsen combines her love for the ocean and her passion for dance to avail our minds to the vast underwater gardens appearing along the wrack-line of beaches. The piece is the result of research conducted at seven different seaweed sites around the world. Olsen traveled to France, Ireland, Iceland, Nova Scotia, Florida and the Florida Keys to gather knowledge about the unique underwater flora that supports count- less life forms and plays a vital role in stabilizing ocean temperatures.
She went a step further and researched the murky history between seaweed and far-ranging products from gunpowder to iodine to cosmetics, tracing the tentacle effects back- and-forth through time and into your life. The 40 minute dance breaks naturally into seven sections correlating to the seven sites, each rich with a web of information, story and movement. Olsen invites you to follow her deep into the heritage of the oldest form of life on the planet, algae, as she combines science, story-telling and evocative movement to raise awareness on one of the most critical pieces of ecosystem sustainability.
Not only has Olsen blazed her own trail, but she is also incredibly celebrated for her work. She has earned numerous grants, in- cluding a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, Whiting Fellowship and an ACLS Contemplative Practice Fellowship. Her work has been presented at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies and the Sophia Institute.
Olsen’s performance is one of the first events to kick off the celebration of 50 Years of Environmental Education and Leader-
ship taking place this October. In 1965, the College created the nation’s first Program in Environmental Studies. Fifty years later, the College has risen to the forefront of environmental research and action.
Events ranging from interdisciplinary lectures, film screenings and art installations will celebrate the College’s continued commitment to the environment. From the Organic Farm Open House this weekend to a keynote address entitled “Green Jobs Not Jails: Criminal Justice Ecology” by Van Jones, Founder and President of Dream Corps, the next few weeks will present a remarkable degree of thought from various environmental viewpoints. Check out go/es50 for more information on the dozens of events comprising this semester’s celebration.
(09/24/15 12:57am)
This year’s Clifford Symposium “The ‘Good’ Body” will take place Thursday, Sept. 24 - Saturday, Sept. 26. Bodies are like opinions; everyone has one. Unfortunately, the conversation doesn’t stop there. Countless pressures strive to dictate body image and create spaces that alienate comfort and security in an increasingly image-obsessed society. What is a “good” body? Do you have one? Do I? What is the nature of such standards? As technological, medical and social factors continue to shape our concepts of worthiness, beauty, health and bodily function, we have to examine how broader contexts matter — how cultural forces, systems of power, privilege, time and place contribute to our definition of “good.”
This year’s Clifford Symposium does just that by inspecting the beliefs and politics surrounding the human body — their origins, influence and place in society. The Symposium will feature over thirty separate events, including a gallery talk, film screenings, lectures, movement and writing workshops and performances covering a wide range of art and non-art disciplines.
Our annual Nicholas R. Clifford Symposium kicks off each academic year by giving the campus community rich opportunities to discuss and experience timely topics from many perspectives. According to Cristal Brown, Assistant Professor of Dance and one of the head organizers, this year’s symposium was inspired by recent events of racially charged violence, as well as this year’s 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Even more recent events have reminded us of the importance of this issue, as presidential candidates begin to take the stage and discuss topics that will have a very real effect on how our bodies experience the world and how the world experiences our bodies.
Disabled artist and keynote speaker Barak adé Soleil will take the spotlight on Thursday with a lecture entitled “The ‘good’ Body: An Unfinished Legacy.” Soleil has been working within the live arts scene nationally and internationally for the past two decades and is the founder of D UNDERBELLY, an interdisciplinary network of artists of color. His directing and performing endeavors speak to the expanse of contemporary art and use body-based techniques drawn from the African diaspora, postmodern traditions and conceptual social forms.
A pedagogy workshop will precede Soleil’s keynote address. A reception, followed by a screening of Phoenix Dance, will take place later in the day.
Friday will feature talks by several speakers and workshops in the afternoon. Writer and poet Eli Clare, author of Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation, will begin the day with her lecture “Defective, Deficient, and Burdensome: Thinking About Bad Bodies.” Choreographer and performance artist Esther Baker-Tarpaga, Assistant Professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, will later offer a performance, screening and lecture titled “#BodyAsPlaceForAction.”
Saturday will feature presentations by Middlebury students and faculty and culminate in Soleil’s keynote performance. For a full schedule of events, visit the symposium’s website, go/clifford/. All events are free and open to the public and will be scattered through the MCA, McCullough and Twilight.
(05/06/15 3:33pm)
The sun is shining, trees are blooming and Paul Lewis is returning to Middlebury. This Friday, the Performing Arts Series offers a sell-out concert to bring the season and the school year to a triumphant finale. Lewis will be performing Beethoven’s last three sonatas with the characteristic mastery and power that has brought him back to the College every season for the last decade. Although fewer tickets remain than for either Riddim or Misterwives, the concert is thoughtfully spaced between the two. Join us in the Concert Hall of the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts at 8 p.m. for a breath of composure amidst the chaos of finals and a virtuosic display craftsmanship and emotion.
Sonatas 109, 110 and 111 demand more than technical mastery: they call for interpretative brilliance. These three pieces in particular offer supreme challenges to a pianist’s skill and imagination rarely found elsewhere. That Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Director of the Performing Arts Paul Nelson has entrusted Lewis with this burden is a professional compliment of the highest order. Then again, it seems only fitting that the pianist whom Nelson describes as “one of the happiest discoveries” of his career should be the one to return and honor our Performing Series Director’s final concert after 30 years of programming for the College.
Opuses 109, 110, and 111 signify the end of more than Beethoven’s sonatas. After 30 years, Paul Nelson, Director of the Performing Arts Series will be passing the baton. After this concert, Allison Coyne Carroll will succeed Nelson. Of all the incredible talent Nelson has brought to Middlebury, he chose Lewis to send him off. 12 years ago, it was Paul Nelson who brought now-internationally-acclaimed pianist Paul Lewis to Middlebury for his first concert in the United States.
Since then, Lewis has earned accolades worldwide, returning often to Middlebury for season after season of astonishing performances.
Though Nelson has brought decades of talent to this campus and Lewis tours all over the world, both hold a special appreciation for College. Lewis has become more than a visiting performer; he has become a member of the community.
Middlebury was one of the select few venues in the world to present Lewis’ complete Beethoven piano sonatas. The full cycle comprised eight concerts over three seasons from 2005-2007. This cycle, along with Lewis’ similarly lauded Schubert project, earned
Lewis unanimous critical and public acclaim worldwide, confirmed his reputation as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of the central European classical repertoire and cemented his place at Middlebury.
In fact, when the school needed a new piano in 2013, it was Lewis who helped select the new Steinway concert grand piano from Steinway’s Astoria, NY factory. He will play on that very same instrument this Friday.
This particular program has been in the works for three years.
“Paul Lewis has been a favorite pianist of mine and our series for a long time,” Nelson remarked. “Beethoven has been my most-loved composer – from the time I began to love any music at all. And there’s something quite splendid about the end of the last sonata… it whiles away into quiet, and that’s wonderful parting music.”
Lewis’s numerous awards have included the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year Award, two Edison Awards, three Gramophone Awards, the Diapason D’or de l’Annee, the Preis Der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, the Premio Internazionale Accademia Musicale Chigiana and the South Bank Show Classical Music Award. In the summer of 2010, Lewis became the first pianist in the history of the famed BBC Proms classical music festival to play all five Beethoven Piano Concertos in a single season. He is also a regular guest at prestigious festivals and venues including London’s Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall, Alice Tully and Carnegie Hall in New York, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Theatre des Champs Elysées in Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Oji Hall in Tokyo and the Sydney Opera House.
His multi-award winning discography for the Harmonia Mundi label includes the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, concertos, and the Diabelli Variations; Liszt’s B minor Sonata and other late works; Schubert’s major late piano works and three song cycles recorded with tenor Mark Padmore.
This concert is made possible with support from Performing Arts Series Society members Leif Magnusson ’69 and Charlotte Sibley ’68, in honor of Paul Nelson. Audience members are invited to stay after the concert for a reception given in tribute to his 30 years of leadership.
The concert by Paul Lewis will take place on Friday, May 8, at 8 p.m. in the MCA Concert Hall. Professor of Music Larry Hamberlin will offer a pre-concert lecture at 7:15 p.m. Tickets are $6 for students; 20 for faculty, staff, alumni, emeriti and other ID card holders; and $25 for the general public.
When this newspaper went to print, the concert was sold out — but there’s a second chance: come get on the in-person waiting list for any returned tickets by coming to the MCA box office at 7 p.m.
(04/29/15 9:11pm)
Few things give me more satisfaction than experiencing peers’ and professors’ work. Sometimes it’s too easy to get lost in the system of Middlebury and forget the passion and purpose driving this college experience. So many students are working on so many incredible things that we often take our friends for granted.
This Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m. in the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts (MCA), four seniors offer the final culmination of their studies and a last hoorah before graduating in a few weeks. Stevie Durocher ’15.5, Doug LeCours ’15, Sarae Synder ’15 and Afi Yellow-Duke ’15 have spent months examining the intersection between dance and their various unique areas of study, from creative writing to Chinese. Each student has choreographed pieces that map this intersection in mesmerizing, ephemeral movement. To help quench my fascination with what students are doing on this crazy campus, each artist spoke to me about the importance of dance in his or her life.
Durocher’s piece began with research for her thesis for the English and American Literature department, The Lies They Tell Our Daughters, where she examined perceptions of the dancer in children’s literature. Durocher is focused on ideas of body image and the ideals society puts forth regarding beauty to both the individual and the collective.
We can’t fully appreciate children’s literature without also realizing the effect is has on its readers. Durocher began with the focus of choreographing a piece as a direct manifestation of this research, but the project turned into an expression of her own story – that of her childhood in today’s world.
Through dance she was able to put herself into her research, to engage and discover her own identify and how society has influenced her, specifically her ideas of beauty and belonging. Though she was classically trained and doesn’t “look like what a ballerina is supposed to look like,” she said, “Dance has always been the one time I feel completely myself. I’m someone who doesn’t like to be seen, but when I take a ballet class, I wouldn’t care if the whole world saw me. That’s something I’ve been able to take with me everywhere I go.”
Durocher has the great fortune of being a Feb, so she is not yet “consumed by post grad plans,” but she hopes to work in children’s publishing after leaving Middlebury.
“Dance is something that will be part of my life forever, as it is an immensely important part of who I’ve always been, but I don’t see it being my career,” Durocher said.
LeCours is a Dance and Creative Writing double major who sees film as a mediator between movement and text. His piece focuses on his interest in what happens when the queer male body is asserted in the narrative of sad girls.
Specifically, he asks the question, “What happens when we investigate the power and agency within a queer male figure embodying some of the ideas of these tragic women I keep finding myself coming back to….”
“Dance is, at its best, a space for radical transformation,” LeCours said. “It has been one of the most important things in my life for fourteen years. I guess it’s what I know best.”
With this thesis work, LeCours takes the enjoyment and release he finds in movement and combines it with an exploration of his identity.
“Dance opens up new ways of viewing the world and my own experience, allowing for a nuanced approach to everyday life and relationships to self, other, and earth,” LeCours said. “Without making and performing dance I wouldn’t be able to view or confront my education as critically as, I hope, I do.”
Following his graduation from Middlebury, Doug will be moving to New York to perform and choreograph.
Sarae Snyder is working on two pieces. The first is a duet between two Middlebury students, sourced from one of Snyder’s solo performances and focusing on the unique humanness of the dancers. She is collaborating on the second piece with a senior from Bennington College featuring much stricter, practiced movements progressing into spontaneity and chaos. On a basic level, Snyder is interested in how she can create two distinct pieces though she is the choreographer of both while also simultaneously navigating the roles of choreographer and dancer.
As with the other dancers, to Snyder the significance of her studies touches beyond the stage.
“My studies in dance have opened up my awareness of the politicization of bodies,” Snyder said. “[Dance] has provided me with a new lens for viewing culture and history. It has made me more aware of the power in seemingly trivial aspects of human behavior. It has turned me into an aspiring artist.”
Yellow-Duke’s piece is an investigation of both her personal relationship with society and the creation of systems that create and respond to fear. She looks at events of panic in the U.S. such as the Cold War and 9/11 and hopes to question and poke fun at the systems we put in place to “protect and placate ourselves.”
She believes fear and uncertainty have been “mobilized to unite us as Americans but have also allowed us to contest and redefine who deserves the title of American.” Such categorizing can “further push people to the margins and reinforce systems of power.” Through movement and sound, Afi “hopes to link her history with panic attacks to this larger cultural framework of anxiety.”
After attending the Fall Dance Concert, I cannot wait to witness the inspiration and weight of these pieces and enjoy an evening as diverse and layered as the artists’ intellectual pursuits. Doors will open at 8 p.m. in the MCA Dance Theatre. Tickets are $6 for students; $15 for faculty, staff, alumni, and other ID card holders; $20 for general public. Check with your Commons Office for discounts! Visit go/boxoffice or stop by one of the offices.