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(09/26/19 10:00am)
Here at Arts & Academics, we spend our time in the newsroom covering the cultural happenings on campus. But what about the latest phenomena in the online world?
These topics often enter our conversations while editing the section, and we thought it was about time to let you all in on the fun. Each week, one of us assigns a current pop culture moment, whether it be a music release or fashion style, and we’ll each share our thoughts.
This week, Elsa brought us to a CrossFit class on campus.
EK: What better bonding activity for our section than mutual suffering? CrossFit has been part of the repertoire of fitness Instagram and lifestyle magazines for some time now, so when a source in my Russian class encouraged me to join CrossFit, I knew it belonged in this column. The setup of the workout is simple: first, a group warmup, then 10 to 20 minutes of hardcore working out. It can’t be that bad, right?
False. By the last round of our glute-focused circuit, I was mentally going through every swear word in the Finnish language (of which there are a lot). Even so, all the frustration vanished the second time was called. The post-workout endorphins hit hard. Special thanks to the coaches for the high fives and can-do atmosphere — this was a good introduction.
SB: I’ve never been more sore in my entire life. As someone who doesn’t ever lift weights, I was really nervous about this workout. “Doing CrossFit” is a status marker that some really athletic people wear like a badge. As we headed over we joked that we wanted to stand in the back the whole time, “for journalistic purposes,” but really because we were scared of standing out. However, I felt very supported and encouraged by all the student trainers and never felt judged. For anyone who is nervous about their fitness level and being judged by other students in the class — don’t be! Every- one else is in so much pain during the workouts they don’t even notice what anyone else is doing. I think I’ll go back, but only once my body recovers.
AQ: There’s a certain stereotype I think of when someone mentions CrossFit — images of intimidating muscle-men and women double sting protein shakes come to mind. The atmosphere of rapport in the class, however, convinced me otherwise, though the class was definitely challenging. But who would’ve known — doing box-jumps brought out a competitive side in me that I never even knew existed. What can I say? We’re converts.
Classes take place weekly on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at 4:30pm and 5:30pm in the indoor tennis courts in the Nelson Recreation Center.
(09/12/19 10:04am)
So, you want to be a Broadway star? For a few chosen Middlebury students, this dream becomes a reality each summer with the Potomac Theatre Project.
The Potomac Theatre Project, or PTP/NYC, is a Middlebury Theatre Department program that allows undergraduate students to be a part of the professional theatre world while still studying at the college. The project was founded in 1987 by Professors Cheryl Faraone, Richard Romagnoli and Boston University Professor Jim Petosa who were “determined to establish a dynamic and provocative company that would also provide a bridge to professional theatre for aspiring young students,” according to the company’s website. Students work alongside Actor’s Equity professionals and professors on two different productions that run in an Off-Broadway theatre in New York City for five weeks throughout the summer.
This program is unique to Middlebury and cannot be found at any other liberal arts college. Students are able to see what the “real world” of professional theatre is like while working with established actors and learning from their professors. Many of the Actor’s Equity professionals are Middlebury alumni who were originally students at PTP.
Students audition for the two summer productions at the college in a more personal setting than others in the industry. Zachary Varricchione ’21 said this was a major draw for him to do the program because he knew how other students had to deal with “huge cattle-call type auditions” to work in professional theater. The addition of having the program led by Middlebury professors made his decision even more clear. “To have a program that’s run by your own professors with intimate auditions is almost unheard of,” he said.
Madeline Ciocci ’20, who has been a part of PTP for two summers, says that the special connections between students and Equity actors are also what make the program so impactful. “It’s really exciting to get to know them, their craft, and their process, to learn from them.”
Varricchione said that observing the professionals at work contributed to “some of the biggest artistic growth I had this summer...[they] really inspired me to do my best and take some of their habits to raise my work to a higher caliber.”
Students at PTP are incorporated into every facet of the production, not just performing onstage. The entire cast and crew work together to help with marketing, business planning, and even set and costume design.
This deep-dive into the intensity of the Off-Broadway world is eye-opening and exciting for students who have been involved in theater previously. “I’ve been doing theatre for almost my whole life, but not until I did PTP did I understand not only how much emotional work theatre can be, but also how exhausting it can be in a physical sense,” Ciocci said. “It’s a life that’s totally and completely exciting, but also one that takes a wild amount of constant energy and commitment.”
The added responsibilities involved in being a member of the company is more realistic to what the professional world is like, which Varricchione appreciated coming from a college theater setting. At shows at the college, cast and crew members often have their designated roles with not that much overlap. PTP is more the “classic theater company experience, where the actors are in charge of run crew, and building sets, and everything else,” said Varricchione.
This season, the company put on two productions, “Dogg’s Hamlet,” “Cahoot’s Macbeth,” two plays often performed together by Tom Stoppard and “Havel: The Passion of Thought,” written by Harold Pinter, Václav Havel and Samuel Beckett. “Dogg’s Hamlet” is a play where three young boys try to confuse a driver by speaking “Dogg,” a language that is comprised of English words that mean the opposite of what speakers are used to. The play then turns into a 15-minute interpretation of “Hamlet.” The same cast also performed “Cahoot’s Macbeth,” which consists of actors performing Macbeth in a controlling state while under surveillance by a hidden government agent.
The other cast performed “Havel: The Passion of Thought,” which is composed of five one act plays that expose the challenges living in an oppressive Communist state. These plays were once considered so controversial that they were banned in Czechoslovakia, leaving actors to perform them in private homes and distribute them illegally.
This season’s choice of plays is in line with PTP’s focus on art that critically examines the world outside of the theater. On their website, the organization states how since its inception, PTP’s work has “addressed the necessity and difficulty of art, homelessness, censorship, pornography, AIDS, totalitarianism, apartheid and gender wars -- always in passionate, deeply human terms.”
When asked about what he wanted audiences to take away from “Dogg’s Hamlet” and “Cahoot’s Macbeth,” Varricchione said that the cast hoped that “the audience would think about how their actions have been complicit and how they have been resistant to oppressive systems today.”
Ciocci, a member of the “Havel” cast, felt that when she was “working on this set of plays that investigates resistance and dissidence under an oppressive regime, it’s impossible to not think about how timely the content feels.”
She elaborated on a specific moment in the play where a character, Stanekova is forced to decide whether or not to protest a fellow artist’s incarceration because of his activism or to “continue to subtly fight while existing within an unethical system.” She felt that this crisis when deciding which way to act against oppression to be relevant in today’s world where “it’s not clear which actions will yield the best results, and which actions you’ll be able to live with and respect yourself for.”
PTP co-founder, co-artistic director, director of “Dogg’s Hamlet,” “Cahoot’s Macbeth” and Chair of the Theatre Department Cheryl Faraone stated in the season’s introduction video that these plays are “the best kind of theatre; it makes you think, and it makes you feel, which has been kind of a PTP mantra for most of our 33 years.”
(09/13/18 9:56am)
The Media Portrayals of Minorities Project is a research lab working to uncover the ways that media outlets cover minority groups around the world. Erik Bleich, professor of Political Science, has been researching this topic since 2012, using tone analysis and computer programs to study the different ways that minorities are represented in the print media.
Along with Bleich, Professor A. Maurits van der Veen at the College of William & Mary is a co-director of the project. The project also includes undergraduate student researchers, who can take a Winter Term course to study the methods and technologies necessary to conduct this work. Many students choose to continue their work in Bleich’s research lab during the academic year.
On the project’s website, staff write that the goal of their work is to “track and explain how and why media representations of groups shift over time, vary across place, or compare to one another.”
Previous topics that the project has studied include an analysis of the differences in the reports on sexual violence and misconduct during the so-called Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the varying words that media outlets use to describe Jews and Catholics.
At the moment, Bleich and members of the lab are writing a book about the way that Muslims are portrayed in the United States and across the world. They use newspaper databases like Lexis-Nexis, Factiva and ProQuest to gather articles, which they then run through a computer program to identify articles containing keywords associated with Islam.
Then, they study the tone of articles and determine whether they are positive or negative. This allows them to identify trends related to the overall portrayal of Muslims, or any minority group, in the media.
Bleich was inspired to start this project when researching Islamophobia and was curious if there was a way it could be quantified in media outlets. After he began working with students on this assignment, they were motivated to use their techniques to study other groups on a broader scale.
Asked about the media’s impact on people’s perceptions of minority groups, Bleich said that “most citizens do not have frequent or meaningful encounters with people that are very different from themselves, so their impressions are often formed primarily through the media.” He further explained that often these impressions “shape the interactions we have in society as a whole.”
Julien Souffrant ’19 said that his work at the project “was rewarding in the fact that it allowed me to do work that I believe could serve as a significant contribution to the field of politics and towards the conversation of media’s representation of minorities.”
While the Project has been working on some of these topics for many years, their evidence suggests that the media’s depiction of some minority groups has not changed much since the program began. Bleich said that articles about groups such as Muslims and Latinx people have not altered drastically over time, while articles about sexual assault have seen great changes in wording and tone since the time of Monica Lewinsky.
According to the piece on sexual violence and misconduct posted this month on the Project’s website by Mira Chugh ’20, news outlets are now more frequently using language that “frames [sexual violence] as a more systemic issue,” rather than an incidental one.
Bleich said that often their end results are often different than they originally anticipated. Given that members of the lab are constantly surprised by the outcomes, Bleich hopes that students can learn from their work that “all of our assumptions need to be tested before we can be sure they are right.”
More info on the lab can be found at mediaandminorities.org.
(04/18/18 11:16pm)
On Thursday April 12 through Saturday April 14 the Middlebury College Musical Players Club performed “Spring Awakening” at the Town Hall Theater. The production, which focuses on the sexual frustration and the overall disillusionment with society that a group of teenagers experience in nineteenth19th -century Germany, was entirely student run: everyone from, as the director to members of the pit orchestra are all students at the College.
The play’s central themes are the angst that is created when misunderstood, ignored, young people are misunderstood and ignored and what happens when they become aware of the issues in the society that they take part in.
Director Olivia Christie ’19 said that the play is about the times “in every young person’s life where they start learning things that will absolutely and forever change who they are.”
These young people are dealing with that awkward and tense part of their lives where they constantly feel they are on the brink of new life experiences. The play opens with Wendla, played by Haley Goodman ’21, asking her mother how women can get pregnant. Her mother evades the question and tells Wendla that a woman can only get pregnant if she is in love with her husband. This scene sets up the entire play in its demonstration of the stark division between adult figures and curious children. Arguably, this interaction and lack of information for Wendla causes the serious turn of events that affect many of the characters throughout the play and highlights the importance of honesty and respect between parents and children.
Other problems that the characters face are the crippling pressure of standardized schooling and demands of teachers and administrators for children to perform to a prescribed level. Audiences are made to sympathize with the characters as they struggle to accept and learn about themselves while they are failing in academic settings and, as explained to them by their parents, damaging their families’ reputations.
The play also sheds light onto stories of abuse in its many forms. The audience learns that no one knows the details of what happens behind closed doors in this small town. The children are forced to face thisese fact,s and it causes them to question the authority and simplicity of life that they have come to know.
The division between adults and children is highlighted in many ways in this play, as the disparity and lack of understanding between the two is what causes many of the children’s problems. Their feeling of being alone and ostracized by the adults in their lives is a relatable problem, both when the play was written in 1891 and today.
All of the adults are played by two actors, Daniel Fulham ’21 and Paige Guarino ’18.5. This choice demonstrates the fact that all adults in this society treat the children in very similar ways. The children are separated on multiple fronts from their parents and their teachers and while that causes them to feel lost, it does allow for deep bonds between them and their peers.
While this play deals with suicide, abuse, death, sexual frustration and the questioning of identities, the audience is given the opportunity to grapple with these problems through the beauty of the music. These topics are at times dark and harrowing, but the music and choreography allows for expression of these ideas in a manner that demonstrates the gravity of these situations while adding the youthful energy that lies in each of the characters.
“Spring Awakening” tells the story of children coming into an adult world that is often inhospitable and unknown to them. The trials that these characters are forced to experience demonstrate how the ways in which adults try to shield and protect children often place them in situations that put them further in harm’s way.
Through the troubles of these children, audiences can see the ways in which people of all ages can help young people make the transition from ignorant bliss of youth to awareness in adulthood. Overall, this play shines a light on the resilience of children in the face of the mysterious and corrupt adult world and how we can all do better as a society bringing children and teenagers into a world that is welcoming for them.
(04/11/18 11:45pm)
From Thursday April 5 through Saturday April 7, the Department of Theatre and Dance presented “The Wolves,” a play written by Sarah DeLappe and directed at the college by Michole Biancosino.
The piece centers on the lives of teenage soccer players as they struggle through their indoor season and their tumultuous personal lives. The play only features female characters on the simple stage of the soccer field, but speaks to so much more than just the game.
“The Wolves” premiered in 2016 in New York City, where it was met with rave reviews and was a 2017 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
DeLappe wrote the piece in order to tell the story of girls as “human beings -- as complicated, nuanced, very idiosyncratic people who weren’t just girlfriends.”
In the work, she displays girls who are “athletes and daughters and students and scholars and people who [are] trying actively to figure out who they [are].”
The play is strongest in its honesty about what it is like to be a young woman surrounded by peers during a period of time where social interactions are so important.
The juxtaposition of the light-hearted chats and deep conversations that these girls have underscores relatability of the play and its characters.
Listening in on their discussions that range from atrocious genocides to their opinions about the timeless pads-versus-tampons debate are so familiar to many women that the work does not even seem like a play but more like watching real life unfold on stage.
DeLappe includes many aspects of teenage girls’ experiences in this play that are often ignored. These girls grapple with eating disorders, sexual harassment, social anxiety, the looming pressure of college, problems with parents and tensions amongst friends during times when their lives are constantly changing.
These narratives hit close to home for many women, so it is shocking to realize how revolutionary it is to see them highlighted as the main plot for a play.
At the heart of this piece are the relationships that these girls have with each other in various contexts. On one hand, they are teammates that work together in order to achieve their goal of doing well in their indoor season as well as their individual goals of playing college soccer.
The conflict between team mentality and personal ambition strikes hard at the dynamics amongst these girls and demonstrates their competitiveness and determination.
Additionally, these girls are not only teammates, but friends that have been together for many years. They clearly have a strong bond and know intimate details about each other that they take advantage of for laughs or, during conflict, for injury. These girls are at times immature and cruel to each other, whether unknowingly or on purpose. One of the characters, identified by her number 46 and played by Ursula Alwang ’20, is new to the team and is ostracized for her uniqueness and the fact that they think she lives in a yogurt (in reality she lives in a yurt). Seeing these challenging moments of bullying on stage reminds the audience of the pain that comes when girls do not support each other.
One of the most harrowing scenes of the play is when number 00, played by Hannah Mohamed Abdelaal ’21, has an anxiety attack. She comes onto the stage in tears and begins hitting soccer balls against the wall in frustration and panic. Unable to contain her emotions, she has to scream into her shirt in order to release all of the feelings she has been repressing.
This scene forces the audience to witness what many girls lock away and do not share with the world, that the struggles in their lives are sometimes too much to handle and everything comes to a breaking point.
At the height of their most divisive moments, the girls are forced to overcome tragedy. While they despair, they also find the opportunity to unite in ways that before the tension between them would not permit. They are able to recognize their shared strength once they relate to each other and see that they are all wrestling with the same pain.
The play ends with them chanting their cheer “We are the Wolves! We are the Wolves!” multiple times with increasing bravado. This unifying cheer signifies their growth as individuals that have the ability to come together and support one another, as the cheer is strongest when all of their voices form into one forceful sound. At the end of the cheer they break apart and look to the audience with faces of determination and confidence, demonstrating how their bond has allowed them to grow into strong women.
“The Wolves” shows what greatness can happen when women support each other. This play demonstrates the challenging issues that girls are forced to face in our society and the ways in which girls can relate to and help each other through dark times. The value of this work is that it exhibits the problems in our society that are so deeply ingrained but rarely talked about.
The play also inspires women to look at the power of the wolf packs that they take part in, whatever form they may be.
(11/30/17 12:22am)
From Nov. 30 to Dec. 2, the Middlebury Department of Theater will present Will Eno’s 2010 play, “Middletown,” directed by Alex Draper ’88. Inspired by “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder, the play, according to the New York Times, is a “delicate, moving and wry amble along the collective road to nowhere”, and one “that glimmers from start to finish with tart, funny, gorgeous little comments on big things: the need for love and forgiveness, the search for meaning in life, and the long, lonely ache of disappointment.”
Eno, who has been described as the Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation, is the author of “Thom Pain: Based on Nothing” (Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005) and “The Realistic Joneses” (Drama Desk award winner in 2014). “Middletown” was awarded the inaugural Horton Foote Award for Most Promising New Play in 2010.
The play explores the intricacies, troubles and values of small town American life, framed by the lives of ordinary people. As a newcomer to Middletown finds her way, she and the audience are introduced to a cast of characters who are all seeking love, connection and inspiration. Poignant and funny, “Middletown” delves into the complex worlds of language and human connection as the lives of the residents intermingle in touching and fantastic ways.
The show stars, in order of appearance, Madeleine Russell ’19, Sam Martin ’19, Miguel Castillo ’17.5, Connor Wright ’18, Shannon Gibbs ’18, Victoria Isquith ’19, Lynn Travnikova ’20, Will Lupica ’18, Noah Liebmiller ’17.5, Olivia Christie ’19, Stephanie Miller ’20, and Asher Brown ’19.5.
“Middletown” will open this Thursday at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are available through the Box Office. Prices are $12 for for faculty and staff, $6 for students and $15 for the general public.
(11/09/17 12:42am)
On Friday Nov. 3 in Mead Memorial Chapel, the world-famous a cappella group, The King’s Singers, returned to Middlebury after their first performance in 2015. Marking the beginning of their 50th anniversary world tour, the Grammy Award-winning group filled the chapel with beautiful harmonies and melodies to old and new songs.
In 1968, six choral scholars and recent graduates of King’s College in Cambridge formed the King’s Singers. The group consisted of two counter tenors, one tenor, two baritones and one bass. Throughout the years the singers themselves have changed, but these roles have remained the same.
After building up a fan base across the United Kingdom and around the world, the group began performing on television shows such as “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” and in concert venues such as the Sydney Opera House and Carnegie Hall. They have received two Grammy Awards for their recorded albums and one Emmy Award. Since their founding, they have embarked on many world tours to bring their love of music across the globe.
To celebrate their 50 years as a vocal group, the Singers began a grand world tour that ranges from across the United States all the way to New Zealand.
Dubbing this anniversary year their “GOLD” season, all work produced by the group in this year including their book, album and tour “[celebrates] the amazing musical heritage of The King’s Singers, and also looks at the bright future of vocal music in all of its forms” according to their website.
The concert in Mead took the audience through time with diverse choices of music. The group not only sang in English, but also devoted an entire selection to French songs by Francis Poulenc. The audience reveled in “The Prayer of King Henry VI” by Henry Ley and the song “M.L.K.” by U2. The group chose this song to pay homage to Martin Luther King, Jr., who was killed the year the group was founded.
A major goal for the group is to elaborate on global unity through music. Part of the group’s opening selection was “We Are” by Bob Chilcott, which preaches that, “we are more alike than we are unalike.” In our national and local state of affairs, hearing the upbeat and energetic tune from foreigners brought an air of happiness and inclusivity to the performance. The focus of unity during an a cappella performance functions in many ways because the art form itself is based on the perfect unison and equal distribution of voices in order to create a beautiful rendition of music for all to enjoy.
The Singers also emphasize the importance of education and community outreach with their performances. After their concert, they encouraged all members of the audience to come up and their their thoughts about their music.
In a blog post on their website talking about their Middlebury concert, baritone Christopher Gabbitas detailed how the group’s focus on education “has opened up a whole new avenue of outreach that allows us to connect with singers young and old alike, to further our message that everyone has a voice and should use it as much as possible!”
A broad range of ages came out to support the performance. Members of Middlebury’s own a cappella groups were in attendance, as well as young children and adults in the community.
A love of music brought together all these groups of people, demonstrating the harmonies that it can create across backgrounds.
(10/04/17 11:55pm)
On Sunday, Oct. 1, the Town Hall Theater hosted “I Rise,” a performance fundraising-awareness event for WomenSafe in collaboration with MiddSafe and the college Department of Theater and Dance. The goal of the event was to raise money and awareness about the struggles of domestic violence within Addison County and demonstrate the work that WomenSafe does for the community. For members of WomenSafe this event was powerful because it “gave voice to survivors” of domestic abuse.
The topic of domestic abuse hits close to home for many people. Sadly, it is a common occurrence in our society that many have direct or indirect connections with its horrors. For this reason, each performance brought the audience closer to the message, allowing them to think of their own personal experiences with domestic abuse or the experiences of those dear to them.
The program started with “Behind the Wall” a performance art and dance piece that demonstrated through jagged, physical, and suffocating movements the atrocities that happen in abusive households behind closed doors. The dancers, students from the dance department, moved with pain in a way that removed themselves from the audience and from their fellow dancers, a feeling that rings true for many people who have been abused and feel alone in the world. The music rang out in the background, a poetic voice lamenting the difficulties of understanding how to help those who are being hurt in their own homes. The narrative continued to tell how police often do not want to interfere with affairs between a man and his wife, demonstrating how in an abusive situation a woman may not be perceived as an independent person but rather the property of a man. The dancers’ hurried movements and sounds of suffocation left the audience feeling helpless to the pain that they were visualizing.
To inform the audience about broad qualifications and demographics of sexual violence, four MiddSafe volunteers came on to the stage to perform “Why,” a performance art piece that used the dancers’ bodies and relation to each other on the stage to display the statistics of who will become victims of sexual violence in their lifetime. This piece was especially harrowing because it sought to bring faces to those statistics of who will experience domestic violence.
After every statistic was read, the dancers would step out to represent within their group who would be the ones to fall victim to sexual violence. What was so moving about this piece was that after every fact was read and each girl stepped out as a representation of victims of domestic abuse, the other girls would in some way reach out to the one affected, displaying an act of female solidarity and recognition of pain.
The most personal of all the performances was “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” written by Kelly Sundberg and performed by members of the theater department. Several girls came out on stage to tell the story of one abusive relationship from beginning to end, each telling different parts that ranged from past to present, interweaving the narrative of this complicated love story. This shed light onto the multidimensional aspects of abusive relationships — it not only detailed the woman hiding under the bed in fear of her husband, but also told stories of the couple emailing each other funny videos at work and laying in bed with their son between them.
The detail of their story explained how complicated it can be to leave an abusive relationship, because often there is real love between the couple. Having several performers tell the same story allowed the audience to see that this happens to many women in the world and that no one should ever feel that they are alone in their suffering.
Following was a poem that brought the audience through the various points in a woman’s life where she feels sexualized or abused, starting from a young age when boys hit girls “because they like them.” This piece titled “Things I (Shouldn’t) Have to Tell My Daughters” written by Mary Heather Noble and read by Lindsay Pontius, details the vicious cycle of domestic abuse that stems from the relationships that men and women experience starting from youth. Each part of the poem demonstrated that violence in romantic relationships is not just a problem that occurs later in life, but one that also has its roots in childhood and teenage years.
Members of the dance department returned to the stage in “Still, I Rise,” using powerful dance motions and the words of Maya Angelou to display the strength that lies in every person who experiences sexual or domestic abuse. This ended the performance with a relatively upbeat tone and left the audience hopeful that people are strong and resilient and can overcome the atrocities of domestic abuse.
College president Laurie Patton came on to the stage to present the final poem of the event, titled “To Stop the Violence Against Woman,” written by Alice Walker. The poem served as a strong call to action for all women to end domestic violence, encouraging women to stand up against the abuse that has been so normalized in our society. Her inspiring demand for support and solidarity among women and men embodies the mission of WomenSafe.
The proceeds of the event went to support WomenSafe’s new fundraising goal of $1.2 million to help the organization continue to fight domestic abuse in Addison County and to provide support for families who have been affected by domestic violence. Through their hotline services, support groups, community outreach and education and supervised visits for children with abusive parents, WomenSafe is working to end domestic abuse in our area.
They are in the process of converting their old offices into transitional housing for people who are leaving abusive households. Hopefully with more events like “I Rise” and donations and volunteers from our local community, WomenSafe can reach their goal of raising 1.2 million dollars to better serve and protect our community.
If you wish to donate to WomenSafe, volunteer or learn more about their programs visit http://www.womensafe.net.
(09/21/17 12:17am)
This weekend the vertical dance troupe Bandaloop celebrated its return to the Middlebury community as a part of the Mahaney Center of the Arts 25th anniversary. The gravity-defying group, which includes alumnus Mark Stuver ’97.5, returned to the college after their last performance in 2004. Viewers were able to experience Bandaloop’s unique performances at the Mahaney Center for the Arts plaza.
Bandaloop blends circus art, athleticism, and dance to create their dazzling performances. Using ropes and pulley systems, the dancers are able to fly across walls and fall through midair in an act that is fresh and awe-inspiring.
Company member Roel Seeber loves that his movements have a “perceived weightlessness” about them. What makes Bandaloop special for him is that they are able to “bring dance to people who would never see it,” because their stages are public buildings. Seeber also loves this medium because in a world of smart phones and a tendency to disconnect from our environments, Bandaloop allows people to look up to the sky with wonder.
The troupe was formed in 1991 by Amelia Rudolph and is currently based in the San Francisco area. The thrilling medium of dance that the group is known for alters the way that dance is viewed, bringing it outside and to different communities. The company has traveled to over 17 countries throughout the world to give people new experiences with performance art and the emotions it can evoke in us.
The group places a great deal of emphasis on education, so they hold classes in their local area. Accordingly, Middlebury students were able to try out this exhilarating form of dance through vertical dance workshops at Virtue Field House run by troupe members. Stuver also gave a talk about his dance and entertainment career, serving as an inspiration for all dance and theatre majors of the college.
Mark Stuver’s long and impressive dance journey started at Middlebury. Growing up in rural Colorado, he said he “did not have much access to culture” such as dance, but decided to try the art form when striking up a conversation with one of the department’s professors at class registration. Professors such as Penny Campbell helped formulate Stuver’s dance experience at the college, and gave him “an understanding of the creative process.”
While at the college, Stuver performed in various college dance troupes and choreographed a duet that was featured at the Kennedy Center for the American College Dance Festival.
After graduating from Middlebury with a major in Dance, he joined Bandaloop and began to tour the world with their company, filling up three passports in the process. From Saudi Arabia to South America, he and his fellow dancers have been able to bring their passion for dance around the globe.
Stuver says that the biggest take-away for him during this time was not how similar everyone is across the world, but how different and “unknown” to him everyone was. Dance was a way to bring all of these differences together “embrace the unknown in others” and allow others to “embrace the unknown” in him.
However, after many years of performing with the troupe, Stuver has decided it is time to move on from high-flying performances and move on to quieter roles in writing.
His final show with Bandaloop was on Saturday, an experience he described as “walking into the past.” To begin and end (for now) his dance journey in the same place, to him, is “very potent.”
Stuver has a lot to work with in the world outside of dance. He has worked as a puppeteer at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, performed on the Late Show with David Letterman and the Late Late Show with James Corden, written various screenplays, and acted in short films.
A true Middlebury grad through and through, he has varied interests and even holds a Master’s degree in Jungian psychology. Through his time working as a therapist he realized that the best way for him to help people is through storytelling, which is where his career is headed now.
Through Bandaloop’s memorable performances this weekend and Stuver’s wide-ranging and fruitful career in the arts, Middlebury students have great examples of the creative possibilities that await them in the years after graduation.
(05/04/17 1:32am)
On Saturday, April 29 and Sunday, April 30, the Middlebury College Department of Theatre and Dance, along with the Department of Music, the Johnson Visual Arts Residency Performance Fund and the Natatorium, co-hosted “Breathe,” an underwater opera and dance event that aimed to connect with the audience through sound, sight and movement.
The interactive and awe-inspiring piece is the brainchild of Artist in Residence Gabriel Forestieri, composer Loren Kiyoshi Dempster and writer and visual artist Adrian Jevicki. The performers included Middlebury students of dance and music.
The performance began with two men dressed in tuxedos in the pool, one holding his breath at the bottom and one playing a string instrument that was fully submerged underwater. The echoing sound from the instrument vibrated through the water, was caught by an underwater microphone and resonated throughout the Natatorium. The music produced a calming yet eerie effect when combined with the voice overlay which discussed the question of one’s place in the universe.
The two men then began to float on top of the water, one moving the other around as if to help him come back to reality. Observing this human connection in the inhumane world of the water, the audience saw two interlocked bodies as a representative of the depth of our relationships.
While these actions transpired in the pool, performers walked around the water’s edge almost in a trance, following each other and singing dream-like tunes that reverberated around the area due to the acoustics of the Natatorium. The sensory image of the dazed performers combined with their soothing and pensive lyrics created a sense that the audience was viewing someone’s consciousness and memories.
“Breathe” was not solely pensive and tranquil, however. At one point the audience walked down from the bleachers and to the edge of the pool in order to view two dancers and a percussionist perform in a flurry of movement and lively sounds. Using the bleachers as a platform for a form of tap dance and drumming, the performers fed off of each other’s energies to create an intense sense of passion and expression. This portion was all improvisation, demonstrating the importance of the performers being present and connected to one another in that moment of high intensity collaboration.
The voice overlay sought to connect the audience’s experiences with the events that were transpiring. At one point the audience was encouraged to think about their first memories with coloring books and ask themselves if this was an apt form of creative expression, or if it fostered a sense of controlled actions. Bringing the audience back to their own thoughts allowed for the piece to be about more than the simple but mesmerizing movements in the novel environment of the water. It was also about the way that we can interpret our current environment in order to reflect on our past.
One of the standout moments of the performance was when a seemingly professional diver confidently dove from a diving board into the water with little hesitation. Clad in a tuxedo, this amazing athlete performed descents of increasing skill and complication into the pool that seemed to belong at the Olympics. The combination of this impressive athleticism with the sounds of classical music was a sensory experience that could not be found anywhere else.
Continuing with the theme of intertwining impressive athletic ability and music, the performance also featured a kayaker frequently submerging himself and coming up for air in a circular dance-like motion. This complicated rotating sequence paired with the entrancing dances of the students and the reflective music of the singers and instruments was stunning.
The audience was encouraged by performers to move around the space and observe the actions surrounding them from different angles and perspectives. There were floating docks going across the pool that allowed the audience to engage with the water itself and feel the waves due to the motions of the performers.
One of the student performers, Madeline Ciocci ’20, hoped that audiences were able to “see the beauty in the fairly simple movement that was done in the piece” as “sometimes the more simple something is, the more meaning and value it can hold.”
Because the intended message of the performance was not always clear, “Breathe” gave agency to the audience to experience and understand the piece through their own interpretation. There was no explanation of the performance given in the program, nor was there a speech at the end of the piece to shed light on the inspiration behind the work. This is a refreshing take on performance art, as it allows for the audience to make the piece about themselves and their own thoughts, instead of those of the creator.
One of the many reasons we attend performances is to get lost in the work and move outside of our own perspective. When watching “Breathe,” the audience was encouraged not to escape, but to engage with their thoughts and find their own meaning for their new surroundings.