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(04/25/19 10:30am)
When you walk downtown along College Street, your eye may be drawn to one of Middlebury’s iconic and historic buildings — the Old Stone Mill. Built in 1840, this four-and-a-half-story building standing on the south bank of Otter Creek is turning a new leaf in Middlebury’s history. Stacey Rainey and Mary Cullinane, the co-owners of Community Barn Ventures (CBV) took over the property from the college — the previous owner for the last decade or so, finalizing the transaction in January.
“The plan for the building is to really create a destination in the community that people can come to daily, see their neighbors, hang out with their friends and celebrate the makers and producers in the area who are making ... some goods we at Middlebury sometimes don’t have access to easily,” Cullinane said.
According to the renovation plan, the building will bring in a new restaurant on the first floor, open a public market on the second floor and provide a coworking space on the third. Meanwhile, an Airbnb will operate on the upper levels where short-term lodgings can be rented. While each floor has a different function and purpose, there is an interplay between those floors that encourages people to move from one to another while fostering a sense of community.
“Each of those floors have some type of relationship with the things that are going on on the other floors,” explained Cullinane. “If someone is at the coworking space and they want to take a meeting, they could go down to the coffee shop and meet with the person down there.”
Rainey and Cullinane hope to create a unique experience for the community by curating the space in a thoughtful way and designed the renovations so that each floor highlights varying dynamics within society.
“We are trying to demonstrate how we can rethink some of these old paradigms based upon how things are working today,” Cullinane said. “The way people stay is changing — this idea of Airbnb really has had an impact on the opportunity for folks to get a different type of experience when they go into a community.”
Cullinane explained that coworking is “changing the way people work” as freelancing becomes more and more common. “There are more folks who are able to work remotely and yet people still want a community.”
Regarding the long legacy of the Old Stone Mill itself, Cullinane especially loves its dedication to innovation, and hopes to maintain this symbolism within the renovations. “[The building] has represented throughout its history Middlebury’s ability to adjust ... it personifies innovation,” Cullinane said. “It personifies what we need to do as a community to react to our changing times, and it’s going to continue to represent that for us.”
By broadening choices for customers and removing barriers for vendors to enter the Middlebury market, the public market on the second floor aims to provide a retail experience reimagined.
“[The vendors] are all focused on products that you really want to see, or touch or feel in person, that don’t necessarily work as well if you are purchasing them online. That’s another way that we are thinking of the types of organizations we are talking to,” said Rainey.
Just over 9,000 square feet, the Old Stone Mill is still structurally sound and its stone is still in fantastic shape. Despite the building’s good condition, it nevertheless poses certain architectural challenges for the renovation.
“It’s actually easier to design new buildings, generally speaking, but this one we really wanted to do because of its significance and its potential in the community,” said John McLeod, Assistant Professor of Architecture at Middlebury College. McLeod works on the Old Stone Mill renovation project with his firm McLeod Kredell Architects.
Seeing the falls and the mills as nurturing sources for the town of Middlebury and the college, McLeod felt it was “a chance to preserve and give a new life to a building that is a fundamental part of this place and this community.”
“The challenges are that, with any old building, things tend not to be square and plumb and level and clean and precise,” McLeod explained. “But what we are trying to do architecturally is really to honor and respect the historic building, and then have what’s new, especially on the inside, reveal that historical material and architecture and also have a conversation with it.”
After moving to Middlebury 15 years ago, McLeod spent the first three and a half years living in a little yellow house right across from the Old Stone Mill. Built at the same time as the mill, the house was the home of the miller.
“I always felt this connection and fondness towards the Old Stone Mill. I taught actually for a semester in the mill ... and my office is just up the hill a little bit from the Old Stone Mill. I see the building and walk by it every day. I have just always admired it architecturally,” said McLeod.
The renovation plan includes the installation of a new elevator, an outdoor dining space with a terrace, a bigger deck in the direction of the pedestrian footbridge and a revamp of two stair towers to make them more translucent.
Considering energy efficiency as part of a good architecture design, McLeod believes the renovation project will improve the energy performance of the building.
“The good thing is that ... thick stone walls are really good at dealing with fluctuations in the temperature throughout the day, and even throughout the seasons,” said McLeod, explaining that the thick stone walls help temper the climate in both cold and warm weather. They do plan, though, to improve efficiency by adding insulation in key areas such as the roof.
Previously part of the Old Stone Mill program of the college, the building provided a supportive space for many students to pursue non-academic, self-designed projects. The place served as an incubator for entrepreneurialism, creative passions and new ideas.
“Part of the beauty is that so many people use it for so many different things. We had one guy who wanted to store his computer to develop an app. He was the winner of MiddChallenge,” said Sarah Haedrich ’19.5, an environmental studies and geography major and a board member of the Old Stone Mill.
While the program is in transition to a new space and a rebranded name, Haedrich hopes that the kind of collaborative supportive creative energy will continue at the Old Stone Mill.
“It would be really cool for that space to be a good link ... for town people and students to interact and hopefully it can be an inviting space. People are working, and hopefully they are collaborating too, and new relationships can be formed,” Haedrich said.
“It’s a really cool old building that is right in the center of town, so it will be fun to see what they do with it,” said Erik Arvidsson ’21, a joint History and Political Science major and another board member.
“I think it’s great idea, especially because nicer Airbnb apartments probably get used by a lot of visiting parents and alumni. And hopefully CBV can provide the advice and support for the businesses that inhabit the space to stay afloat because I know there have been a lot of businesses going under and closing their doors in town,” continued Ardivsson.
According to Rainey, the college will have access to one of the vendor stalls in the public market and ten spaces in the coworking level for a period of ten years. Both Rainey and Cullinane wanted the building to continue providing a stage for student work as well as to support student lifestyle.
“It really is a local team, the owners, the contractor, we the architect, the engineers, everybody is part of this community, and everyone is excited to bring this online to invigorate what’s already a great downtown and really have an opportunity to bring the town and the college together,” said McLeod.
For any ideas, questions, and comments regarding the renovation plan, please contact CBV at connect@communitybarnventures.
(04/18/19 9:59am)
A few weeks ago, I watched a film with a friend at Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York. As we walked out of the cinema, I realized my eyes were dry from tearing up so much in the dark. My friend laughed at me quite heartlessly, though later she admitted shedding tears during the screening as well.
The film was “Ash is Purest White,” a 2018 drama film written and directed by Jia Zhangke, one of the leading figures of the Sixth Generation of Chinese cinema. Like several of Jia’s recent features including “24 City,” “A Touch of Sin” and “Mountains May Depart,” “Ash is Purest White” centers on marginalized characters who have no power over their individual lives as China enters the capitalist market and undergoes fundamental changes in its society.
In Jia’s typical semi-documentary style, the film unfolds the journey of Qiao (played by Zhao Tao), a quick-witted young woman, who saves the life of Bin, her gangster boyfriend, only to later discover his betrayal after she spends five years in jail in his place. The opening scene, in which the camera casually skims over passengers on a bus, takes the audience back in 2001 with old grainy footages shot in a 4:3 frame.
Situated in Datong, a northern mining city that is changing drastically, the first part of “Ash is Purest White” captures the absurdity of an old-fashioned underworld at its finest. When one of the gangsters aims the gun at another over a petty argument, the mob boss, Bin, simply appeases them with the presence of a gold statue of Guan Er Ye, an ancient general who was later regarded as a godlike figure of war. Gathered in a karaoke club, the gangsters pour nine different types of alcohol in one vessel before each scooping a bowl of the mixed drink to celebrate “loyalty and righteousness” in the underworld. Shortly after a member’s death, two fully dressed dancers are invited to perform ballroom dancing at the funeral in the dead’s honor.
All of those scenes contribute to bringing forward a real presence of the modern Chinese underworld, also known as jianghu, that may or may not be familiar to the audience. There are certain rules to be learned and values to be appreciated in this world. Even though Qiao is in a romantic relationship with this dangerously charming gangster, she does not quite understand how to navigate in jianghu and dreams of settling down with Bin one day in Xinjiang, a vast northwestern region in China. Therefore, it is not surprising that Qiao has to be the one who fires the gun to scare off a young rising gang that violently attacks Bin and claims the illegal gun only to receive nothing except for life behind the bars.
Five years later, in a ship on Yangtze River to Fengjie, Qiao embarks on her search for Bin. We hear the tour guide introducing the Three Gorges Dam project over the speaker, a real-life large-scale building project that resulted in rising water levels and resettlement of residents along the Yangtze River. Not only does this situate the audience within a larger historical context, the changes brought by the massive waves of construction also reflect the important personal changes Qiao has undergone in prison and her uncomfortable readjustment back into society. The scene where Qiao goes to the company of a previous gangster is full of displacement in time and space. Waving at the glass door several times, Qiao eventually gets frustrated by the unopened door that rejects her unwelcoming presence in this new world where Bin resides. It is only later when the receptionist opens the door from inside that Qiao gets a glimpse of the company and puts a plastic water bottle between the shutting doors. The squeezed and deformed water bottle mirrors Qiao’s situation in re-entering the society.
What fascinates me about Qiao’s character is her refusal to disclose her emotions on the screen. In a way, we never quite get to see her tears, and that emotional repression only adds to the poignancy in the scene when she confronts Bin with his betrayal. Qiao realizes that he has forgotten about their past and moved on to a new chapter of his life. She walks to the door and leaves her back to the audience. Her quivering shoulders are all we get. Just as her quivering eyelashes are depicted later in the film when she closes her eyes saying she has no feelings left for Bin, there is something touching about Zhao’s performance that does not downplay the character but rewards the audience with the greatest satisfaction with the slightest trace of her emotions.
Throughout the film, more often than not, the scene is tinged with different shades of green such as the furniture, the window frame and even the water flowing in a painting on the wall, etc. The color green is so vividly prevalent in not only “Ash is Purest White” but also many of Jia’s films that it is impossible not to notice. While this hue of green does add to the underworld feeling with an implied messy, murky chaos, it also transfixes the audience to the early time period portrayed in the film with nostalgia. It is almost always that Jia’s films present more than one time frame in modern China and fixate back in time as if the filmmaker himself lives in the past.
The final scene of the film recalls the opening scene. The audience sees Qiao through a security monitor, leaning against a wall. Blurring the line between past and present, the film leaves the audience to ponder upon this lingering question of time.
(01/24/19 10:58am)
Marcia Provoncha has started her work day the same way for 14 years — checking her emails, especially those from students — to keep up with the demands of her role as Middlebury’s Costume Shop director.
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Provoncha moved to Vermont with her parents when she was three and has lived most of her life here ever since. After learning how to sew in high school, Provoncha went to college for a couple of years, but decided to drop out because of financial reasons. Starting off at a local sewing studio for five years, Provoncha picked up finer sewing skills from the woman she was working for, and was later hired to manage another local weaving and sewing studio, where she stayed for another fifteen years before coming to Middlebury.
When there was a part-time job opening at the college, Provoncha did not feel confident that she would qualify. Despite her concerns about sewing costumes and about not having a higher educational background, Provoncha eventually gave it a try and applied for the job.
“They called me in for an interview and they wanted me to bring in things I had made, so I did, and they looked them all over and everything. Two days later, they called me and offered me the job,” Provoncha said.
Arriving at Middlebury with extensive experience in sewing garments for people, Provoncha discovered a totally different world in making costumes. Rather than a straightforward process of taking measurements, doing a mock-up, making slight adjustments, and then sewing the garment from beginning to end, making costumes is full of complex intricacies.
After completing all of these steps on a costume design, Provoncha has to wait for another round of fitting to make sure that every small piece of a costume is exactly where they should be, i.e. sleeves nicely sitting on the shoulders rather than dangling from a lower spot.
“You put the collar on after that. Closures, buttons, zippers, all that kind of stuff is last. And that’s not always the case when you are making one for someone who is not an actor,” Provoncha explained. “Another difference is that you leave a lot of seam allowances. Because you usually use those garments more than once on more than one actor, you want to make sure you have enough fabric in hand to let that garment out for a bigger person.”
Overseeing four major theater productions every year as well as managing costumes for the annual J-term musicals, providing help for student projects and various shows during summer language schools, supporting anyone from the school who needs costumes, Provoncha has become a walking costume carousel in the past fourteen years.
As someone randomly picks up a costume from thousands of the stock pieces hanging and turning downstairs on a carousel, Provoncha could easily tell you who wore it during what show, and even the size of it.
When asked about her secret, Provoncha said, “If you work on a garment so many times, you won’t forget.”
Every time there was a new theater production, it started a brand-new journey for Provoncha. The first show she worked on at Middlebury was “The Bewitched,” which takes place in the 1600s. The show only used period clothing, which involved corsets, bum rolls, great big dresses with huge hands for female characters and very fitted ornate costumes for males.
“That was probably one of my favorite shows. I love sewing period clothes. They are much more interesting than modern clothes,” Provoncha said. “Another one I loved working on for probably the opposite reason was called ‘St. Crispin’s Day.’”
With the story taking place in medieval times, the costumes had to look like medieval garments despite the fact that they were made new and fresh for the show.
“So, you are cutting them out, making them look brand new, and then you have to distress them to make them look like somebody has worn them for fifty years. So, you put holes on them on purpose, and you get them all dirty and ragged looking. [...] They all looked great, and they all looked crappy,” Provoncha said.
Occasionally, there were challenging costumes, and that was when the costume shop became a place of magic that turned the impossible into something that was real and beautiful.
Back in the spring of 2011, the costume designer for the production “Eurydice” had pictured for three of the female characters to be covered in all grey with dead babies or teddy bears.
“I ordered all of these baby dolls from a toy store. Then we sat in the costume shop, took them all apart, taking off the legs, arms, and heads, and we had to spray paint them all,” said Provoncha.
As thick as a baby doll could be, it was a great amount of work for Provoncha and the people working at the costume shop to sew each of the baby dolls onto a fat suit three times.
“They were amazing looking when they were done, but to keep sewing over and over again, trying to push a needle through a rubber baby doll into something else and making sure that it was secure was tough,” said Provoncha.
Stepping into her fourteenth and last year working at Middlebury, Provoncha said working with students was the highlight of her job. Not only the students who work and help out at the costume shop or the sewing studio, but also the ones who come in for fittings or who simply walk in for help in costumes.
Olivia Christie ’19, a theater major from Fairfield, Vermont who started interacting with Provoncha as a student actress during her first semester and then began working at the costume shop two years ago, described Provoncha as “a source of light and joy.”
“She taught me a lot of things to do with sewing, but a lot of her influence comes from just how kind she is,” Christie said. “She really cares about all of the students that come through, and that’s rare to have someone who is so ready and willing to be supportive, help you out, and do you a favor.”
Sophia (Ningxuan) Dong ’21, an IGS major from Ningbo, China, just started to work at the costume shop last fall. Besides feeling the serious and responsible side of Provoncha when working, Dong thought Provoncha more “like a grandmother,” who would listen to anything you say.
“She would give you candies. Sometimes, she treats you like a child. But that’s pretty cool because you just feel like you grow this type of bond with her and you would not be willing to disappoint her,” Dong said.
While looking forward to spending time gardening, visiting her children, and camping and travelling with her husband after retiring in May, Provoncha said the part she would miss the most was working with the students.
“The students keep me young. We listen to music all the time in the shop. That’s how I get to know who the latest bands are and everything. And to teach them something they don’t know how to do, and they are so proud that they have done that. That’s definitely the best part of the job,” Provoncha said.
“I just really enjoyed working with Marcia over the past four years, and I think a lot of people would say the same thing,” Christie said. “She just really cares about her students and about everybody’s well-being, which is really nice in a crazy competitive fast-paced place like Middlebury to have someone who is so there for you on the individual level.”
(01/24/19 10:56am)
Over the first weekend of the new year, at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in Swanton, Vt., two inmates’ lives were in grave danger due to drug overdoses.
Both inmates were unresponsive to verbal and physical stimuli and one was discovered with no pulse, Mike Touchette, Commissioner of the Department of Corrections, told The Campus.
According to Touchette, the two individuals were given Narcan, an overdose-reversal drug, and other first aid, with CPR given to the inmate without a pulse. After responding to first aid/CPR, both individuals survived and were able to return to the facility within 24 hours of their departure thanks to “the lifesaving efforts of the staff.”
“In overdose situations, seconds count,” Touchette said. Touchette was part of an initiative to increase access to Narcan in Vermont Corrections by extending permission to prison guards and workers, as well as shift supervisors and nursing staff, to carry the drug. “Allowing unit officers to carry and administer Narcan immediately could save a life,” he continued. “Though our typical emergency response times at all facilities is about ten to thirty seconds, a few seconds could make the difference.”
Department of Health Commissioner Mark Levine echoed this view and regarded the new policy as “incredibly wonderful.”
Levine couldn’t confirm whether the incident in Swanton was an opiate overdose; however, he said that there was absolutely no risk in using Narcan “anytime you would even think it is an opiate overdose,” as it would not hurt people and could save lives.
With the already established policy that increases access to Narcan for any citizens within the state — including first responders, private citizens, pharmacies, etc. — Vermont has become a progressive pioneer in dealing with the nation’s opioid crisis.
“The cornerstones for any state that wants to cope quickly and successfully with the opioid crisis is to have universal access to Narcan,” said Levine.
The Department of Health aims to provide treatment for anyone who requests it in a timely fashion without any prerequisites. The treatment is therefore accessible, individualized and considers context-specific questions.
Ever since former Governor Peter Shumlin’s powerful speech on the opioid crisis five years ago, progress has been made across various areas of the issue, including prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery.
“The one thing that we stand out for the most is that we do have a treatment system that now has no waiting list and has the capacity to treat anyone who wants to be treated,” said Levine.
According to Levine, while only one to two out of 10 people who have an opioid use disorder are in treatment nationwide, that number is somewhere between three or four in the state of Vermont. However, how to engage the rest of that state population and how to quickly and efficiently provide them with the treatment they need still remains one of the major dilemmas moving forward.
“A lot of people feel stigmatized,” continued Levine. “We have done our best trying to educate people about the changes [occurring] in brain chemistry and neurobiology, and that addiction is not a moral failing by any means.”
Over recent years the state has made efforts to build a more supportive recovery system to ensure that people have a complete recovery not only by receiving medication, but also by obtaining housing, transportation and employment.
A good recovery does not just mean “you are on medication treatment and cease taking drugs;” it also means having “a fully productive, gratifying life” and feeling “positive about yourself” as “a contributing member of the society,” Levine said.
Regarding the work ahead, Levine believes prevention is key.
Thomas Hanley, Chief of Police at Middlebury Police Department, supported a similar view. Attempting to go beyond drug use in tackling the opioid crisis, Hanley regards it more from a social perspective and tries to understand the many social causes behind.
“Why are these people using drugs to begin with? When we answer that question, we will be able to completely solve the problem,” said Hanley.
The opioid crisis demands our attention when it is estimated that up to 70 percent of the individuals with substance use disorders may also have an ongoing mental illness.
“If you figure out why someone develops a substance disorder in the first place, it’s often related to traumatic experiences earlier in life, which we call adverse childhood and adverse family experiences,” explained Levine. Among people who began using in their 20s, he explained, there is a trend of other substance use, including that of nicotine, alcohol, cannabis and more.
Although the State has made major advancements in resolving the opioid crisis, for Hanley it remains an important issue to address on a local level.
“You can’t just have some office say ‘let the federal government treat it,’” Hanley said. “It’s a local problem, they are local people, [and] we need to be responsible for that.”
(12/06/18 10:58am)
MIDDLEBURY — With another successful run that brought over 100 films to Middlebury this past August, the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival (MNFF) is now midway through its fourth year, presenting a new lineup of winter/spring screening series for the local audience. The series, which began in 2016 with only four films from January to April, has increased in popularity and expanded with one more film each year. This year it boasts its largest lineup yet, running from November 2018 to May 2019.
While the summer festival only selects and curates a limited number of films that are not yet widely distributed, the winter/spring series features commercially released films. However, Lloyd Komesar, the producer of MNFF, noted that “it is important to know that, again, we only show films by first- or second- time directors.”
Featuring a selection of five narratives and two documentary films, the winter/spring series this year has already kicked off with a screening of “Eighth Grade” on Friday, Nov. 16, and “Three Identical Strangers” is lined up for Friday, Dec. 14. Diverse in subject, technique and artistry, all of the seven films selected are well-layered and textured movies that will allow the audience to dig deep.
“Our goal is to present a diverse, very rich and compelling set of films that reach our audience in an emotional way and show outstanding work by new filmmakers,” Komesar explained.
As one of the brains behind MNFF, Komesar not only brings his experience of working in the film industry for nearly 30 years, but also endeavors to remain on the cutting edge of the industry by extensively watching and reading reviews about films coming out of major festivals.
“I have worked with Lloyd long enough now to know that he is always three steps ahead of everyone else. He is always thinking about new things and how to make things better. He is never satisfied, and I think that’s why he took on this incredibly ambitious idea and has actually made it work,” said Bill Burger, Vice President for Communications and Chief Marketing Officer at Middlebury College. He initially decided to support the festival four years ago and has also lent his support to the more recent winter series.
[pullquote speaker="LLOYD KOMESAR " photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Our goal is to present a diverse, very rich and compelling set of films that reach our audience in an emotional way and show outstanding work by new filmmakers.[/pullquote]
Both a fan and a patron of the films shown by MNFF, Burger has witnessed the growth of the festival in August and its larger cultural impacts on the community throughout the year. With the success of the summer film festival in attracting more filmmakers and raising both the number and quality of the films, the winter/spring series continues to cultivate an appetite for film in Middlebury.
“I noticed this [past] August that people were coming from further away than I had noticed in the past as the film festival became better known,” Burger commented, “and I think the winter commitment [that] brings it back during the long, dark winter is great for people in town, who sometimes are little starved for culture.”
Sas Carey, a local documentary filmmaker and a loyal audience of MNFF and its winter series, echoed Burger’s view.
“Every time I can, I go,” said Carey. “It really exposes the people here to something they may not see otherwise — both the film festival itself and the [winter/spring] screenings that have come over the last three years.”
Having benefited from the festival and the screenings by watching various ways of storytelling, Carey was especially touched by the poignancy captured in “Eighth Grade,” a coming-of-age narrative drama debut by director Bo Burnham.
“As we say, the director really nailed it. It really gives you a feeling of what eighth-graders are going through, and you could really feel empathy towards the girl in the movie,” Carey reflected. “There were times that the audience groaned, ... ‘Uhh,’ because it was just so painful.”
One of the two documentaries in this year’s lineup is “Three Identical Strangers,” which explores the story of three young men, triplets separated at birth who encounter each other later as college students.
“It feels sometimes you have access to some things that are only in bigger cities, because typically they don’t come to communities like Middlebury. Thinking of ‘Three Identical Strangers,’ if it weren’t for the festival and the commitment to doing it, we just wouldn’t have the opportunity,” said Burger.
The winter/spring series seeks to appeal to a wider range of audiences by speaking to people of all ages. The other documentaries in the series include “Chef Flynn,” which focuses on the journey of a 10-year-old child prodigy cook and his unique relationship with his mother, and “What They Had,” a narrative film featuring Hilary Swank and Michael Shannon, which captures scenes from a family in crisis, grappling with the past.
The series is also notable for the exceptional casts presented in each film.
“This year, I have a feeling that Melissa McCarthy may get an Academy Awards nomination for her work on ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ It’s that good,” Komesar emphasized. He added that another film, “Wildlife,” will be shown on Sunday, March 10. “Now, if you haven’t watched [‘Wildlife’], mark your calendar. [Carey Mulligan’s performance in] this film ... may get her a nomination for ... Best Actress.”
(11/29/18 10:55am)
“That’s what we need to do, step up, show up and break the silence,” said Senator Christopher Bray on Thursday, Nov. 15 as he introduced “Break the Silence” to the audience at the Town Hall Theatre. In the film, documentary filmmaker Willow O’Feral explored sexual reproductive justice and gender justice by featuring reproductive and sexual health stories of a diverse group of 17 women from Brattleboro, Vermont.
“Break the Silence” was not a project formed by chance, but a project born as a direct response to the presidential election two years ago. A few weeks after the election, O’Feral came together with a group of women and formed the Women’s Action Team, a feminist collective in Brattleboro. As the group was discussing ways to protect women’s autonomy over their own bodies and lives, storytelling came naturally to their discussion.
“We were talking about how storytelling was so visceral and core to [changing] people’s hearts and minds,” said O’Feral during the panel discussion after the screening. “Hearing someone expressing their lived experience with vulnerability, it is really hard to be judgmental.”
Starting the project with no funding, O’Feral was constrained by the limited tools available in her little studio. However, with only one white backdrop, one camera, one tripod, one light and one lavalier microphone, O’Feral managed to record authentic voices of women who shared candidly some of their most personal, intimate and vulnerable experiences, discussing topics such as their first time having sex, birth control, abortion, sexual assault and pregnancy. Though produced under technical constraints, the result was more than powerful.
For Lucy Leriche, Vice President of Public Policy at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and one of the three panelists at the discussion, it was not the first time seeing “Break the Silence.” Nonetheless, it moved her to tears just as it had the first time she watched it.
“What really strikes me about this is that people are letting themselves [be] so vulnerable. There is so much shame in so many of those stories, but the courage of the people enabled them to tell their stories, to overcome that shame, and to rip through it to survive,” Leriche said.
The style of simplicity not only corresponded to those stories, but cultivated a raw and powerful intimacy throughout the interviews presented in the film and let the stories tell themselves. By zooming in and out during the interviews, O’Feral let the camera mirror the story and allowed the audience to “become intimate with the person when she is revealing a vulnerable part of her story.”
“When I could tell someone was getting to an emotional part of their story, I usually zoomed in so that you felt more intimate, and zoomed out when she was telling the background or the context of the story,” O’Feral said.
O’Feral had difficulty putting together a representative group of women with a broad diversity of age, race, experience, economic background and gender and sexuality experiences.
“It is a feminine project, so I wanted cis women, trans women, women of color, white women, young and old women, women who have more or less money, coming from privileges or no privileges,” O’Feral explained.
With the first five or six volunteers, who were all white, middle-class, straight women, on board, O’Feral realized that she needed to seek out different kinds of women, and it took her a while to feel comfortable approaching people and asking them to be part of the project.
“I felt a little awkward approaching women of color and saying, ‘Can you please be part of my project because I want to include women of color?’ I felt I was targeting them racially. But all of them were so happy that I wanted to be diverse. Every woman of color I asked said yes,” she said with a smile.
O’Feral reached out to transgender women in the community as well. One of the trans women featured in the film actually turned O’Feral down when she first reached out, but eventually was touched by her patience and persistence at her third approach months later. O’Feral’s efforts and persistence were worthwhile, as she gained trust in the local transgender community and more people came to her with their stories.
After the screening, the response from the audience was incredible. Several community members, who were all women, stepped forward one after another and shared their own stories or concerns with the panelists and the rest of the audience. One of the overarching themes from their response was the shared concern over the younger generations about how to educate them to have a healthy view of sex and gender.
Kerri Duquette-Hoffman, the executive director at WomenSafe, was another panelist at the discussion. As a mother of three kids, Duquette-Hoffman related to that concern.
“What strikes me about this film is that it is 2018 and people are still so hurt,” Duquette-Hoffman said. “I think [the] first thing we can do is to be curious, and learn, and educate our children to make sure kids know the boundaries, have empathy building skills and understand one another.”
While some of the icebreaker questions during the interviews included, “What was your first sexual experience?,” “What was sex like at home or at school or at religious institutions?,” etc., O’Feral never asked about sexual assault or rape. However, when asked about their first sexual experiences, half of the 17 women featured in the film said that their first sexual experience was being raped.
“So near the end of the project, I was like, God, I want to hear about really great sex, excellent, consensual, enthusiastic sex, and I started to pivot towards not just fight[ing] the world that is threatening, but [building] the world we want,” said O’Feral.
The last woman O’Feral interviewed was Sheila. Starving for more positive stories at the end of the process, O’Feral asked Sheila about her first orgasm rather than her first sexual experience, which led to the opening of the film — Sheila sharing a happy sex experience. Even though that did result in an unwanted pregnancy, Sheila said she never regretted the sex.
When asked about Sheila and her positive sex experience, O’Feral said, “I interviewed her for two hours, and she sobbed through almost all of it. And this is the one happy story in that whole interview. I decided to choose that one because I felt like she was so raw and vulnerable in the rest of her interview and it did not feel right to present her as a broken person as I can see her beauty and strength in this story.”
(04/11/18 11:43pm)
Classical musician Caroline Shaw visited Middlebury College on April 10 and 11, offering engaging discussions as well as innovative performance. At age 30, she became the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013. Thanks to the Rothrock Family Fund for Experiential Learning in the Performing Arts, Annie Beliveau ’18 and Tevan Goldberg ’18 developed a thoughtful and detailed proposal, which was selected by a group of students listed as Performing Arts Series Society (PASS) Scholars and won the opportunity to bring Caroline Shaw to Middlebury.
Ever since the program was launched in 2011, the Rothrock Family Fund has stimulated a greater interest and engagement among students over the years in contributing to the artistic life on campus. Students have not only proposed thoroughly-planned residencies for artists of interest, they have also voted during the selection part of the process.
“It is a good system because the PASS scholars vote on who will come, so it is really meant to be student chosen, student organized,” Beliveau said.
According to Allison Coyne Carroll, director for the Performing Arts Series, the annual proposal process is open to any Middlebury student each fall and offers an opportunity for students to learn more about arts administration, especially the work behind the scenes in presenting performances and residencies.
Beliveau, a Music major with a French minor, first saw a poster about this opportunity and then came up with the idea of the residency of Caroline Shaw. Beliveau first learned about Caroline Shaw as the winner of Pulitzer Prize from a magazine cover at her doctor’s office and Goldberg recalled his excitement the first time listening to Caroline Shaw’s music when he was studying composition at an arts boarding school.
“My friends sat me down in a chair and made me listen to it, I was like, this is the craziest thing I ever heard,” Goldberg said. “She was the the youngest winner of the Pulitzer Prize and her piece also reflected how innovative she was.”
While Carroll, along with Arts Events Manager Shannon Bohler and Series Intern Nadani Dixon ’20 played an advisory role to ensure the success in planning the residency, Carroll was especially impressed by the enthusiasm and passion in Beliveau and Goldberg’s proposal.
“As most winning proposals have in common, Annie and Tevan clearly articulated their enthusiasm for Ms. Shaw’s work and the unique value of bringing her to campus,” Carroll said. “They planned well in advance, understood the proposal process and asked me and my experienced colleagues at the MCA lots of questions.”
As students who are passionate for the classical vocal genre, both Beliveau and Goldberg wanted to get an insider take from Caroline Shaw about her personal career path in music.
“If I was going to continue singing in this specific genre, Caroline Shaw would be the person that I would want to emulate the most,” Goldberg said. “As a 21st century classical musician, she is very forward-looking, very actively playing and composing and works in different genres.”
In addition to planning Caroline Shaw’s visit to different classes, public concert and consulting with student composers on their works in progress, Beliveau and Goldberg also chose relevant topics for Caroline Shaw’s two discussions to engage more students: “blurring genre boundaries in music-making” and “the role of women in music.”
“For the main discussion “From Pulitzer to Kanye,” we chose the Kanye label because that is going to be the one that perks people’s ears, especially for those who are not familiar with contemporary classical music,” Goldberg said. “It will show people that this is still a genre with lots of vitality and contemporary relevance and interest them in more of Shaw’s real concert works besides her collaboration with Kanye West.”
Besides this public discussion on Tuesday, Caroline Shaw also offered an informal lunch discussion with Middlebury students about the historical role of women in classical music and their efforts in breaking through the musical glass ceiling in their contemporary work.
Not only did Caroline Shaw’s two-day residency at Middlebury benefit the lives of many student artists, it also enriched the value of artistic engagement and enhanced the artistic life on campus.
(03/08/18 1:03am)
MONTPELIER — On Wednesday, Feb. 21, the ban on holding or participating in coyote-killing tournaments passed the Vermont House on a vote of 79–45. It now sits in the Senate Natural Resources Committee for further action. The ban was included as an amendment in a major bill on fish and wildlife that passed the House.
Under the amendment, penalties for violation of the ban will include a fine up to $1,000 and 60 days in jail for first-time offenders and a fine of $4,000 for second-time offenders. In deciding whether to support or remove the ban, the House’s debate moved beyond concerns about protecting the coyote population. It also touched upon the social interactions of wild animals with Vermont citizens in general and the significance of hunting culture in the state.
Republican Representative Brian Smith, who has resided and advocated in the small town of Derby in Orleans County, has firsthand concerns about the growing population of coyotes in Vermont and the potential danger brought by the close proximity of coyotes to human beings in rural areas. Smith said that he recently shot a coyote only 400 yards behind a deer at the back of his house.
“There are many more [coyotes] than there used to be ten years ago,” said Rep. Smith. “I can hear them within 500 yards of my house, and it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.”
Known to be one of the smartest and most cunning creatures in Vermont, coyotes “eat everything,” “live everywhere” and often howl at night, leaving people with a mystical yet haunting sound.
“Once in a while, one starts screaming and the other will get into fights with its brothers. And the parents get in and they all start howling at each other,” Rep. Smith said. “Or they will get a baby rabbit or a dead raccoon. And they will fight over it. You never know what they are doing.”
Smith believes there are too many coyotes right now and that they do not contribute to the overall ecosystem in any ways other than devouring animals and getting into the garbage.
“There are only a few, very very few, groups that hunt these coyotes and create contests,” Rep. Smith noted. “I don’t see any harm in 25 or 30 coyotes going out or having a fun day or fun weekend of hunting. It’s not affecting anybody.”
With two or three courses during the winter, these coyote-killing competitions are not constant and usually last for one day or one weekend. In comparison to “real hunts,” Smith regards the coyote tournaments as more of a social event or an occasion for people to gather together.
“I don’t believe the non-hunting community understands what these hunts are all about: a bunch of real good people that are very conscientious sportsmen,” Smith said. “They are hunting an animal that is a lot smarter than they are. So the chances of succeeding are very, very slim. It makes for a pretty good gathering of a good bunch of people.”
In contrast, Rep. David Deen, the chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife, supports the ban. “This type of contest violates the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation that has guided our actions in wildlife conservation since the mid 1800s,” said Rep. Deen.
The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation that Deen mentioned was set in the 1800s by hunters and anglers to set certain limits in order to manage wild habitats and protect wildlife.
“The particular principal violated would be: ‘wanton waste of killing an animal must have a purpose and the animal should be used.’ A dead coyote stacked to see whose pile is the highest is not appropriate use of the animal,” Deen said.
According to the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department website, eastern coyotes are not only “incredibly adaptable” as relative newcomers to Vermont, but have also become “successful predators” among the established fauna of Vermont.
“They have become one of the top predators and that means they have a vital role in a healthy ecosystem,” Rep. Deen said.
While the original penalty section of the bill includes a maximum 60 days in jail, it was later removed in the final approved version on Thursday afternoon. Although Deen acknowledged the shortage of time in preparing for the jail-time penalty, he also stressed the seriousness of the crime behind coyote-killing competitions.
However, some House members disagree with the proposed degree of punishment. In an article in Valley News, supporter of the ban Rep. Susan Buckholz expressed her disapproval at the tough penalty of the bill. “This is not something that the judiciary and corrections should have to deal with,” Rep. Buckholz said in an interview. “This is something new, and an animal that you can take out any time during the year. To send somebody to jail for this is beyond me.”
Vermont Public Radio estimated that there are 6,000 to 9,000 coyotes in Vermont. Prior to the ban, there were no time restrictions for hunting them within the state. While some argue that there is a potential danger imposed by the growing population of coyotes and that there is a social pleasure in gathering during these competitions, others aim for an ecosystem that is protected more greatly by wildlife conservation and a paradigm shift of the hunting culture in Vermont.