AlfredUniversity
CenterStage
Division of Performing Arts Newsletter · Fall 2017
Director’s Welcome
A new academic year is once again about to begin. As we carry with us the Alfred summer of warm air, green hillsides and the cheer of community friendships, we look forward to the rigor of a renewed commitment to learning by experiencing the discoveries that only Performing Arts can deliver. Join us at Holmes Auditorium, Susan Howell Hall, and at the Miller Performing Arts Complex for our events. Here at Alfred University, we offer a world of music, dance and drama to entertain and inspire. Our commitment is to bring enjoyment, knowledge and meaning to life.
Welcome to Center Stage.
Our 2017-2018 performances are made possible through the extraordinary generosity of Marlin and Ginger Miller, David and Elizabeth Miller, the Herrick- Gallman Fund for the Performing Arts, Hillel at Alfred, as well as the support of our many Premiere Club members.
This season premieres Friday, September 8th in Holmes Auditorium with Journey West, a unique music ensemble exploring the migration of melody from east to west, featuring two remarkable refugee musicians from Iraq and Syria.
Dr. Lisa Lantz
Professor of Music, Founding Director of the MostArts Festival and Chair of Performing Arts at Alfred University
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Dara Malina returns to the Miller Performing Arts Center to work with our students on another Devised Performance piece, September 28-30 in the C.D.Smith III Theater.
Students will form an ensemble and devise an orginal performance work from found or collectively generated text and images. The piece will be inspired by our current political moment and tests from early 20thC works inspired by war and avant garde art movements.
Malina is a director of theatre, performance, opera and video in NYC.
Currently, she is directing an opera film featuring the Ophelie mad scene from Thomas’ HAMLET while developing THIS IS A PROTEST OF WHAT HAPPENED at The Brick in Brooklyn, NY.
Welcome back, Dara!
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Guest Director, Dara Malina
theatre design
The Design program welcomes set designer and scenic artist Karen Glass from Pittsburg, PA. Karen will give a workshop and discuss the role of the scenic artist as a production team member. Students will also discover interesting and informative information about surface preparation, paint formulation and mixing, creating textures and modeling with highlight and shadow.Theatre and Art students can look forward to getting messy while having some fun- Welcome to the Miller Performing Arts Center, Karen!
Scenic Painting Workshop with Karen Glass
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3Shaminda was recently appointed Chair of the Technical Design and Production Department and Director of Production at the School of Drama and Yale Repertory Theater. Amarakoon graduated from Alfred University in 2004 and until his recent appointment had worked as production manager at Second Stage Theater, where his responsibilities included consulting on renovations of the Helen Hayes Theater, in New York City. He also worked in production for Yale Repertory Theater, and had worked in production management for numerous Broadway, off-Broadway and national tours through Tech Production Services, and then Lincoln Center Theater. With one word, Shaminda sums up his Alfred University experience: “Confidence! AU gave me the confidence to pursue my dream.”
Spotlight on: Shaminda Amarakoon Class of 2004
Watch throughout the 2017-2018 year for “Pop-Up Concert Readings” of timely plays! Under the direction of Becky Prophet, students from Performing Arts will present plays as great readings for FREE! Look for Gaslight in early October: a husband convinces his wife that she is crazy. Just in time for Halloween and some 78 years after the scary and realistic radio broadcast, a reading of The War of the Worlds, made famous by
Orson Wells that set off panic in the US in the fall of 1939. It’s a Wonderful Life will conclude the fall season.
Spring semester includes: The Laramie Project, Our Town, and, perhaps, Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap or a stage adaptation of A Prayer for Owen Meany from John Irving’s stunning novel. Exact times, dates, and locations will be announced through e-mail, Alfred Today, and the Alfred Sun.
Famous Plays Will Light Up Milller Stages
Eurydice, by Sarah Ruhl, is an enchanting retelling of the ancient myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Told from the perspective of Eurydice, the story focuses on her time in the Underworld after her untimely death and the surprise awaiting her that ultimately determines her eternal fate. Lush with dark humor, lyrical beauty, and wit, Eurydice transforms this Greek classic into a visceral, contemporary meditation on love worth grieving for. Award-winning playwright and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Ruhl wrote Eurydice in honor of her father who died of cancer. She describes her writing
of it as a “cultural ritual to organize her feelings”, a way to “have a few more conversations with him.” Through a collage-like plot structure, Ruhl creates a dreamlike world in which she introduces themes not present in the original myth. Directed by J. Stephen Crosby, Eurydice will run November 15th- 18th - Transport yourself into the two worlds of Eurydice, a play New York Times reviewer Charles Isherwood called “weird and wonderful.” For reservations, go online (las.alfred.
edu/performing-arts/events) or call 871-2828.
Theatre Department presents Eurydice
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S P O T L I G H T O N music
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Welcome new adjunct faculty Kurt Galván and Eric Carlin
Pianist Kurt Eric Galván is our new accompanist and adjunct piano instructor.
He performed on campus this summer at the 4th annual
MostArts Festival and will return this fall to teach Class Piano, private lessons and accompany our students in rehearsals and recital. Active as a performer in New York and around his native New England area, where he has premiered many new chamber works, Kurt recently returned from a performing tour in China.
He earned his MM in Piano from the University of Connecticut, and an MM in Piano Accompaniment at the Eastman School of Music, where he is currently pursuing his DMA.
Eric Carlin’s diverse musical interests have spanned electric blues, jazz, rock, pop and classical guitar. Carlin received his Bachelor of Music in guitar performance from Mansfi eld University and went on to study with Nicolas Goluses at the Eastman School
of Music earning a DMA. Most recently, Carlin received the prestigious Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Performance and Literature from Eastman.
At Eastman, he nurtured his passion for teaching, and currently divides his time between Mansfi eld University and Nazareth College in Rochester, NY and is excited to begin teaching at Alfred this Fall.
Kurt Galván
Eric Carlin
David Miller Guest Artist Series Presents:
Singer/songwriter, Peggy Lynn would be in residence with the FYE class “Tell Me A Story” September 27-28. Students will be exploring ballads from the US and the British Isles and composing their own ballads. Ms. Lynn will also present a WGST Women’s Studies Roundtable on Friday, September 29, entitled Songs of the Suff ragette Movement. Lynn would be joined by her husband, award winning hammer dulcimer player Dan Duggan for a free concert of traditional folk music on September 29 at 7:30 pm in the Alfred Seventh Day Baptist Church. This residency is also funded by the Herrick- Gallman Fund.
Peggy Lynn composition residency and performance
Peggy Lynn and Dan Duggan
5 Trio Alexander champions the music for flute-viola-harp
trio by performing not only standard classical repertoire, but also their own transcriptions, commissioned works from emerging composers, and improvisations on jazz and folk tunes. The trio comprises flutist Caroline Sonett, violist Adam Paul Cordle, and harpist Rosanna Moore and will perform a free concert on October 29 at 3:00 in Miller Theater.
Trio Alexander, a unique classical ensemble
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Journey West
Journey West to feature two special guest artists
In 1985 I began playing the violin through youth organizations affiliated with the Iraqi Baath Party, headed by Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein and forced to perform for the State. Later, I was forced to work for Uday Hussein, the son of Saddam – an unstable and violent individual. If you refused to participate in the special activities of the Hussein family, your fate was imprisonment, where you would be tortured to death.
In 1997, in order to survive, I fled from Iraq to the United Arab Emirates.
Over the years, I yearned to return to my native country. Finally, in 2003, the government of Saddam
Hussein fell, and in 2007 I went back to Iraq to visit my family, where I was exposed to violence from the opposition that had gained power.
I was faced with another type of extremism.
Extremist religious parties outlawed my music and persecuted me. This became insufferable when they bombed my family’s house, forcing me to flee back to Dubai with my wife and children. I remained there until November, 2016.
I am now very happy to be in the United States and am grateful to be alive.
Imad Yassin
A special message
Journey West is a music ensemble which chronicles the migration of melody, from east to west, through an interactive multi-media performance.
On Friday September 8, 2017, Journey West will perform at Alfred University’s Holmes Auditorium and will be joined by two refugee musicians: Imad Yassin from Iraq, and Basam Batbouta from Syria, who will share their remarkable stories and their music.
Journey West’s visit is sponsored by Hillel and the David Miller Guest Artist Series.
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In the Spring of 2018, The Alfred University Dance department, along with multiple partners, looks forward to hosting artist Eiko Otake in a week-long residency at Alfred University. Eiko’s “medium is movement and her work resides in the spaces between dance, theater, performance art, and sculpture”. The residency will connect with many departments on AU’s campus along with universities and community members within the region. Eiko will be teaching open master classes, giving multiple free public video lectures that range in topics but will include A Body in Fukashima, and will be creating and performing a site-specifi c solo as part of her A Body in Places series.
To prepare our students and larger audience for this residency, the dance department, with the generous funding from the Herrick Gallman Fund, will be bringing Dr. Rosemary Candelario, author of Flowers Cracking Concrete: Eiko & Koma’s Asian/American Choreographies for a two- day residency November 6 & 7. Dr. Candelario will present lectures and teach movement classes that will prepare the community for Eiko’s upcoming residency.
Rosemary Candelario, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor at Texas Womans University) specializes in the Japanese avant-garde movement form butoh. Other research interests include dance and ecology, Asian American dance, site-specifi c performance, and arts activism. Her book, Flowers Cracking Concrete: Eiko & Koma’s Asian/
American Choreographies was published by Wesleyan University Press in 2016. Candelario’s choreography has been produced across the United States, and as a dancer she has performed in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Germany, and South Africa. She has published articles in the Journal of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training; The Scholar and Feminist Online;
and The International Journal of Screendance, and has chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen, Contemporary Directions in Asian American Dance, and Race in the Vampire Narrative.
Rosemary earned a PhD in Culture and Performance from UCLA. At TWU she teaches graduate theory and writing courses, advises PhD and MA students, and directs the International Dance Company.
www.rosemarycandelario.net/
Eiko Otake’s project is supported by the New York State DanceForce with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts Dance Program, the Marlin Miller Dance Residency Program, The School of Art and Design, and the Alfred University Institute for Cultural Unity.
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Eiko performing Kifune Shrine. Photo by William Johnson
Eiko and Body in Spaces
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Welcome back from sabbatical... d
to Chase Angier, Steve and Luanne Crosby. We look forward to hearing about your time away from campus at this fall’s Bergren Forum in Nevins Theater. Steve and Luanne will present “China: Terra Cotta Warriors, Fish Head Soup, And Fiddler on the Roof” on September 7 and Chase will speak about Iceland and more November 2.
d ance
7Recently The Letter to the World Project created by D.
Chase Angier, Marketa Fantova and Evelyne Leblanc Roberge was featured in the ASAP/Journal in an in- depth article written by Amanda Graham. This project included three current or former AU faculty members - Angier, Leblanc Roberge, and Fantova, and Alfred University students who have since graduated: Eden Palmer, Kim Rau, Krystal Redding Cooper, Megan Chambers, Ned Allen, Julie Verdone, Emily Smith, and Ibrahim Osumanu.
Last year Wendy Whelan and Brian Brooks performed in Alfred University’s Miller Theater. You will see both of them in Wendy’s new documentary Restless Creature.
Wendy Whelan joined the New York City Ballet in 1984 as an apprentice and became its principal dancer in 1991. She is a highly respected and beloved fi gure in the dance world. In this documentary, Whelan is followed as she confronts the limitations that time has placed on her body and learns to adapt to a new role in the dance community.– Gia Kourlas, The New York Times
Award Winning Choreographer and Alfred University Marlin Miller Dance Residency Ann Carlson has been touring Doggie Hamlet to enthusiastic audiences at The Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College, in Jackson Wyoming and soon at The Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA. This project includes Alfred University Art Faculty member Diane Cox, and Hornell community member Imre To. This art work was fi rst developed at Alfred University in partnership with Nevermore Farms in 2015.
Project Updates
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E P T E M B E RFrom the Hillel & David Miller Guest Artist Series
8 A Journey West. A migration of melody from east to west, joined by refugee musicians from Iraq and Syria. Holmes Auditorium, 8:00 pm
28-30 Devised Theatre Production. Under the guidance of NYC based guest director, Dara Milano. C.D. Smith III Theater, 7:30 pm. Tickets required.
David Miller Guest Artist Series
29 Peggy Lynn & Dan Duggan. Enjoy an evening of traditional folk music. Alfred Seventh Day Baptist Church, 7:30 pm
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C T O B E R David Miller Guest Artist Series29 Trio Alexander. Music ranging from the Classics to Jazz for fl ute-viola-harp Miller Theater, 3:00 pm.
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O V E M B E R3 Tianhan Chinese Orchestra. Traditional Chinese Orchestra joins AU Chorus and Guzheng. Miller Theater, 7:30 pm.
15-18 Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl. A retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice focusing on her time in the Underworld after her untimely death and the surprise awaiting her. C.D. Smith III Theater, 7:30 pm. Tickets required.
19 Symphony Orchestra Concert. Miller Theater, 7:30 pm 30 Informal Dance Showing. C.D. Smith III Theater 7:00 pm.
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E C E M B E R1 Informal Dance Showing. C.D. Smith III Theater 7:00 pm.
2 Student Recital. Miller Theater, 3 pm 2 Jazz Band Concert. Miller Theater, 7:30 pm
3 Winter Choral Concert. Alfred Seventh Day Baptist Church, 7:30 pm
8 Symphonic Band Concert. Miller Theater, 7:30 pm 9 Student Recital. Susan Howell Hall, 3 pm
Performing Arts Fall Calendar 2017
AU alumni Ibrahim Osumanu and Megan Chambers
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Division of Performing Arts Miller Performing Arts Center 1 Saxon Drive
Alfred, NY 14802
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SU M M E R MU S I C & AR T
SU M M E R MU S I C & AR T
Visit our website for information and updates:
www.MostArts.Alfred.edu or contact Lisa Lantz, Artistic Director at [email protected].
