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(10/04/18 9:57am)
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MIDDLEBURY — Since the end of July, Middlebury’s Henry Sheldon Museum has been home to the exhibit “Doughboys and Flyboys: WWI Stories by Vermonters from the Home and Battlefront.” The culmination of over a year of work by Executive Director William Brooks and museum staff, Doughboys and Flyboys highlights the stories of Addison County residents who were in the service during WWI. The exhibit will be accompanied by a series of “noon-time talks” throughout October and early November.
Timed to align with the 100th anniversary of the Nov. 11, 1918 armistice, the Sheldon exhibit focuses on the stories of four Middlebury residents. Brooks explained that the inspiration for the exhibit came from the centennial and his personal connection to Middlebury’s WWI history. His grandfather, Dr. Jacob Johnson Ross, once the head of the college’s physical education department, served as a flight surgeon for the US 17th Aero Squadron during the war.
“World War I is a huge subject matter — how was I going to approach this exhibit?” said Brooks. “[I] decided to advertise to people in the area who had relatives in the service.”
Along with Ross’, three other residents’ stories are featured in the lower level of the exhibit: Stephen A. Freeman, longtime head of the French department at the college, Middlebury resident Waldo Heinrichs and former Middlebury Professor of German Werner Neuse.
Enter the Sheldon Museum’s primary exhibit room, and you’ll be greeted with a bounty of WWI artifacts. Vintage posters line the walls, advertising war bonds or decrying the “Hun,” while exhibit cases dotted with century-old documents, diaries and photographs await perusal. The museum’s upper level is a visual treat, filled with pristinely preserved artifacts on display, including helmets, a stretcher and even an original Luger P08 pistol. Walk into the back room, and you may feel a chill down your spine as papier-mâché-swathed faces peer at you from the opposite wall.
These eerie faces make up part of Brandon-based artist Fran Bull’s art installation “In Flanders Fields,” inspired by Canadian army doctor John McCrae’s poem of the same name. The poppies that to this day “blow between the crosses, row on row,” in the fields of the Somme are brought to life in the installation by the visitors themselves. Museum attendees are encouraged to write thoughts on red squares of paper provided at the entry and stuff them into gaps in the papier-mâché figures, reinforcing the poppy imagery central to McCrae’s poem. The dark shadows of carrion-bird figures hung from the ceiling accompany the ghostly faces, with the somber ambiance further supplemented by sounds of battle emanating from a speaker near the entryway.
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The family history of Middlebury residents Karl and Diane Neuse is deeply rooted in the first World War, and, interestingly, connected to both sides of the conflict.
“My father didn’t talk much about the First World War,” said Karl. “[He] was drafted at the age of 16 into the German army, [and] his father was killed on the Russian front in 1914,” Karl said.
A professor of German at Middlebury College for 37 years, Werner Neuse saved his wartime diary and passed it along to his children. Karl’s sister provided a translation from the original German before loaning it to the Sheldon Museum. Diane’s grandfather, William H.H. Childs, who served on the other side of the conflict in the American Field Service and the U.S. Army Ambulance Service, is featured in the same exhibit case as Werner Neuse.
“I had given the museum some postcards that my grandfather wrote from the front to his future wife and her family,” she explained. Although Diane never met her grandfather, she remembered the intense family stories of his painful respiratory issues stemming from poison-gas injuries during the war.
“He was so severely wounded,” she said, that it was extremely fortunate that “he was from a family well-enough-to-do that he didn’t have to work [after the war].”
On Wednesday, Oct. 10, Middlebury Vice President for Academic Development and Professor of American Studies Tim Spears will be giving one of the featured talks on WWI. He will focus on his ongoing study documenting the national cemetery system and the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC). As Spears outlined, the inspiration for his project of visiting and photographing American cemeteries began while traveling in France.
“I didn’t really know a lot about American World War One cemeteries in France, and so ... I started looking into the history of it, all the while conscious of the fact that what was really drawing me to these places was the visual landscape,” he explained.
After completing a photography workshop in Sante Fe to learn new techniques, Spears began his project in earnest.
“There’s no comprehensive treatment of the ABMC,” he said. “I’ve written an article on this part of my research, which I’m now trying to get published.” Having visited over 80 national cemeteries in the U.S. as well as many sites in France, Spears noted, “I was being drawn to these places because I like taking pictures. I’ve been trying to figure out how to balance my interest in photographing these sites with the historical aspects of the project.”
The Doughboys and Flyboys exhibit will remain on display at the Sheldon Museum until Armistice Day. The Sheldon’s “Noon-time Talks” series began with a poetry discussion by Professor Jay Parini on Tuesday, Oct. 2. A full list of talks is available on the Sheldon Museum’s website.
A thorough exhibition of some of Middlebury’s most interesting WWI stories, “Doughboys and Flyboys” explores the impact of such a large-scale conflict on a small town like Middlebury. Diane Neuse truly felt the powerful message behind the commemorative aspect of the exhibit. “[I] was on the verge of being overwhelmed by the art that went along with the show,” she said. “WWI was horrific, and what did we learn? We just continue to do it again, again, and again, it seems … and for what?”
(02/25/16 12:54am)
In the Wright Memorial Theater last Saturday night, Feb. 20, a burgeoning audience waited impatiently for the beginning of “Force and Heat: The Early Plays,” the first part of Tina Packer’s show Women of Will. Alongside co-star Nigel Gore, Packer delivered an exhilarating analysis of the development of female characters throughout Shakespeare’s early plays.
Packer, a renowned actor and playwright, is the founder and director of the Massachusetts-based Shakespeare & Company. Well versed in Shakespeare’s works, she has directed and taught all of his plays at over 30 colleges in the U.S. Having begun her Women of Will project in the mid-1990s, Packer took a break from the artistic directorship of Shakespeare & Company to focus on the Women of Will show and a book of the same name, which was published in 2015. Joining her in this performance of “Force and Heat: The Early Plays” was Nigel Gore, a veteran Shakespeare & Company actor whose credits include the title roles in Richard III and Macbeth. Both “Force and Heat” and their Sunday performance of “Chaos and Redemption: The Later Plays” were sponsored by the College’s Performing Arts Series, the Theatre Program and the Town Hall Theater. Women of Will was brought to Middlebury as part of the Shakespeare celebrations centered around the month-long Middlebury College Museum of Art exhibition of “First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare.”
The show consists of a series of short scenes sampled from early Shakespeare plays like Twelfth Night and Antony and Cleopatra, interspersed with short analyses of the scenes presented directly to the audience by Packer and Gore. Saturday’s show began with a passionate scene from Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. This play, controversial for its misogynistic elements, proved a powerful introduction. The first scene culminated with Packer struggling onstage with Gore’s character, who sought to strangle her into submission with his belt. With practiced ease, Packer stepped out of the role and walked to the front of the stage as the house lights slowly turned on. Packer began introducing the performance and the material she would be analyzing, laying out the development of the female roles throughout Shakespeare’s plays. These short analytical pauses, placed between every scene, formed a key element of the show and allowed Packer to explain why she chose to include each scene.
The casual manner of Packer and Gore’s interactions contributed greatly to the atmosphere of the analytical portions of the performance. Speaking directly to the audience, Packer sounded completely at ease, explaining the most critical aspects of each scene like an English teacher picking apart a passage. Gore occasionally chimed in as well, commenting on aspects that Packer may have overlooked. This off-the-cuff discussion between these two veteran actors and old friends was immensely enjoyable.
The lighting in the show was superb, alternating seamlessly from the dark, violent battlefield scenes to bright palace environments in plays like Henry VI. Working with a couple of costumes and a very simple set consisting of a merely a chair and a few chests, the actors and their movements were the focal point of the show. The lighting design took this into account, expertly highlighting the actors and their positions on the stage.
Some scenes included audio clips that I found to be more hit-and-miss in their effectiveness. For instance, although the sound of seagull cries added a realistic ambiance to a beach setting, the scene from Antony and Cleopatra seemed to rely excessively on short sound bites of Packer’s voice reading lines from the play. The recording that played through speakers as the actors sat in stony silence sounded clipped and robotic. Although an interesting use of media, I felt it would have been more impactful if the actors had simply spoken the lines.
The highlight of the show was definitely Packer’s performance, which featured a strong, fluid delivery of lines and passionate monologues. Her familiarity with Shakespeare was apparent through her mastery of tone and pace. This powerful, emotional performance across a variety of roles was reminiscent for me of Dame Judi Dench’s Lady Macbeth from the 1978 version of Macbeth with Ian McKellen. After seeing Women of Will, I would certainly be eager to see a full Shakespeare production with Packer as its lead.
(01/21/16 12:33am)
On Thursday, Jan. 28, the curtain will rise on this year’s J-term musical, Chicago. A sizeable group of dedicated and talented Middlebury students have worked tirelessly on the project, preparing the production in a mere four weeks. The show is directed by the Middlebury Town Hall Theater’s executive director, Doug Anderson. College Affiliate Artist and voice teacher Carol Christensen is the music director for the show, and Alicia Vancho will be the primary choreographer. In addition to already sold-out shows on Jan. 28, 29, 31 and Feb. 1, the show’s final dress rehearsal will be open to the public on Wednesday, Jan. 27 at 8 p.m. for a $10 donation.
Chicago is an iconic and memorable work in the world of musical theater. Holding the record as the longest-running American musical in Broadway history, it tells the story of two rival vaudevillian murderesses, Velma and Roxie. The two women, imprisoned for their crimes, compete for the limelight of the sensationalizing press of the time. As New Line Theater’s Scott Miller outlines in his essay Inside Chicago, this musical is a “scathing satire of how show business and the media make celebrities out of criminals.” Overflowing with raw sexuality, Chicago is renowned for its impressive dance numbers and biting social commentary.
Director Doug Anderson emphasized the importance of the Town Hall Theater performance space for Middlebury’s production of Chicago.
“The College joined with the Middlebury community to purchase [a] dilapidated building in 2000, and was instrumental in helping to raise the $5 million needed for the restoration,” Anderson said. J-Term musicals like Chicago, he added, “[exemplify] the thought that the new venue would be a home for college events, a kind of cross-over space in which students and the larger community would interact.”
The first performance of Chicago was put on when the space was still a construction site, providing what Anderson called “an appropriately seedy setting for this seedy musical.” The original show set the stage for the J-term musicals of today, “send[ing] a strong message that this building could become a vibrant force in the cultural life of the community.”
Paige Guarino ’18.5, a member of the ensemble, described the audition process for the show as fairly standard. Students auditioning for any role had to learn a song for the first audition, before partaking in a large dance audition. Afterward, separate lead role and ensemble callbacks took place.
Guarino reiterated the importance of dance for this particular show, calling it “the main communication medium throughout the show.”
The cast for the J-term musical tends to be comprised mainly of first-years and sophomores, as most juniors study abroad and seniors are often busy working on a thesis during their final J-term. Anderson noted that a younger cast is “a big part of the show’s charm.”
This year, most of the tech crew and designers are composed of adults from the area and college alumni. The band is part student, part hired professionals, whilst the crew includes students from both the College and the local high school. The cast is made up entirely of Middlebury students.
Stage manager Alex Williamson ’17 highlighted some of the stand-out elements of the set, such as the gargantuan red “Chicago” sign that often serves as a symbol of this iconic musical.
“Another cool element of the set is that we have a second level of scaffolding that will be utilized in many parts of the show, specifically as jail cells for the ‘Cell Block Tango’ number,” Williamson said.
Winter term musicals require an immense amount of work and effort in a very short amount of time, and Chicago is no exception. Though the cast learns the music ahead of time during the fall semester, they only have two and a half weeks to put together all of the stage directions, choreography and technical elements.
“The only way we get it done is to approach the work with complete professionalism,” Anderson explained. “The challenge for the students is to basically convert themselves into a professional company, with two-a-day rehearsals and a complete commitment to the work.”
Guarino summed up this powerful, multilayered show effectively, stating: “There’s a lot of dancing, a lot of singing, a lot of popping and wow [factor] … but beneath that bigness is a very poignant message. Chicago is an incredible show that does a great job of balancing spectacle and meaning.”
(12/10/15 1:00am)
As the last house lights dimmed in the dance theater of the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA), the audience quickly hushed their conversation in anticipation of the Fall Dance Concert’s first number. The spectators – a healthy mix of students and community members – waited quietly as the performers shuffled onstage under the cover of darkness.
The Friday and Saturday performances (Dec. 4-5) were the culmination of the semester for Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Scotty Hardwig’s Intermediate/Advanced Dance 1 class, which is made up of all dance majors or joint dance majors. Each student had choreographed a piece for the concert.
Hardwig used a two-pronged learning approach in his intensive course.
“[The students] have been through a semester of technique practice, but also learned compositional skills and tools,” he said.
The first piece of the show, “Growth Variations,” featured all nine student choreographers.
“‘Growth Variations’ is a collection of composition studies that [the choreographers] have made over the course of the semester that I’ve directed and woven together into a longer study,” Hardwig explained. “These studies that we’ve collected over the course of the semester are really a testament to how much they’ve grown as performers. It’s really striking to see how they evolve, especially in their technical practice.”
In addition to this series of studies and the nine student-choreographed pieces, a group of dancers performed a “newcomer’s work” entitled “Between Two Meanings.” An annual facet of the Fall Dance Concert, the “newcomer’s work” is a work choreographed by a faculty member or student who has never performed in the dance theater or in a dance show before.
The dances of the night ranged widely in terms of themes, costumes and even the performers’ movements. Some pieces relied on abrupt, jerky movements; others saw dancers sweeping smoothly across the stage. In “Coral Reef,” performers draped themselves in fishing nets, while the opener, “Growth Variations,” showcased dancers in more flexible, all-purpose attire. The styles of music in the show were also varied, with at least several of the dances incorporating multiple songs with a variety of genres and tempos. Even the manner in which the performers bowed was tailored to their piece, with many foregoing a traditional bowing technique in favor of a quick, recognizable movement from their dance.
A crucial part of the preparation for the show was the feedback and assessment process. Spread out over the course of the semester, each of the three feedback performances allowed dance professors and a guest dancer and choreographer, Liz Lerman, to help the students shape their pieces.
The feedback that the choreographers received prompted and encouraged large changes to their dances.
“It’s not really an easy thing to take feedback and large changes, particularly with an art form that deals with the body… [where] there’s a lot of vulnerability and a lot of investment,” Hardwig commented.
Matea Mills-Andruk ’18.5 performed in two of the dances, although she was not a member of the Intermediate/Advanced Dance 1 class. Observing the critique process taught her a huge amount about the process of creating a piece. According to her, it seemed that “the purpose of the showing was to get familiar with the feedback and for the choreographers to watch the dancers.”
The Friday night performance of the Fall Dance Concert was quite impressive. It was obvious that the performers and choreographers had put significant time into perfecting their work and ensuring that the interactions between the performers were seamless. Some of the pieces, such as “Desde la Sacha” and “It is…” shined in particular for their level of energy and catchy rhythms. Others, like the eye-opening “Things Invisible Mostly to Ourselves,” were upfront in the way they tackled difficult issues like racism.
A fellow audience member, Maddie Hampton ’18, concurred, “I think the individual pieces reflect an extreme amount of thought and an amazing understanding of movement as a medium to provoke discussion.”
The show as a whole did feel a bit lengthy, lasting almost two-and-a-quarter hours. This was necessary for such a sizable compilation of works, which represented a wide range of aesthetics.
Hardwig summed up the concert well, saying that the performances were all about “coming into the theater and enjoying the pleasure of watching the body in motion, watching choreography … tapping into deeper questions about what it means to be human.”
(10/14/15 11:53pm)
A rainbow of cloth ribbons dotted the trees around Mead Chapel this past Thursday, Oct. 8. A group of students and faculty paced around very slowly, trancelike, intertwining the ribbons and wrapping them around the trees. Passersby could not help but stop and stare at this mesmerizing first performance of Garden by the Dance Company of Middlebury and guest performers.
“Garden is a site-adaptive performance that honors and celebrates a specific place by creating a visual installation within it,” Assistant Professor of Dance and developer of the performance Tzveta Kassabova said.
The work was originally created for an art festival in Reston, Virginia in 2012. Twelve Middlebury students participated in its debut performance last year at Judson Church in New York City. This year, Garden served as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Middlebury’s Environmental Studies program.
The dancers ranged greatly in age and performance experience, with faculty, staff, guest artists and students performing side by side. Kassabova planned on integrating a third grade class from Ripton Elementary School into the Friday performance of the show, but unfortunately, that night’s performance was rained out. She noted that the children would have “introduced freshness, wonder and playfulness to the work.”
The first performance of the half-hour show began at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday night. Tied around each tree in the vicinity of Mead Chapel was a brightly-colored ribbon, with the remainder of the ribbon rolled into a ball on the ground. Soft, repetitive and trancelike music emerged from a set of speakers connected to a computer at the crest of the hill. As the performance began, each dancer, wearing one or more flower-shaped felt patches, picked up one of the ribbon balls and set forth, moving slowly and deliberately toward another tree. As the work progressed, the dancers ever-so-carefully wrapped their ribbons around other tree trunks, tree branches, lampposts and even other ribbons. Within ten minutes, almost all of the ribbons had been wrapped around at least two trees. Apart from a minute or two of sitting on the ground, all of the performers were constantly moving, evoking a sense of perpetual evolution in the piece.
Although a few audience members had intentionally come to see the performance, most others were simply passersby drawn in by the bright, eye-catching ribbons woven among the trees as they headed to and from an event occurring simultaneously inside Mead Chapel as part of the inauguration celebrations for new President of the College Laurie L. Patton. Many visitors, students and faculty members stopped at least briefly, swelling the ranks of the Garden audience.
Near the end of the performance, the dancers began to gradually edge their way back up the hill toward Mead Chapel. Once they reached the top, each dancer unpinned their felt flower and gently handed it to an audience member.
“The main purpose [of Garden] was building community,” performer Chelsea Colby ’17.5 said. “Handing out flowers was our way of branching the connection out beyond ourselves. When I handed off my flower to a woman, she said I made her day, and I smiled at her. That was a really positive outcome for me.”
Kassabova explained that this exchange was a key element of the performance.
“I always like giving a small present to the audience as part of the work,” she said. “The little flower in their hands serves as a reminder of a wonderful day spent surrounded by art.”
Marc Lapin, Associate Professor in Science Instruction in Environmental Studies and a participant in the dance, passionately expressed his enjoyment for the performance.
“For me, it was a moving meditation with a community aspect,” he said. “The dancers were definitely responding to each other. For me, it was a very meditative dance in which we interacted with the ribbons, the trees and the ground beneath us. I had a great time dancing in the performance.”
The Thursday night performance of Garden was truly impressive. Good weather and good timing allowed a large number of campus residents and visitors to appreciate the dance. Unfortunately, a few unforeseeable distractions interfered with the performance somewhat. The noise from trucks installing the stage for Sunday’s inauguration ceremony competed with the show’s music for the first few minutes of the piece. In addition, some technical difficulties with the computer playing the music meant that computer notification sounds interrupted through the speakers a handful of times over the course of the performance.
Nevertheless, the event was highly successful overall. The bright ribbons and flowers were visually striking, helping Garden to communicate its core environmental message to a large audience. With a central site location and enthusiastic dancers, the dance piece established itself this weekend as a memorable and engaging part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the Environmental Studies program.
(03/12/15 4:15am)
Myriad voices filled the lofty ceilings of the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts (MCA) Concert Hall this past Saturday, as the College’s annual “Songs and Arias” performance began. Seven vocal students sang in the event, performing a mix of solo songs and duets.
The show started about a decade ago as an avenue for student vocalists to showcase their talents in a departmental performance.
“The event began as a concert that would feature the singers who enjoy and excel at singing the classical repertoire,” voice teacher Carol Christensen said. “The singers selected for this concert are far enough along in their technical studies to learn, perfect and perform a set of challenging songs, arias or small vocal ensembles.”
In preparation for the event, the performers met in one-on-one lessons with their respective voice teachers once or twice a week. Typical rehearsals involved technical vocal exercises for the first 15 minutes, allowing students to focus on techniques like breath control, range, legato, agility, placement and tone color.
“Students would then spend the rest of the lesson working through the technical and interpretive challenges each song offers, and had to take the initiative to practice their repertoire between lessons and rehearsals,” Christensen said.
This practice outside of rehearsals helped the students to completely memorize all of their music for the show. Practice schedules varied only for duet rehearsals that required group meetings.
Jack DesBois ’15, who sang a cycle of Shakespeare songs by 20th century English composer Gerald Finzi, noted that individualized rehearsing kept an element of surprise among the performers on the night of the show.
“We didn’t really know what the other singers [were] going to be bringing to the concert on Saturday,” he said.
Hannah Johnston ’15, who performed both a solo and a duet, enjoyed the rehearsal and performance atmosphere despite this separation.
“It was nice to come together and watch what people have been working on and to be really proud of [my] friends for doing something impressive,” Johnston said. “The performance allowed us to join as a musical community to support one another.”
Christensen reiterated this cohesiveness and sense of community.
“The students I have in the concert this year are all seniors, so we have spent many hours together over the years,” she said. “I consider them all to be very close, special friends.”
Although the “Songs and Arias” performance featured some English songs, a large portion of the numbers were in German, Italian or French.
“Working with any voice teacher, you really start with the classical repertoire, which usually means Italian arias at the beginning, maybe moving into German arias, lieder, and a bit of French,” DesBois said. “It’s been really wonderful to start singing in English.”
Johnston, who sang Carl Maria von Weber’s “Kommt ein schlanker Bursch gegangen” as one of her pieces, concurred.
“The vocal recitals are about a smaller group of people getting together to perform a classical repertoire,” she said. “It’s about expressing music in the classical tradition in many different languages.”
Christensen agreed, pointing to the College’s strong language programs as a positive influence on the rehearsal process.
“Many Middlebury students are quite adept at a foreign language,” Christensen said. “We have fun delving into the meaning of the text, and talking about what [the students] can do from a vocal and interpretive standpoint to bring the song to life and make it their own.”
The performance of “Songs and Arias” itself was quite powerful, featuring a range of talented singers. The acoustics of the performance space fit well with the songs, and all of the singers were clearly audible from the back of the Concert Hall. The performers were very focused during their songs, and clearly sought to keep the audience’s attention with hand gestures and flourishes. The foreign language pieces were well done, and the duets were seamlessly coordinated. DesBois’ performance particularly resonated with me, featuring a broad variety of moods and tempos which ranged from more slow and somber numbers to fast-paced songs with humorous sound effects. Unfortunately, the hoarseness in his voice from a recent cold was evident in parts of his Shakespearean cycle, and the inclusion of four whole selections made his segment seem a tad lengthy.
Overall, the “Songs and Arias” show was a triumph which delighted audience members from the student and broader communities.
“It was obvious how much effort went into preparing for the show,” Devin McGrath-Conwell ’18.5 said. “The variation of the styles and songs reflected in the program is a wonderful tribute to the talent of the performers. I enjoyed every moment of it.”