Film and Video

Michelle Agresti ’14 talks to Marc Pettersen about MiddletownRemix Festival (May 11)

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Michelle Agresti ’14 talks to Middletown resident Marc Pettersen about MiddletownRemix: Hear More, See More – A Festival of Art and Sound, taking place on Saturday, May 11, 2013 from 2pm to 5pm. “Projected World Experience,” a temporary, site-specific art/sound installation commissioned for the festival, will be created in the alleyway between 484 and 500 Main Street by Mr. Pettersen in conjunction with animation artist Cheryl Elliott, and DJ and video artist Matt Weston.

Marc Pettersen outside of MAC 650 Gallery.
Marc Pettersen outside of MAC 650 Gallery.

During the MiddletownRemix festival this Saturday, May 11 from 2pm to 5pm, you will have the opportunity to walk through another world: “Projected World Experience,” created by Marc Pettersen, in collaboration with Cheryl Eliot and Matt Weston. In the alleyway between 484 and 500 Main Street, images will be projected on all sides, accompanied by sounds from the MiddletownRemix project. The viewer/listener will be surrounded by this small, alternate universe.

“I want you to be immersed in a video and sound world, “ says Mr. Pettersen, who is responsible for the concept of the piece. To complete the project, he received a grant  from the Arts Catalyze Placemaking Program of the Connecticut Office of the Arts. With an additional grant from UrbanRemix, Mr. Pettersen was able to realize his vision for the festival. To make “Projected World Experience” possible, the alleyway will be covered with white screens, and the opening into a parking lot behind Main Street will be closed off to allow for true immersion.

Several things will happen in this world: there will be a portion where the viewers feel like they are walking on a bridge, and scenes from the bridge will be playing on either side of them. Images and actions paired with sounds will repeat. For example, when Mr. Pettersen showed me a sample of this section of the experience, a woman repeatedly ran across the screen, while another woman came on, played the guitar, and then walked off. All of the sounds are the sounds of Middletown, which Mr. Pettersen has collected through MiddletownRemix (you can read more about the MiddletownRemix project here).

“You just get this huge mix of the Middletown sounds, and then these things keep repeating,” Mr. Pettersen explains. “It’s a repetition of sounds, creating a symphony of sounds—layering on top of layering of things.”

Mr. Pettersen, who has a B.F.A. in Animation, designed the images as a mixture between real people filmed against a green screen (which Ms. Elliot assisted with), and animated images. This will also change depending on what section of the experience is playing—Mr. Pettersen also has plans for a jungle scene.

“They’ll be like, you know, the banging sound—there might be a bird trying to crack open a nut. A saw might be a monkey scratching itself. Make it kind of fun,” explains Mr. Pettersen.

The whole thing is made possible by two projectors that are controlled by one computer, built by Mr. Weston. The single computer is used so that the projectors are completely synchronized, necessary to make the project work correctly. The projected images will be 16 to 20 feet long, meaning that the audience will really feel like they are walking in a different world.

Mr. Pettersen describes the project as “taking the sounds of Middletown and changing the way you think about them.”

Mr. Pettersen is an active member of the Middletown community. Aside from teaching animation classes at Green Street Arts Center, he is a member of the Middletown artist cooperative known as MAC 650. There are eight other members, and they live at 650 Main Street. There is a gallery where they have art on display nearly every day of the year, showcasing their own work. Did this artistic community, which has a mandatory 30 hours of art service to Middletown requirement for all members, have a hand in “Projected World Experience?” Well, Mr. Pettersen found both of his collaborators, Ms. Elliot and Mr. Weston, through the collective. Also, he says that the collective provided “the freedom to be able to create,” thus inspiring this project.*

“Projected World Experience” will be on display during the festival. Walking through that alleyway this Saturday May 11 between 2pm and 5pm, the audience will be able to experience another world, with the “everyday” sounds of Middletown filtered through (literally) another lense.

For the complete MiddletownRemix festival schedule, and to capture, contribute and remix sounds from Wesleyan and Middletown using the free UrbanRemix app for iPhone/iOS and Android devices, visit http://www.middletownremix.org

*[Also during the MiddletownRemix festival this Saturday, there will be a special  North End Gallery Walk, with participating exhibitions at MAC 650 Gallery, as well as the Green Street Arts Center, the Buttonwood Tree Performing Arts & Cultural Center, and Middletown Framing. Each location will display artworks related to the themes of Middletown and sound. Stop by the MAC 650 Gallery (located at 650 Main Street) to see the “Hear More, See More Photography Exhibition,” curated by Carolyn Reeves, President of the MAC 650 Artist Co-op. The photographic tribute to Middletown features images from novices to professionals, and shows a variety of shots of the city.]

[There are also regular, monthly gallery walks that typically take place on the first Friday of each month (upcoming walks will take place on June 7, July 12, August 2, September 6, October 4, and November 29, 2013). During those gallery walks, participating businesses and galleries are open from 5pm to 8pm for people to peruse the art and enjoy some entertainment and snacks.  For more information about those gallery walks: http://www.facebook.com/MiddletownNorthEndGalleryWalk ]

Emma Gross ’15 reviews “Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom”

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Emma Gross ’15 reviews “Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom,”  the directorial debut of Emilie Pass ’15 and Gabe Gordon ’15, which ran Thursday October 25 through Saturday, October 27, 2012.

Photo courtesy of Cara Sunberg ’15.

While I have attended plenty of horror movies that caused viewers to gasp out loud, cover their eyes, and grab onto their friends’ wrists, before this past weekend I had never attended a play that managed to evoke this same level of fear. Second Stage’s production of Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom achieved this effect. The play’s ability to induce outward horror from its viewers points to the success of its co-directors, actors, and creative team.

Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, written by Jennifer Haley, ran Thursday October 25 through Saturday October 27. The play was part of Second Stage’s fall 2012 season. For those not familiar with Second Stage, it is Wesleyan’s student-run, volunteer theater organization. Second Stage produces works that are entirely designed, directed, and performed by students.

“Emilie and I first read Neighborhood 3 in our Intro to Playwriting course freshman year,” Gordon said. “Throughout the semester we studied a lot of great works, but Neighborhood 3 stood out as a special piece of writing. It is not well known, nor is it by a well known writer, but we both fell in love with it.

Neighborhood 3 tells the story of a tightly regulated suburban subdivision in which parents find their teenagers addicted to a violent online video game. As the story unfolds it is revealed that the game is not strictly virtual, but manifests itself in reality with horrific consequences.

“The play is about familial relationships in a world of suburban pain,” Pass said. “Though it contains topical jokes about the internet and video game culture, the text is also a commentary on the timeless issue of how family members relate to one another. It exposes the nuclear family and its values in a way that shows how this model can be pretty messed up.”

Neighborhood 3 is laced with dark humor and filled with moments of deep suspense and terror; it is the perfect pre-Halloween story. In one scene, the stage goes dark just as a gothic teenage girl aims a fatal blow at her father with a golf club.

“The play is a thoroughly exciting and engaging text,” Gordon said. “When I first read it, I remember visualizing how it could come to life on stage. I thought maybe this meant I should direct it and make that happen.”

In the spring of 2012, Pass and Gordon committed to co-directing Neighborhood 3 and assembled a production team including Paul McCallion ‘15 as stage manager, Cara Sunberg ’15 as set designer, Anders Dohlman ’15 as master carpenter, Rachel Leicher ’15 as lighting designer, Gabe Beaudoin ’15 and Eriq Robinson ’15 as sound designers, and Joe Gonzalez ’15 as costume designer.

Second Stage approved their application before the year’s end, and in early September Eva Ravenal ’15, Mark Popinchalk ’13, Tess Jonas, ’15, and Noah Masur ’15 were cast as the show’s four actors.

“Though Emilie and I had directed a bit in high school, this was really our first significant directorial experience,” said Gordon. “An added challenge was that the majority of our team was not involved in Second Stage and had little to no theater background. The entire process of creating this production was a learning experience for everyone involved.”

Neighborhood 3 was staged in the Patricelli ’92 theater. “The space allowed the play to come to life,” said Pass. “Cara and Anders did a fantastic job making the set as visually engaging as the dialogue on stage.”

Audience members were seated on either side of the stage, which was composed of a series of platform steps outlined with identical cutouts of white houses. As the plot unfolded and suspense increased, the actors gradually migrated up the steps toward the top and final platform.

“Cara collaborated with Rachel, the lighting designer, to create a house shaped projection screen at the head of the theater,” Pass said. Actors posed behind the screen during the robotic, video game style narration between scenes. The characters’ blackened silhouettes added a visual dimension that helped blur the line between reality and virtual gaming world.

“I cannot stress how exceptional our creative team was,” Gordon said. “And in addition, how lucky we were to find such extraordinarily talented actors.”

The four actors faced the challenge of portraying a different character in every scene.  Ravenal, Popinchalk, Jonas and Masur’s ability to alter their body language, speaking voices, and emotions to convincingly assume various roles was remarkable.  To effectively transition from a drunken housewife to a fearful mother, or from a frightened boy whose cat has been murdered to the murderer himself requires smart and skillful acting.

Neighborhood 3 sold out Friday and Saturday night, even after seats were added. The evening I attended the performance people left the theater claiming they were afraid to walk home alone.

“I was extremely pleased with the final product and so proud to be part of the production,” Gordon said. “Putting on Neighborhood 3 was an incredible experience, and goes to show that you don’t need to be a theater person to be involved with theater at Wesleyan. If you are creative and passionate about a project you can make anything happen.”

Pass agreed, “It was an incredibly rewarding learning experience,” she said. “It underscores the notion that some of the best learning at Wesleyan is done outside the classroom.”

Katherine Clifford ’14 reviews the Fall Senior Thesis Dance Concert

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Katherine Clifford ’14 reviews the Fall Senior Thesis Dance Concert, which took place on Friday, October 26 and Saturday, October 27, 2012 featuring two original works by Lindsay Kosasa ’13 and Kelsey Siegel ’13.

Kelsey Siegel’s piece, “Dynamical Systems” explored the intersection between dance and mathematics. Posts connected by strings were used as a visual prop and reference point throughout the dance. In the beginning of the dance, the posts were clustered in the center, and the dancers moved them apart to form a rectangle that framed the stage. The idea of space then was a crucial component of the dance; how the dancers seemed to be constrained by the space they were in, how they physically moved through space, and how they interacted with each other through space. The dancers also seemed to interact with the music, which was a combination of drums, violin, and spoken word, that fit the theme and mood of the dance as it progressed. The dancing itself was marked by stillness and pauses, which had the effect of making each individual dancer’s movement profound and with heightened effect. At times, the dancers would break out of the enclosed space confined by the posts and their connecting strings, and slam against the walls of the dance studio, as if impacted by momentum. The ending of the piece consisted of an explosion of energy in which the dancers moved the previously ordered posts into a jumbled chaos in the corner of the stage. The connecting posts, representing a system of equations, symbolized the constraints of logical thinking. This type of thinking, as the dance suggested, can have the effect of trapping one within a way of thinking, but true reality depends on experience. Thus, in order to experience the world, one must break out of the constraints of logic.

Lindsay Kosasa’s work, “Navigable Möbius,” explored the context of postwar Japan. The backdrop was a video projection, which began with footage of clear, moving water. However, food coloring and debris were slowly added, so that they swirled around and piled up, muddying the previously pure water. To this backdrop, the dancers were dressed in white and with hair in high buns, and moved with fluid, organic, and rounded movements. They often rolled on the floor and over each other, as if in a sort of fetal, protected innocence. In the end, the dancers moved slowly together, expressionless, and in a trance-like state to music that sounded angelic. This seemed to suggest that purity, innocence, and inner peace were maintained despite the figurative backdrop of a postwar state and the literal backdrop of raining debris. Water continued to course through the muddied debris, but it was not enough to clear up the destruction. Throughout the dance, there was a consistent theme of layers and texture. This texture was evident in the continuous accumulation of color and particles being added in the water footage, and in the movement of the dancers, as their story progressed in a linear fashion. This dance ultimately explored movement in a historical context with emphasis on the ideas of resilience and innocence.

Both works demonstrated the creativity and artistic talent of these seniors and how dance is a collaborative process between choreographer and dancers. The dance concert also highlighted how dance can form a powerful intersection with other academic subjects.

Rebecca Seidel ’15 interviews Lana Wilson ’05, curator of the “Performance Now” Film Series (Oct. 25 & Nov. 15)

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Rebecca Seidel ’15 sits down with Lana Wilson ’05, curator of the “Performance Now” film series, presented in conjunction with the Zilkha Gallery exhibition focusing on performance art (on display through December 9, 2012).

The Performance Now exhibition at the Zilkha Gallery merits multiple visits – there’s just so much to experience and absorb.  Performance art naturally exists only in the moment it is created, but this exhibit does an excellent job of immortalizing the performances it displays.   Curated by Roselee Goldberg, Performance Now will be on view until December 9, so you still have time to head over and browse the exhibit yourself.

Meryl Streep in Laurie Simmons’s “The Music of Regret” (2005)

To further enhance your appreciation of performance art, the exhibition extends into a three-part film series at the Powell Family Cinema.  The first set of films – two films featuring French conceptual dance – were screened on September 20.  The next set, featuring films by Danish artist Jesper Just, will be screened this Thursday, October 25.  The final group of films, showcasing recent works by Daria Martin and Laurie Simmons, will air on November 15.  Admission to these films is free.

I got a chance to interview Lana Wilson, the curator of this film series, about what viewers should expect from the screenings.  Lana, a 2005 Wesleyan graduate, had a lot to say about her film selections for Performance Now. She gives some helpful context for the French films that aired in September – films that offered quite a memorable experience for viewers, as you know if you were there. Above all, Lana is excited to air the remaining installments of the series.  She will be at the cinema to introduce the Jesper Just films this Thursday. You can read our discussion below:

Why did you select the films that you did?  What about them made them especially relevant to the Performance Now exhibition?

I selected these films to accompany the Performance Now exhibition because I think they represent a very small sample of some of the most exciting performance films made by artists in the last decade. These screenings include both filmed documentation of performances, and films that have a lot to do with live performance, but are specifically made for the camera, because I think that both types of work are important. It’s a film series, but it’s about live performance, so I wanted to include samples of different places in the spectrum between the two.

All of the work being shown is also by artists who have been a part of the Performa biennials, including the first-ever Performa Commission (Jesper Just’s True Love Is Yet to Come, from 2005). But the artists themselves all come out of slightly different contexts – Jerome Bel and Boris Charmatz are choreographers, for example, while Laurie Simmons is a photographer and visual artist.

What kind of viewing experience should we expect from the upcoming two screenings? Anything to look out for in particular?

I was so thrilled to have the chance to program films for the one of the beautiful screens in Wesleyan’s Center for Film Studies. I wanted to take advantage of that opportunity by showcasing works that are visually gorgeous, and made at a scale that would make sense to show in a large cinema, rather than on small monitors in a gallery. I also wanted the programs to be made for the audience to sit through from start to finish, with their attention fully engaged. So none of these screenings are dry conceptual events – each program is visually lush and – at least in my opinion! – will be very exciting to watch on a big screen.

The two French films screened on September 20 differed aesthetically in some pretty stark ways.  Do you think there are any common threads between them?

It’s true – both of those films are very different aesthetically. But they are both made by choreographers who come–in very different ways – out of traditions of the Judson Dance Theater, and both artists are now seen as key figures in the wave of “conceptual choreography” that emerged in France in the 1990s.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, the Judson Dance Theater was a loose coalition of artists, choreographers, and musicians who had a series of performances at New York’s Judson Church in the early 1960s that radically broke with the conventions of concert dance. The dances created by this group, which would later be called “post-modern,” reduced the medium to its most essential elements, discarding drama and expressionism in favor of pedestrian movement, repetitive structures, and improvisation, and rejecting the notion of the artist or performer as virtuoso in favor of what they thought of as more “democratic” dance.

In contrast, the performance documentation of Bel’s Veronique Doisneau, 2004, reduces aesthetic concerns to a bare minimum, instead throwing its concept into high relief. In September 2004, Paris Opera Ballet dancer Veronique Doisneau, age forty-one, is about to retire after over twenty years of dancing in the background as a member of the corps de ballet. On the final night of her career, she at long last appears alone on stage, in front of an enormous audience in the Paris Opera House. Dressed in rehearsal clothes, and wearing a headset microphone, Doisneau calmly tells the story of her life in dance—her low-ranking position in the hierarchy of the ballet company, the injury that almost ruined her career when she was twenty, even the amount of her monthly wages. She then performs excerpts from several pieces, including a variation from La Bayadere, with no music other than her own soft singing and counting; a segment from the lead role in Giselle, a part that Doisneau says she wishes she could have danced (earlier, she speculates, “I don’t think I was talented enough”); and a portion of the corps de ballet part from Swan Lake, in which Doisneau stands perfectly motionless in various poses while the stars dance in center stage. Watching Doisneau perform her life’s history as a dancer, with all its attendant joy and frustration, shows the audience things they had never noticed before. Like the work of the Judson artists, it reveals the assumptions underlying dance, bringing them into the open to re-construct them in an entirely new way. It is one of my favorite performances of all time.

Boris Charmatz & Dimitri Chamblas–“Les Disparates” (1994)

In France in the 1990s, a wave of new choreographers emerged that was both reacting to the highly theatrical French dance of the 1980s, and inspired by Judson. Les Disparates, from 1994, is a film directed by Cesar Vayssie that two young French choreographers, Boris Charmatz and Dimitri Chamblas, collaborated on right after becoming the teenage sensations of the French dance scene with A Bras le Corps (1993), a duet that has a real thrilling physicality to it. In Les Disparates, a man (Charmatz) dances in four different locations as the film jumps between them all, using his movement to explore the possibilities for fragmenting time and space through editing. Shot in the rainy landscape of Sienne, a city in the north of France, the film leaps from bar to boathouse and back again–it’s very much a dance made for the camera. The choreography suggests the influence of Judson member Steve Paxton’s weight and flow-based contact improvisation techniques, while the film’s crisp compositions and elegant visual motifs—highlighting patches of saturated red and blue within the industrial scenery, for example—resemble contemporary European art cinema.

Do you have a favorite film out of the entire series, and if so, what is it?

This is a tough one. Jesper Just’s It Will All End in Tears will be spectacular on the big screen – let’s just say that there are some amazing special effects. And for Meryl Streep fans, that actress is a star of Laurie Simmons’s The Music of Regret (2005), where she has an unforgettable turn singing a duet with a ventriloquist dummy. Too hard to choose!

The Films of Jesper Just

Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 7pm
Powell Family Cinema, Center for Film Studies
Introduced by Performa Film and Dance Curator
Lana Wilson ’05 with reception to follow.
FREE!

Other Worlds: Daria Martin and Laurie Simmons

Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 7pm
Powell Family Cinema, Center for Film Studies
FREE!

Emma Gross ’15 reviews LIEBE LOVE AMOUR!

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Emma Gross ’15 reflects on her experiences at Anonymous Ensemble’s Saturday performance of LIEBE LOVE AMOUR!

Here is what I knew prior to experiencing Anonymous Ensemble’s LIEBE LOVE AMOUR! First, that audience participation was an integral part of the production, and second, that the content of LIEBE LOVE AMOUR! might be about love.

What I did not realize was that ninety minutes after taking my seat in the CFA Theater, I would be up on stage participating in the marriage ceremony of a towering 1920’s German cinema star.

LIEBE LOVE AMOUR! is a one act, multimedia spectacular. It is cited as a “theatricalized live film,” a description that does not do justice to the show’s truly novel construction.

On Saturday, September 22, I along with dozens of other students, professors, and non-university associated community members filed into the theater. We took our seats opposite the stark set. A single red curtain ran the length of the stage, with a large movie screen off center, to the right.

When the lights dimmed, a compilation of early black and white, silent 20th century footage played across the screen. This montage culminated in a shot of a woman styled in signature 1920’s clothing, hair and makeup. Suddenly, the actress turned and addressed the audience. She introduced herself as Hilda and explained that she lived in Germany and was about to experience her thirty-third birthday. As Hilda spoke, the previously opaque curtain became transparent. It revealed a figure standing against a green screen performing for a camera set up on a tripod. When the woman onstage gestured, the actress on screen did the same. The words I assumed were prerecorded and emerging from the film world, were in fact spoken live on stage.

What ensued was an epic, hilariously dramatic love story, twisted with bizarre details, cliché moments, and break out musical numbers. This narrative was presented to the audience in a most innovative fashion.

Hilda’s scenes were recorded in front of the green screen and simultaneously projected for the audience. Her live footage was combined with film clips belonging to 20th century Austrian director Erich Von Stroheim. His footage was intercut with Hilda’s dialogue, creating the illusion that she was speaking to and interacting with Stroheim’s actors. Two live, on stage performers dubbed over the silent footage, providing the voiceover for these characters. These two actors also created sound effects using various tools and instruments in the style of an old school radio production.

LIEBE LOVE AMOUR! grants the audience the opportunity to witness the live creation of both an onstage play and a projected film. Our attention continuously alternated from the onstage action, to the film that simultaneously came together on screen.

As if this mode of storytelling was not complicated enough, audience participation added a dimension of unpredictability to the show’s narrative.

While the onstage action and film projection continued, a fourth performer equipped with a microphone, ventured into the audience. He called on individuals to respond to Hilda’s questions, give her advice, and provide story details. This interactive element not only kept the audience on its toes, but also heightened the comedic aspect of the performance. Viewers’ were hysterical as their friends, professors, and relatives were put on the spot to contribute to the show’s ridiculous narrative.

The performers fully took advantage of their power to turn the audience’s vulnerability into entertainment. At one point in the show, a student was brought onstage and told he was to play opposite Hilda in her audition for a movie. The film’s director, played by one of the performers standing along side the green screen, informed Hilda that their scene needed to end in a kiss.

In this moment, everyone around me shifted to the edge of his or her seat. Uncomfortable laughter rang throughout the theater, signaling our nervous excitement about how the scene would unfold.

The finale of the production elevated audience participation to the next level. At the end of the play, the red curtain was drawn, opening up the stage. Hilda suddenly emerged, towering on stilts and professed her love for us, her viewers. She invited everyone up on stage to partake in the marriage ceremony uniting herself and the audience.

Hundreds of seats emptied, and people of all ages gathered on stage. We circled around Hilda, recited vows and then celebrated with festive music, dancing, champagne and wedding cake. It was the most unusual and delicious ending to a theater production I have ever experienced.

Following the show, I was eager to read more about Anonymous Ensemble’s work and manifesto. Their online statement reads, “We are the new generation of Stage and Screen. At the nexus of film and theater, AnEn’s work draws from and then propels itself beyond both genres. AnEn accepts the pervasive power of the Screen in our current times but demands that the screen be transfigured by the unpredictable, the human, the never-to-be-repeated possibilities of the Stage. AnEn creates audience-based work and considers the audience to be the co-creators of each event.”

What is particularly pertinent about LIEBE LOVE AMOUR! is that the lead role of Hilda is played by Wesleyan graduate Jessica Weinstein. Weinstein created the persona of Tall Hilda in 2002, the year of her graduation. She assisted in the construction of Anonymous Ensemble’s two productions that focus on the relationship between Hilda and her audience, Wanderlust that premiered in 2007 and LIEBE LOVE AMOUR! which opened in 2012.

During the show I was seated in an audience largely consisting of students who are majoring in theater, taking theater classes, and or working on theater projects. I could sense my peers’ excitement watching Weinstein perform, knowing that just ten years earlier, she had been in their shoes.

LIEBE LOVE AMOUR! was a remarkable experience. It certainly granted me a new perspective on the range of storytelling formats available through the synthesis of live theater, film, and audience participation.

Katherine Clifford ’14 reviews ZOOM by ZviDance

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Katherine Clifford ’14 shares her experiences with ZOOM, a piece by New York dance troupe ZviDance that made its Connecticut Premiere at the CFA Theater, last Friday, September 14.

ZviDance, a New York City-based dance company directed by Zvi Gotheiner, kicked off Wesleyan’s Center for the Art’s Performing Arts Series this weekend, September 14th and 15th, with its integrative and captivating piece, ZOOM.

This was the only performance I’ve been to where I could overtly use my cell phone during the performance, without feeling rude about texting. In fact, the audience members were urged to participate in the performance by taking cell phone pictures of the dancers and texting them to the number projected on the screen. These pictures were then integrated into the piece by being posted on the screen behind the dancers in a type of multi-media live-feed. There were also moments when the audience could text the dancers on stage. The texting conversations were projected on the screen as the dancer typed witty replies to text messages with his computer. At one point, the dancers even called the cell phones of several audience members who had submitted texts and invited them to come dance with them on stage.

The use of cell phones can often be a distraction and cause disengagement with one’s present surroundings. However, this piece was interesting, because using one’s phone actually allowed one to be engaged with the artistic and creative process. By texting photos and seeing my own photo projected on the screen, I felt like I was contributing to the performance, even if only in a minimal way. This was different than the typical mode of silently watching a performance in front of me; instead, a more participatory role was open to me as an audience member.

Through this backdrop of integrative media, there was brilliant dancing by seven company members, linking movement to various themes of technology and communication. According to Zvi Goetheiner in the pre-performance talk, the dancers were asked to improvise on different kinds of theoretical environments in constructing the piece; such as moving through a magnetic field, moving through cyberspace, and reflecting on the body as an extension of machine. This piece was “modern” in multiple sense of the term: in the style of dance and fluidity of the movement, in terms of integrating modern culture through the themes of technology and communication, and through the industrial-sounding, rhythmic beats of the music.

This deliberate incorporation of texting, technology, and media served the purpose of exposing the question of how technology affects communication and how modern relationships are transformed through texting and social networking. The last duet of the performance, for example, was about missed connection, and failed communication through texting. However, Zvi Gotheiner said in his pre-performance talk that this was not a commentary on whether technology and social networking makes us more or less connected than before. Instead, the goal was to reflect, rather than to judge, and to let the audience take away whatever message they want.

During the Q&A following the performance, an audience member brought up the point that she felt comfortable texting the dancers from the safety of her seat, but when she was called up to the stage, she felt uncomfortable. One of the dancers replied by noting that texting and social networking creates boundaries and barriers that we can hide behind, but it becomes scary to engage in real life. We are thus protected behind our phones, the internet, and digital information, but actual human contact can be frightening. The exploration of modes and quality of communication through movement and interaction with the audience was thus effective in stirring dialogue about these important themes impacting our modern time.

Creative Campus at the Student Activities Fair (Friday, September 14, 2pm)

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Want to know what arts events are happening on campus? Are you involved in arts events and want to get the word out about them? Are you creative and want an outlet for that awesome expression? Or maybe you want to offer up your fresh take on what’s happening on this very creative campus.

The Creative Campus website was created collaboratively with Wesleyan students, artists, and staff. It is intended for anyone who wants to know what is going on with creative life on this vibrant and inspirational campus. It is a way of aggregating and collecting the creative life on campus, across disciplines, passions, departments, and student groups.

And speaking of student groups, Creative Campus will have a table at the Student Activities Fair tomorrow, Friday September 14, from 2-5pm! Come check us out to find out how you can get involved, to promote your student group through Creative Campus, or just to say hi. Hope to see you there!

Rebecca Seidel ’15 interviews Kamar Thomas ’12 about his work in the Thesis Art Exhibition (through May 26)

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Rebecca Seidel ’15 reviews the Thesis Art Exhibition, and sits down with Kamar Thomas ’12, to discuss his seven-painting thesis series, “me, myself, & i”. 

Kamar Thomas, "Untitled" from the series "me, myself, & i"

For an incredible dose of fresh ideas manifested in artwork of all dimensions, I recommend heading over to the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, where the Thesis Art Exhibition is currently in full swing.  This annual showcase features select works from the thesis projects of seniors in the Department of Art & Art History‘s Art Studio program.

Each senior had a chance to display a larger sampling of his or her work last month, in more specialized five-day exhibits featuring five or six students each.  This final exhibition brings all the senior theses together into a comprehensive spectacle.  It’s astonishing to observe all the different concepts and media these seniors chose to explore.  Even though each senior only gets to display one piece of art in this final showing, the walls still brim with evidence of all the thought and creativity that went into each project.

Evidence of this creativity is not limited to the Zilkha Gallery.  If you’ve visited the main dining hall at the Usdan University Center recently, you’ve probably noticed that the back walls have a new infusion of color.  Those vibrant faces that have caught your eye are two paintings from the thesis series of Kamar Thomas ’12, me, myself, & i.  The Usdan University Center bought these paintings from Mr. Thomas and now has them on display.

All seven paintings in his thesis are self-portraits, each contributing to an exploration of self-conception and identity.  As he explains in the description mounted next to his painting at the Zilkha Gallery, issues of identity are especially important to him because of the life transitions he has experienced: “I grew up on Jamaica and spent my entire life there, only moving to the United States to study at Wesleyan University four years ago.  I have encountered the need to be flexible while staying connected to my past as I navigate my ever-changing present.”

For each self-portrait, Mr. Thomas would cover his own face in paint, then have his face photographed.  He would then edit that photograph in Photoshop.  The resulting image would be the inspiration for his painting.  The resulting works of art are eye-catchingly colorful and hard to forget.

I got a chance to sit down with Mr. Thomas and talk to him about his artwork.  Here is some of what he had to say.

Tell me a little bit about your thesis.

Well, it’s inspired by my own biography, having moved from Jamaica to here.  Each of [the paintings] in the series is my way of making another identity that isn’t directly connected to anything else.  So, for instance my skin is dark. You look and say, ‘Oh, it’s a black guy.’  But if you paint it, then what is it?  It really is an exploration of the flexibility of what identity is.

How did you come up with the idea for your thesis?

Playing around, coming up with a couple of ideas, bouncing ideas off my advisor – many, many things.  I can’t really spend such huge amounts of time [on a project] unless I have a personal connection to it.  So it was experimenting – finding something that interested me that I know other people wanted to see, too.

What have the reactions been like?

They’ve been so great.  I felt like a rock star at my own show.  There were so many people.  I even sold some of [my paintings].  You know how great that feels?  If you become an English major, it’s like writing a thesis and having a publisher going, ‘I want to sell your book.’ I still can’t believe it.

It must be cool to walk upstairs at Usdan and see your paintings on the walls.

It’s just so weird.  If anything is filmed at Usdan, my paintings will be in the background.  That’s my claim to fame.

In your description of your thesis series, you said that you ‘select images to paint based on their emotional impact and on how exciting they will be to paint.’  Do you think your paintings have had an emotional impact?

Yes, I would say they have emotional impact.  At first, people will see it and think, ‘Oh my God, this looks great,’ and they won’t really think why until long afterwards.  Then the intellect will kick in and go, ‘Well, how did you come up with this idea?’  As much as I like high art, I don’t want to be the person where you need to have taken nine Art History courses to even begin to grasp what these things mean.  They’re very loud.  They’re kind of like pop music – a lot of people like it, but there are still some hipsters who are like, ‘This is too mainstream for me.’ At the show, people were like, ‘Well, I don’t really like it, but it took a lot of work, so congratulations.’  It’s all right – I don’t want everyone to like it, anyway.

How did you publicize your own work?

The school helps you.  The school prints out the flyers and whatnot, and the senior thesis exhibition has happened every year since painting has been offered here, so it’s out there.  Also, I had a Facebook event.  All the painters in my week had a Facebook event, so their friends were coming.  I told a few people, and these few people told some more people – so it was word of mouth, Facebook, and people who I met randomly at dinners.

Each of your paintings is unique, but they all have some common characteristics.  How did you go about creating these pieces? Did you work on them all at once?

At first, I did them serially.  The real learning curve happened during my Christmas break and spring break, when I had nothing to do except paint – so I’d just get up and paint.  I started working on each of them at the same time.  It was, I would say, far more fun than doing any other thesis.  It wasn’t difficult at all.  It took work, but once you stopped complaining about that – I mean, you’re painting.  You’re not digging a hole sixty feet below the Earth’s surface, searching for shiny rocks.  You’re painting.

How long did each piece take you to paint?

The first one took forever.  The very first one took from September to the beginning of November, I believe. The second one took three weeks.  The third one took all of Christmas break.  I took from January till spring break to do another one, and then during spring break I finished three. And then I was done early, and I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I guess you never got tired of painting?

Hell, no.  I know some people are burnt out by it.  But, you know, if you’ve already decided to disappoint your parents, you might as well do it on a grand, impressive scale.  Even if I was tired of it, I would never mention it or bring it up.  So no, I never got tired of it.  And right now I have a lot of ideas for my next paintings.

That must be exciting.

Oh, extremely exciting.  I’m moving to New York City, and seeing how that plays out.  I’m going to move somewhere and paint in my apartment, wherever I am.

I know that in order to create a thesis, Art Studio majors have to raise funds themselves.  What was that like?

I begged like I have never begged before.  I worked like I have never worked before.  Because I’m international, I can’t work off campus, and I’m only allowed twenty hours a week to work.  So at the end of my sophomore year, I realized, I’m going to have to start painting and selling now.  Otherwise – no thesis.  No money, no thesis.

My thesis in total cost between three and five thousand dollars – I was talking to a few people, and they were shocked that the school didn’t provide the materials.  It was harder to raise the money than it was to make the paintings.

Do you think the University should supply more funding for Studio Art thesis work?

Definitely.  If I ever have large sums of money, I’ll do it myself.  The formula is so simple: no money, no thesis.  No one cares how much talent you have or what you’re trying to do.  Because, I mean, you’re not the next Picasso, and even if you are, you won’t know, because you don’t have any money to try.

Have you always liked art?

Nope. [In Jamaica], I didn’t know about the concept of a museum or art as a means to sustain yourself, or art as a means of expression or making an emotional impact.  I came here and took some art history courses and saw that there were textbooks written on it – just a whole field dedicated to it.

What about actually painting – doing it yourself?

Growing up nearsighted, poor hand-eye coordination, born broke, I just wasn’t exposed to it.  But once I was, I liked it; loved it.

Was painting self-portraits a self-reflective process for you?

That’s putting it mildly.  You want to know yourself? Paint yourself seven times.  You really want to know yourself?  Go outside in broad daylight with your face in full makeup, with two women holding up a mirror and a background behind you and another woman taking a picture, and having school children walk by. You will develop a level of confidence that you didn’t even know you had.

The Thesis Art Exhibition will continue in Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery until Saturday, May 26, 2012. There will be a reception on Saturday, May 26, 2012, from 2pm to 4pm. 

Community, Communication, and Presentation: In the Field with Hannah Cressy ’13

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Hannah Cressy ’13 continues her report on the service learning factor of Wesleyan’s interdisciplinary course Ritual, Health, and Healing.

Sonya Freeman '12 has tea with Professor Jill Sigman's father.

Sunday, April 22 was our last in Brooklyn, and the culmination of all the conversations, tours, library research, video editing, and personal interviews we’ve conducted over the past month.  We’ve been traveling to Greenpoint-Williamsburg nearly every weekend in April to the Arts@Renaissance space of St. Nick’s Alliance to learn about the area from locals. We developed projects to document the neighborhood’s rich history and bring awareness to issues of trash distribution, educational equality, pollution, health, and space preservation.  Our goal for Sunday was to present our findings to members of this community and to talk with them about their viewpoints on these issues, and we are very happy that the weekend succeeded in promoting neighborhood communication, honoring long-time local activists, and beginning plans for our professor Jill Sigman’s upcoming project in Arts@Renaissance.

We spent Saturday finishing up and rehearsing our presentations, and were happy to get a taste of the local food scene in Williamsburg!  Our class has grown very close since January, as we meet two to three times per week; the same can be said for our relationships with both of our professors.  We’ve been very lucky to spend weekends with Gillian and Jill outside the classroom environment; hierarchal boundaries dissolve and a more egalitarian group-consciousness arises when working on real-world projects such as ours.

A lifelong Greenpoint resident shows Haley Perkins '13 her childhood home on a map.

On Sunday, we invited anyone living in Greenpoint-Williamsburg to stop by Arts@Renaissance during the afternoon to hear about our projects and to join in a community discussion.  We were a little nervous and very excited to see the final products of our classmates’ hard work.  There was no need to worry; the room
was full of community members the entire afternoon, ranging from their 20s to their 80s, both lifelong Greenpoint residents and new transplants.  The afternoon began with a witty ukelele performace from a former Ms. Greenpoint, who sang of public bath houses, Brooklyn’s trash issues, and the Exxon oil spill.  Then we moved into student presentations.  Several of my classmates made an incredible short film to document the overwhelming number of open-air trash dumps in Williamsburg and locals’ accounts of their asthmatic effects; another group created a walking tour past these transfer stations.  Another group focused on the inequality and self-confidence issues that arise with charter school invasion, and my group led attendees through a short history of the hospital complex that now houses St. Nick’s.  Interactive stations around the room allowed community members to draw their memorable neighborhood places on a big map, to look through news archives, or to listen to interviews with local members of the National Congress of Neighborhood Women.  The afternoon was a fantastic break from the chaos of everyday life for everyone involved; we gave ourselves time to reflect, connect, plan, and learn about each other.

Charlotte Heyrman '13 and Jesse Jacobson '12 talk with community members.

It is this separation from the ordinary that allows a ritual, and its subsequent changes in consciousness or action, to occur.  What we’ve learned in this class is that one need not travel abroad or join a religion to participate in ritual since we do it all the time.  The next part of the afternoon employed a ritual familiar to most of us: that of serving tea.  Jill, one of our professors, has built six “huts” around the world, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts; in preparation for hut #7, she set up a tape scaffold on its upcoming site, and prepared tea in the center made with herbs grown in a nearby urban garden.  We sat in a circle on her handmade T-shirt pillows and invited attending community members to join us in one-on-one conversations about their visions for the hut and opinions about pollution and garbage in the area.  I was surprised and enlivened by the openness of every attendee to our project.  Eighty-five year old men sat down on floor pillows and drew on small squares of paper, imagining what this hut will look like.  Tea continued for an hour or so, biscotti and fresh bread were passed around, and we “talked trash”.

By the end of the day, nearly everyone who’d shown up was still there, talking with neighbors or with us,
listening to interviews, or marking their childhood homes on the map.  The hut scaffolding was covered with clothespins holding pieces of paper; people had drawn ideas for the hut or written down which items of trash should be included.  We were exhausted from the weekend, but so thankful for the community members’ participation and fantastic ideas.  Though our Brooklyn trips have ended, we’re continuing to finish up our projects here at Wesleyan and will have final products ready in several weeks!

First Look: “Lift Your Head”, Senior Thesis Production by Sarah Wolfe ’12 (Dec. 8-10)

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Shira Engel ’14  and Malik Salahuddin ’13 provide a first look at the senior thesis production by Sarah Wolfe ’12, “Lift Your Head” (Dec. 8-10).

Lift Your Head, a senior thesis production by Sarah Wolfe ’12, is a truly collaborative creative process. She and Mica Taliaferro ’11 and Emma Maclean ’14 followed a trail of inspiration that led them to this final production, which has been influenced by Wesleyan’s multimedia and collaborative approach to theater. From transforming short stories into short plays, to reading Euripides’ The Trojan Women, Lift Your Head is what a senior thesis should be – a culminating and productive representation of Sarah’s time at Wesleyan.

Click here to watch a preview video of Lift Your Head created by Malik Salahuddin ’13.

Ms. Wolfe retells The Trojan Women, using various modern adaptations and translations of the narrative to tell the story of Hecuba, her daughters, and Helen at the end of the Trojan War. The Trojan Women has been called by many the greatest anti-war play. These performances will examine its relevance throughout history as told by playwrights including Ellen McLaughlin, Charles Mee, Jean Paul Sartre and Karen Hartman. These performances are in partial fulfillment of Ms. Wolfe’s Honors Thesis in Theater.

Don’t miss Lift Your Head, playing from Thursday, December 8 through Saturday, December 10, 2011  at 8pm in the Patricelli ’92 Theater, located at 213 High Street on the Wesleyan campus in Middletown. Tickets are free, and will be made available of the day of each performance at the Wesleyan University Box Office, located at 45 Wyllys Avenue. Off-campus guests only may call the box office at 860-685-3355 after 10am to reserve tickets to be held in their name until fifteen minutes prior to curtain. On-campus guests must pick up their tickets at the box office. There is a two-ticket limit per person for free ticketed events.