Spring 2003 Visiting Artists
(November 2002 to May 2003)
November 26
William Brown, tenor, African American vocalist, lecturer and educator, who gave a master class in voice, delivered a guest lecture in the course, "American Music Theatre."
Students involved: 42
January 29 - March 12
George Flett, painter, of the Spokane Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington, is among the most respected Indian artists in the northwest U.S. His exhibition of "ledger" drawings and paintings was entitled "Balancing Tribal Accounts: the Ledger Art of George Flett." Wheaton Professor Emeritus Dick Pearce delivered Flett's public lecture, when, on the day of the talk, a medical emergency kept Flett from flying to Massachusetts. Still, Flett's drawings and paintings, created on the pages of portable account ledgers, illustrated in code the difficult history of his people, in conflict with white soldiers and other invaders.
Students involved: 500
January - May
Seydou Coulibaly, dancer and drummer from Mali, West Africa, along with two guest drummers from his Komme Djosse dance troupe, performed at Wheaton and was in residence during the spring semester. Coulibaly taught a dance class in preparation for a final concert in May. He is a master of Mande performance arts and was educated in Mali through traditional transmission practices and has received numerous awards at Malian dance competitions. Coulibaly teaches throughout New England, including Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center at the National Theatre Institute in Waterford, Connecticut, where he has mentored several Wheaton students.
Students involved: 35
Nicole Rodriguez '01, dancer and choreographer, taught a semester-long modern dance course and worked extensively with the Wheaton College Dance Company, choreographing works for its main stage production, Eclipse, in February. Since the age of four, she studied with the Venette's Cultural Workshop and the Broadway Dance Center, and, in 2000, received a scholarship to attend the Alvin Ailey American School of Dance. Rodriguez teaches at the New England Dance Academy and choreographed various works in last year's Miss Rhode Island Pageant.
Students involved: 60
Joanna Barroll '01, dancer, choreographer, and yoga instructor, taught a semester-long course and worked extensively with the Wheaton College Dance Company, choreographing works for its main stage production, Eclipse, in February.
Students involved: 60
February - April
Kausalya Srinivasan, a bharata natyam dancer of the South Indian classical dance form of many centuries ago in Hindu temples. She presented at the class, "Music and Worship in World Cultures," on Hinduism as embodied through dance and offered a lab-performance to the Wheaton World Music Ensemble and our dance students. Students involved: 150
February 17 - March 2
Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, director of New York City's Looking Glass Theatre Laboratory, and resident dramaturge for Wheaton's New Plays Festival (March 4 - 8). The festival was the first of its kind at Wheaton. The weeklong event showcased all original plays written, directed and acted by students. Balzer also addressed a group of Wheaton trustees, alumnae/i, friends, and staff with passion and eloquence about the meaning and impact of the Haas Visiting Artists Program & Arts in the City. Her audience responded with a hearty ovation.
Students involved: 40
February 19
John Paul Caponigro, renowned digital landscape photographer, participated in classroom workshops, advising senior students, and delivered an evening talk with slides that included mostly students, and some faculty, staff and friends of the college.
Students involved: over 115
February 25
Helen Elaine Lee, fiction writer, MIT faculty member, and author of The Serpent's Gift and Watermarked met with several creative writing classes to discuss important perspectives on writers of color. She also gave a public reading of her work.
Students involved: 15
February 26
Deraldo Ferreiera, director of the Brazilian Cultural Center of New England Capoeira Mestre, conducted a three-hour workshop for senior theatre arts majors who were working on their final project as an ensemble. The workshop exercise allowed our students to learn about Brazilian culture and provided them with an opportunity to develop a different understanding of movement and of body control. Capoeira is a Brazilian form of combat hidden within dance.
Students involved: 13
February 28 - March 1
Adrienne Mincz and Cape Dance Company. The CDC worked with members of the Wheaton College Dance Company throughout fall and spring semester, choreographing works and performing in the show, Eclipse.
Students involved: 15
Performance attendance: 900
March 2 - 6
Miki Hsu Leavey '74, painter and arts educator at Copia: The American Center for Food, Wine, and the Arts, exhibited her paintings in Beard Gallery, presented a public lecture and a workshop, held critique sessions in several studio art classes and served as a guest advisor to the Senior Studio Seminar, which discussed practical issues for emerging artists. Leavey also met with a group of local high school students for a talk in Beard Gallery.
Students involved: 100
March 6 - 7
Dr. Andrew Connell, ethnomusicologist and musician, is a professor of music at James Madison University. He gave guest lectures for "Introduction to World Music" and "Music and Worship in World Culture," and a master class on Brazilian music for the Wheaton Jazz Band (a session attended by local residents as well as members of campus). He dealt with pedagogy, in particular of the revolutionary way Brazilian director/bassist/composer Itibere Zwarg teaches his repertoire to a youth orchestra--using mostly oral communication and a great deal of spontaneous composition and arranging. Connell, a jazz and Brazilian popular music saxophonist and clarinetist, was a guest soloist in a faculty concert with Matthew Allen and Julie Searles.
Students involved: 170
March 11
Sharan Strange, poet, who teaches at Spellman College, in Atlanta, Georgia, discussed poems from her book, Ash, which concerns aspects of African American identity, and demonstrated many formal poetic forms that all creative writing students should know. Strange also gave a public reading with fellow poet Anika Nailah. (the departments of English, Theatre, Studio Art, Biology, and Psychology were involved in this visit.)
Students involved: 70
March 11-12
Anika Nailah, writer-in-residence, director of Books of Hope (a non-profit youth literacy program in Boston) and author of the book, Free and Other Stories, conducted a two-day workshop, visited several English classes, gave a public reading of her works and met with a group of students interested in mentoring programs beyond Wheaton.
Students involved: 45
March 12
David Chandler, Tai Chi master, conducted a tai chi workshop for senior theatre arts majors. The Senior Theatre Ensemble is studying artists' response to war in countries abroad. The group's final project was a culmination of this research and a chance for individual students to express their reactions to war artistically, through theatre. Chandler's workshop exposed them to a slow, non-violent form that links meditation to movement based upon one-to-one combat.
Students involved: 14
March 25-26
Tina Howe, playwright, has won the Obie Award for Distinguished Playwriting, an Outer Critics Circle Award, an American Academy of Arts & Letters Award in Literature, a Rockefeller grant, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has been nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play. Howe's play, Pride's Crossing, was selected as a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize and was awarded the 1998 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. Her two-day visit included a public lecture and guest-teaching creative writing, acting and directing classes.
Students involved: 85
March 28
Harold Jones, legendary jazz drummer, demonstrated for the class, "Wheaton Jazz Band," the myriad concepts, vehicles, and "licks" that a jazz drummer in a traditional jazz trio must have at his or her command in order to support such a performance group. Jones has performed with such artists as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, and Natalie Cole.
Students involved: 14
March 30-31
Mick Moloney, with guests Jerry O'Sullivan (uilleann piper) and Dana Lyn (fiddler), traditional folk musicians, presented a pre-concert lecture on the Irish musical tradition and performed in concert. The next day, Moloney gave a luncheon lecture on the encounter between Irish American and African American cultures, beginning in the 19th century U.S. Moloney is a folklorist, arts presenter and advocate, singer, and professional musician (mandolin, tenor banjo). In 1999, he won the National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. The author of Far from the Shamrock Shore: The Irish American Experience in Song, Moloney teaches in New York University's Irish Studies Program.
Students involved: 75
March 31 - April 1
Dan Weldon, master printmaker and innovator of Solarplate technology, demonstrated new technology in non-toxic printmaking methods during a two-day workshop. Weldon, author of Printmaking in the Sun, developed and perfected Solarplate technology for relief and intaglio printing processes. The focus was on media the first day and on the creative process the second.
Students involved: 40
April 5
Jeffrey M. Jones, playwright, conducted a playwriting workshop for beginning and advanced students, based upon his own work. Jones is the author of the musical, J.P. Morgan Saves the Nation, and of Love Trouble, Write If You Get Work, The Endless Adventures of M.C. Kat, Crazy Plays Que Fumar, and Officework. He is an instructor at the Yale School of Drama and has received many fellowships and grants.
Students involved: 40
April 7
Actors Fred Sullivan, Janice Duclos, Mauro Hantman and company sound designer Peter Hurowitz '94 from Trinity Repertory Company, in Providence, Rhode Island. These three theatre professionals presented a public panel, geared to Wheaton students contemplating careers in theatre.
Students involved: 40
April 9 - 10
David Kaynor, dancer, teacher, fiddler, performed and led a New England contradance in which the steps are "called," and he guest-taught the "World Music" class, in which American folk traditions were discussed. New England contradance is a traditional form, passed down from early immigrants from the British Isles and Europe. Kaynor is the top caller at Greenfield Grange in western Massachusetts, perhaps the most popular and dynamic contradance venue.
Students involved: 30
April 15
Dr. David Rakowski, composer and educator, presented a mini-lecture to students of the course, "Music Composition," and helped them prepare for their final composition recitals. Rakowski, professor of composition at Brandeis University, has received the Rome Prize, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Tanglewood Music Center, BMI, Columbia University, and various artists' colonies. He has been commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the U.S. Marine Band, Network for New Music (Philadelphia), Koussevitzky Music Foundation (for Ensemble 21), Boston Musica Viva, the Fromm Foundation, the Crosstown Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, the Riverside Symphony, Parnassus, The Composers Ensemble, Alea II, Alea III, Triple Helix and others. In 1999, his "Persistent Memory" was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music, and in 2002 his "Ten of a Kind" commissioned by the U.S. Marine Band, was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Students involved: 5
Apr 16
Lou Jones, photographer, fine artist, visited the class, "Intermediate Photography," to which students campuswide were invited. He talked about life as a professional photographer and discussed his book, Portraits - Death Row. Jones is an award-winning photographer, specializing in advertising, and corporate and editorial projects. His assignments have taken him often to South America, Europe, Africa, Japan and 46 states in the U.S. His clients include IBM, Major League Baseball, Federal Express, Peugeot, and National Geographic, and he has photographed 10 successive Olympic Games.
Students involved: 25
Apr 21
Kim Berman, a South African artist and printmaker, believes in art as a tool for social, economic, and political change. In 1991, Berman founded Artist Proof Studio, in South Africa, and has served as its director since then. She is a senior lecturer and the head of printmaking at Technikon Witwatersrand and also serves as program manager and director of the Phumani Paper project, a South African government-funded national poverty relief program. Her work on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission entitled, "Playing Cards," is part of a Rose Arts Museum exhibition called "Coexistence," at Brandeis University.
Students involved: 50
April 22
Kathy Fagan, poet, is the author of seven books of poetry. Winner of a Pushcart Prize and the Editors' Prize from The Missouri Review, Fagan has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Ohio Arts Council. Fagan is currently a professor of English and director of the creative writing program aat Ohio State University where she co-edits The Journal. At Wheaton, she visited several classes, including "Poetry Writing," in which she worked with students on their own writings.
Students involved: 54