CalArts Magazine Fall 2015

The Magazine of California Institute of the Arts | Fall 2015

The Magazine of California Institute of the Arts | Fall 2015

JOAN ABRAHAMSON

———— LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

The arrival of students in September is always an exciting moment in the life of CalArts. Motivated, as most are, to transform the world for the better, our students are charged up with hope and anticipation. So are faculty and staff, eager to help those students progress toward their individual goals, artistic as well as professional.

The idealism and desire to effect meaningful change are key drivers of the creative process, and CalArts alumni, as a group, bring uncommonly strong social commitment to their respective professional pathways. Many CalArts graduates are applying their skills—especially creative problem-solving—to address issues of poverty, the environment, international understanding, and, not least, arts education and pedagogical reform in pre-college learning, notably in our public schools. It is enormously gratifying to see alumni take the CalArts example—our core values and how we go about our mission, both on campus and as part of the countywide network of the Community Arts Partnerships (CAP)—and extend it, in their own ways, in the sphere of public arts education. This issue of CalArts offers profiles of seven such brilliant alumni.

Another line of pedagogical innovation is the subject of a second article as we report on our ongoing effort to bring the unique CalArts approach to creative education to the distance learning space. The Institute today is forging new connections with creative communities and institutional partners around the world—constituencies who are delighted to have access to our expertise—while at the same time generating revenue to support core programs at home and help contain the cost of tuition.

Our work to improve the CalArts student experience is continuous, and this past summer was no exception. The most visible upgrade is the complete transformation of the Café. The expanded menu, based on authentic, carefully sourced ingredients, offers more choices to meet changing community trends, while the remodeled dining room provides a bright, airy gathering spot, conducive to both communal experience and more intimate meetings with peers and faculty. Elsewhere on campus, we have added staff to the Office of Student Affairs and the Patty Disney Center for Life and Work so that students, especially younger undergraduates, have all the support services they need to make the most of their residencies at CalArts and lay the groundwork for careers after college.

Over the summer I announced that I will be stepping down as president at the end of the 2016–17 academic year, which will be my 29th at the Institute. We will write about this development in the next issue of CalArts. For now, however, I will just say that I have begun the new year committed to accomplishing everything I can during these two years, with particular focus on growing financial aid, fully integrating the new Institute Planning Committee, continuing to grow both our domestic diversity and our international reach, and, in every way I can, helping to ensure the quality and strength of CalArts long into the future. It promises to be a very exciting year ahead.

Steven D. Lavine President, CalArts

BOARD OF TRUSTEES OFFICERS Tim Disney, Chair Thomas L. Lee, Vice Chair James B. Lovelace, Vice Chair TRUSTEES Joan Abrahamson Alan Bergman Austin M. Beutner David A. Bossert Louise Bryson Don Cheadle Olga Cosme, Student Trustee Jonathan Dolgen Melissa Draper David I. Fisher Rodrigo Garcia Harriett F. Gold Richard J. Grad Laurie Jacobs, Staff Trustee Charmaine Jefferson Marta Kauffman Jamie Kellner Jill Kraus Steven D. Lavine, Ex-Officio Thomas Lloyd Michelle Lund Jamie Alter Lynton Leslie McMorrow Greg McWilliams Thomas Newman Michael Nock Janet Dreisen Rappaport David Roitstein, Faculty Trustee Tom Rothman Araceli Ruano David L. Schiff Joni Binder Shwarts Susan Steinhauser Roger Wacker Luanne C. Wells TRUSTEE EMERITI V. Shannon Clyne Joseph M. Cohen Robert J. Denison Robert B. Egelston Douglas K. Freeman Jeffrey Katzenberg William S. Lund Peter Norton C. Roderick O’Neil Michael Pressman Joseph Smith

BFA candidate Jonathan Bangs in a workshop production of Shelter, conceived and written by School of Theater faculty member Marissa Chibas and staged last semester under the direction of Mexico Citybased guest artist MartĂ­n Acosta. The full production of Shelter, which engages the stories of refugee children from Central America who have been through the U.S. detention and shelter system, will be presented this spring by the Center for New Performance (CNP) in association with the multilingual arts initiative Duende CalArts.

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Seth Boyden (Film/Video BFA 15) won a Student Academy Award in Animation for his CalArts thesis film, An Object at Rest, taking home the Silver Medal in the 42nd annual competition held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Boyden’s poignant six-minute short, which last spring had won the Woody Award at the CalArts Character Animation Producers Show, “follows the life of a stone as it travels over the course of millennia, facing nature’s greatest obstacle: human civilization.”

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———— PRESIDENT LAVINE TO STEP DOWN IN SPRING 2017 AFTER AN UNPRECEDENTED 29-year tenure,

Steven D. Lavine, President of CalArts, will step down in May 2017. “This is a difficult decision,” he said, “but I’ve completed virtually everything I set out to accomplish at the Institute and am ready for a new adventure.

CalArts is in strong financial health; we’ve built a talented leadership team and created a comprehensive strategic plan for the future.

Now feels like the right time to begin handing over the reins.” Lavine will have two full academic years to focus on initiatives that will cap his career at the Institute. These include a major drive to increase scholarship funds, the full integration into the life of CalArts of the newly formed Institute Planning Committee, the design and implementation of a comprehensive faculty and staff salary improvement plan, and the continuing expansion of CalArts’ international programs and partnerships that benefit students and faculty–with a special focus on Latin America.

“On behalf of the CalArts Board of Trustees, I would like to thank President Lavine for his extraordinary leadership and dedication over the course of nearly three decades,” said Chairman of the Board Tim Disney. “While he has accomplished an astonishing amount in his time at the Institute, more than anything he has fostered the values and culture that make CalArts unique, and his passion, creativity and vision will be sorely missed when he steps down in 2017. My fellow Board members and I would also like to thank Janet Sternburg for her many years of devotion and service, as well as the infinite contributions she has made to CalArts over the decades.”

“CalArts has given me the unique opportunity to be involved in the evolution of all facets of the arts,” added Lavine, “and to deeply understand how the life of a city depends on its artistic and educational institutions. Looking forward, I hope to take what I’ve learned during my time here and share that with other organizations devoted to making a cultural impact through the arts.”

In collaboration with an executive search firm, the CalArts Board of Trustees has begun the process of identifying Lavine’s successor. In tribute to President Lavine, the Spring 2016 issue of CalArts magazine will be devoted entirely to his legacy of accomplishment on behalf of the Institute.

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Steven D. Lavine and Janet Sternburg

—————— ARTS IN A CHANGING AMERICA SEISMIC SHIFTS IN DEMOGRAPHICS are transforming the nation in unprecedented ways.

Theater director Roberta Uno, until recently Senior Program Officer for Arts and Culture at the Ford Foundation, is leading an unparalleled, multi-year effort to explore, understand and document how these rapid shifts are affecting arts, aesthetics and communities.

In September Uno brought the new project, Arts in a Changing America, or ArtChangeUS, to CalArts. Through a series of performance events and curated dialogues, Uno is networking and collaborating with a wide range of arts and hybrid organizations that embody an American cultural future of diverse, innovative, equitable and interdisciplinary arts leadership. While much of her research and activity is externally focused, Uno also is dialoguing with various CalArts constituencies, and offering on-campus internships and leadership training. Recognizing the value of the opportunities she can create for students, an anonymous Trustee has provided initial funding to bring Uno to CalArts during the project's start-up phase. ArtChangeUS has already attracted funding from the Mellon Foundation, Rasmuson Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and Unbound Philanthropy.

Prior to her work at the Ford Foundation, Uno was founder in 1979 of the New WORLD Theater and served as its artistic director for 23 years. She also was professor of directing

FALL 2015

and dramaturgy at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and her published work includes The Color of Theater: Race, Culture and Contemporary Performance (2002), Unbroken Thread: an Anthology of Plays by Asian American Women (1993), and, as co-editor with Kathy Perkins, Contemporary Plays by Women of Color (1996). Two new collections, Monologues for Actors of Color: Women and Monologues for Actors of Color: Men will be published this fall by Routledge Press.

Uno’s current theater work is directing and co-writing the musical Bone Hill, co-written by its composers Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby.

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Roberta Uno

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HEADLINERS

———— NEW ADDITIONS BOLSTER THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

JAMIE KELLNER

SUSAN STEINHAUSER

“THE ARTS ARE CRITICAL to the maintenance

“WHEN I WAS A CHILD, my mother and aunt

and growth of world culture,” says Jamie Kellner. “In a competitive marketplace, we’re seeing more and more universities building large arts programs, but CalArts is unique. Its people are the key—the quality of its artists and faculty.” As both a CalArts parent and new Board member, Kellner is especially interested in lending his expertise to the Institute’s marketing efforts and the start-up business opportunities that can lead to new revenue streams.

took me to antique shops,” says Susan Steinhauser. “Some silver souvenir demitasse spoons caught my eye, and my first art collection was born.” Steinhauser grew up surrounded by art. Her aunt and uncle were devoted to the Friends of Pasadena Museum of Art. With her husband, Steinhauser’s collections have grown to include contemporary studio glass, turned wood, photographs and, most recently, jade. They believe in sharing their art with the public and have loaned and gifted their most important work to many museums. Steinhauser has served on several boards, including the L.A. Fire and Police Pension Board; the State Library Board, where she passed legislation for afterschool programs for teens in public libraries; and the L.A. County Law Library Board of Trustees—the second largest law library in the country after the Library of Congress. She is Vice Chair of the California Arts Council, the state’s arts funding agency, and has led its last two strategic plan initiatives.

His own business acumen was the basis for the New York native’s career in broadcast media. It began with an internship at CBS that eventually led to executive positions in program development for Viacom and Orion. In 1985, 20th Century Fox Chairman Barry Diller hired Kellner to launch a fourth network. A year later Fox Broadcasting Company hit the airwaves, and during Kellner’s tenure as president, Fox grew to challenge CBS, NBC and ABC. In 1993 Kellner founded the WB Network and served as its Chairman until 2004.

Other positions held include the presidency of Turner Broadcasting. He and his wife Julie are the proud owners of Cent’Anni Vineyards, a producer of Italian varietals in Los Olivos, California. Kellner will serve on the Academic and Campus Affairs and Finance and Investment Affairs Committees of the Board.

On the CalArts Board, Steinhauser looks forward to exploring the relationships among CalArts, CAP and REDCAT and the potential of the Institute’s international revenue generating initiatives. She serves on the Board Committees for Development and Communications, and Academic and Campus Affairs.

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JONATHAN DOLGEN ORIGINALLY FROM QUEENS, New York, Jonathan Dolgen brings a wealth of experience in the motion picture business to CalArts’ Board of Trustees. He has served in a number of senior executive positions, first at Columbia Pictures, then as President of Fox Inc. and Chairman of 20th Century Television.

Dolgen then joined the Sony Entertainment Group, and in 1994 became Chairman of the Viacom Entertainment Group, where he oversaw operations of the Paramount Motion Picture Group, Paramount Television, Simon & Schuster, and Paramount Parks.

Since leaving Viacom, Dolgen has been a principal of Wood River Ventures, LLC, and he continues to work as a director of Live Nation Entertainment, and Expedia Inc. He sits on the Board of Advisors of the UCLA School of Neurosurgery, the Board of Directors of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Homeland Security Advisory Council of L.A. Dolgen has been honored with numerous awards along with his wife, Susan, who ran the California State Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA) for 20 years.

“The arts are essential,” says Dolgen, “and we really can’t have a vibrant society without them. It’s important that institutions exist to help cast light into the darkness, and CalArts helps lead the way. We need artists to dream and to question established authority.” Dolgen will join the Academic and Campus Affairs Committee of the Board.

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HEADLINERS

———— CAFÉ REMODEL COMPLETE

———— PILOT PROGRAM WITH ÁNIMA ESTUDIOS

Courtesy of Robert Lence

Ánima’s staff at all levels, from directors down, critiquing renderings and discussing projects and workflow.

PROVOST JEANNENE PRZYBLYSKI and School of Film/Video Animation faculty Robert Lence and Stephen Chiodo recently traveled to Mexico City to kick off a partnership with Ánima Estudios—the largest animation studio in Latin America. Because many of Ánima’s staff artists have diverse professional backgrounds from graphic design and illustration to live action, and may have had little formal training in animation, studio management sought the assistance of CalArts in efforts to raise the quality of its creative output. The CalArts group conducted an intensive program review—meeting in small groups with

“Together, we created a professional development program that would broaden and deepen Ánima’s capabilities and skills, with special emphasis on visual development, storyboarding, and fundamental principles of animation,” said Przyblyski. “This relationship has opened other doors for CalArts in Mexico City and Latin America, and has yielded internship and scholarship opportunities for CalArts students and teaching opportunities for alumni. We see this as a first step in a broader set of continuing education and professional development initiatives, through which we can offer CalArts’ unequalled expertise in teaching the art of animation and cinematic storytelling to the ‘non-traditional’ student."

The partnership with Ánima extends CalArts’ reach beyond fine arts into the entertainment industry in Latin America, which is a strategic area of focus for the Institute. “Several Latin American countries and others, as well, want to bolster their creative economies,” says Przyblyski, “so, we believe partnerships such as this one with Ánima have the potential to grow.”

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BETWEEN GRADUATION DAY last May and the return of students and faculty for the start of the Fall 2015 semester, two key common spaces of the CalArts campus, its cafeteria and dining room, were gutted and transformed—both quickly and beautifully. The extensive redesign process began with a survey to determine the needs and desires of the many constituencies that use these multipurpose areas. “Students, faculty and staff let us know that they wanted more food options and a flexible dining area that allowed for more communal dining experiences, ” said CalArts Vice President and Chief Operations Officer Michael Carter. "The new design accommodates all of those requests and many more.” Jesse Smith, CalArts’ Associate Vice President, Facilities, said, “We were able to successfully complete this project over the summer because our three partners, wHy Design, Behr Browers Architects and Staples Construction, were open communicators and collaborators, all operating at a high level of professionalism. The remodel brings new light, style and energy to this traditional hub of campus activity.”

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CalArts Alumni Help Invigorate K-12 Public Arts Education

by Stuart I. Frolick

In his landmark work of 1925, The Gift, French sociologist Marcel Mauss writes about a Maori custom in which gifts are exchanged, but cannot be kept. They have to be passed on. The idea is that everyone involved in that process—either receiving the gift or passing it on— becomes engaged in a relationship. If you give something to someone, they have a relationship to you. They pass it onto someone else, and that person also has a relationship to you. For me, artists and educators perform this function in contemporary society, creating what I would call a receptiveness to community.—Milton Glaser

The ethos of the artist-citizen is deeply embedded in the DNA of CalArts.

As far back as the Institute’s founding amid the turbulence of the late 1960s and early ’70s, social activism was foremost in the minds and hearts of many faculty and students. Alumni who wanted to help bring change to the social fabric often chose education as the most effective means for doing so. Today, alumni are engaged in arts education throughout the world—at colleges and universities, at private schools, and in a range of alternative venues of their own design. Many gained their first teaching experience as CalArts students through the CalArts Community Arts Partnership (CAP), celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2015 (see page 15).

“A huge percentage of artists find themselves teaching as a natural concomitant of their artmaking,” says CalArts President Steven Lavine.

“CalArts’ approach to artmaking as, in essence, creative problem-solving makes this link even stronger. We are enormously proud of the many alumni who are today helping to transform public education through the arts.” The alumni featured here all teach in or administrate programs in visual or performing arts in K-12 public schools. Each brings a high level of commitment and dedication to her or his work. Together they represent the many alumni across the country and around the world, who, through public education, are contributing to communities, advancing the understanding and practice of the arts and making a difference in thousands of young lives.

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“My husband and I both attended public schools and I want to believe that the public school system can work. We wanted to create a school that affirmed the arts at the center for everyone.”

Marissa Chibas Faculty, CalArts School of Theater, and co-founder of a public charter elementary school in Glassell Park

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ARNOLDO VARGAS

ART MFA 10

As an artist I use photography, painting and installation to communicate ideas. Much of my site-specific work in public spaces is based on the process of erasure and counteracting invisibility. Teaching experiences have informed many of my pieces that address authority, the over-policing of local communities, and the criminalization of youth—which, given the current climate, are becoming more important. But my initial intention was to bring more relevant arts education to my community.

A middle school teacher for four years before moving to his alma mater, Banning High School in Wilmington, California, Arnoldo Vargas studied art at UCLA and earned his graduate degree from CalArts in 2010.

I teach seven classes, with an average of more than 40 students in each one.

That’s close to 300 kids every semester. That’s a lot of people! That’s a lot of questions and a lot of grading. It’s a lot of work, but I do it because I made a conscious choice, as a product of LAUSD, to teach in a public school setting.

I strive to assist my students with not only mastering art concepts, but helping them discover new possibilities for themselves and to search for positive roads leading to their future. I was very fortunate to have a teacher who looked out for me and pointed me in a positive direction. I am where I am because of his instinct to go above and beyond for his students. Without that, who knows where I’d be? Is it challenging? Yes. Is it frustrating at times? Absolutely. But it’s also extremely satisfying. People see me walking in the neighborhood and acknowledge me, and my students are very grateful. I work with kids because I truly care about them. I truly care about creating a better place. As a community member and real stakeholder, I am an investor in the possibilities of youth. •

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FROM WITHIN

JACK MITCHELL

THEATER MFA 74

I work in a little cubicle in Sacramento, in the heart of the state bureaucracy—but that bureaucracy has a lot of influence on how public schools function, and it’s important to have a supporter of the arts on the inside. The greatest challenge I face every day is that people don’t understand the arts. They also don’t understand how the arts impact learning in other areas, how they impact personal development. I try to explain why it’s important to support arts programs—not just for the sake of the arts—but also because that support helps create kids who are thinking in unique ways and having unique perspectives on any content area for the class in which they sit. Kids are innovative. For all the talk about “teaching creativity”—they are creative. All we need to do is not block the creativity.

Once I moved from the classroom to the administrative level, I found myself in an environment where out-of-the-box thinking was frowned upon, and everything had to be couched in-thebox. Perhaps the single most important thing CalArts did for me was make it crystal-clear that there is no box! Any means of approaching a problem is valid, and it becomes more valid as it becomes more effective. I also learned the power of what’s now called “project-based assessment”—a very popular buzzword in education at all levels—the idea that teachers evaluate students based on work they do in professional settings; that they’re part of a project with other people, working collaboratively to create something… As a theater teacher, that’s how you evaluate kids. You have grades in your book, but the real evaluation of student learning comes when you’re assessing what they’ve learned through their performance, and through their ability to articulate what they’ve learned. •

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Jack Mitchell was a working actor in television for six years that included a recurring role on Hill Street Blues. After another six years in the construction business he was hired by the L.A. Unified School District, and he taught for 11 years at Manual Arts High School. Mitchell also taught for 11 years at University High School near UCLA, before joining the California Department of Education as the arts consultant for the Arts, Media and Entertainment Industry sector—a post he’s held since 2007.

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EVELYN SERRANO

ART MFA 04

Evelyn Serrano teaches at Los Feliz Charter School for the Arts (LFCSA), an arts integrated school in Glassell Park.

Her first teaching experience came as a CalArts student through CAP. After graduation Serrano collaborated with the City of Santa Clarita to launch Nomad Lab, a nonprofit arts program in Newhall that developed community arts projects and safe spaces for community organizing, capacity building, learning, and grassroots change through the arts.

Currently earning her master’s degree in education, Serrano also instructs in the School of Theater at CalArts, and leads workshops at LFCSA in which she shares her knowledge of arts education with classroom teachers and teaching artists.

Teaching in CAP and working with CalArts faculty Mady Schutzman, Leo Hobaica, B.J. Dodge and Marissa Chibas represented a huge turning point for me. I was exposed to progressive pedagogical approaches that are still central to my practice as an educator and artist today. The learners are at the center of the educational experience, and a space is created for them to construct and co-create meaning. Part of my MFA studies at CalArts was an investigation of transdisciplinary and inclusive approaches to artmaking, and how artists can influence and create social change when working together with folks closest to the issues. Progressive education provides an excellent context for growth and creative problem­­-­­solving at the individual, classroom, school and community levels. I see my work as educator, community organizer and artist as a unified creative practice. When working with youth and collaborating with educators and people in other disciplines, I look closely at how the skills and processes inherent to the arts can develop specific skills and habits in all learners: collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking and grit.

This question drives much of my work: how can pedagogy and learning push issues of social justice, civic engagement and creative problem­­­­­-solving forward?

One of our latest projects, The Future of the L.A. River, in collaboration with Arts for L.A. and KCET, aimed to engage children as civic participants in the current dialogue about the river. We challenged a class of LFCSA third-graders to take a closer look at the Bowtie Parcel, in the Glendale Narrows section of the river—right behind our school’s playground—and asked them, “How can we create an inclusive and inspiring community place for people and native plants and animals?”

The children engaged in a deep investigation of this remarkable cultural, historical and natural ecosystem, using the design thinking process. We began by asking lots of questions and visiting the site to gain knowledge of existing resources and conditions. We met with many experts: policy makers, designers, urban planners and architects. The children thoroughly considered the parcel and its importance to river revitalization efforts and worked in teams to take on the design challenge. In June they presented their projects to policy makers at City Hall: their models of solarpowered gardens, a water slide bridge to connect neighboring communities, seed bomb stations to promote native habitats, and much more, were other reminders of the vital importance and the power of access to arts education for all. • †

FROM WITHIN

RUE AVANT

ART 79 As CalArts students, we not only made art, but we had to be able to carry on a discourse about the work. I made lifelong friends at CalArts, I think, because of the group experience we had together. I started as a painter and ended up making art films and composing electronic music. It’s hard to be out there as artists. Some are fortunate and find benefactors; others have to go to work. When I got into education, I had already been in arts administration for five years in the Bay Area. I was looking for a change and heard they were hiring teachers in Oakland.

That was in 1995 and I’m still in the field. I think education is a natural career for artists because it’s very creative. You’re in control of your own classroom and you develop the direction you want to go with the kids. It’s exciting to work with them.

You’re on your feet, not at a desk, and you’re engaged with lots of ideas. I like working with kids from diverse backgrounds.

They bring so much to the table—rich cultures—and we embrace that in the arts.

Rue Avant, Ed.D., recently returned to the United States after three years in Kuwait, where she was a vice principal and principal. She is now the principal of Creative Connections Arts Academy, a K-12 public charter school with a focus on arts integration, serving 600 students on two campuses in North Highlands, a suburb of Sacramento.

Education is changing because the world we live in is changing.

The incoming elementary school students today will be graduating from college in 20 years and we don’t know what skills they will need or what the world will look like. As educators we often ask ourselves, “How do we prepare students for the changing set of skills they will need in the future?” It’s not going to be by feeding them facts to memorize. It will be through the development of collaborative learning skills, critical thinking, the ability to create projects, to synthesize and infer information–and by people having confidence in their own voices. •

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CREATING CHANGE

DAN OSTERMANN

MUSIC BFA 99

Dan Ostermann is Sotomayor Music Director for a large high school music program in Glassell Park. He earned his degree in Jazz at CalArts and has since built up extensive professional experience as a performer, producer and musical recording artist.

CalArts impacted me at the very core: how I look at the world; how I think; and of course, the incredible improvisation and collaboration skills I developed there have enabled me to engage the world more fully. There’s respect for others, the striving toward creativity and innovation, and just the openness.

Those are the kinds of discrete skills that I’m trying to instill in my students. I’m not necessarily trying to train them to be the greatest saxophone player or the greatest singer. Ultimately, that’s up to them, if they want to put in the hours of work.

I approach all of my ensembles with the same egalitarian spirit that I learned at CalArts. I’m there with them. I involve my students as much as possible in the selection and rehearsal of material. We play together; rarely am I just directing. Teaching helps keep me true to my own sense of discovery. A few weeks ago I completed my Ed.D., so I now have a doctorate in education (urban school leadership) from USC. That has opened up a whole new purview of the scope of education, and given me a lot of solid administrative tools. I hope to become the principal of a performing arts high school someday because it’s really important to me that the arts are taught in our public schools. I think they’re the key to creating the kinds of minds and citizens that we need—both for individual health and growth, as well as for a sustainable nation. •

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FROM WITHIN

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BEN CLEAVELAND

THEATER BFA 88

After acting in television and theater in L.A. for seven years, Ben Cleaveland relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he performed in Equity shows at American Conservatory Theater (ACT).

In 1998, reconnection with his high school drama teacher, then on the verge of retirement, led to Cleaveland’s appointment as Co-Director of the Conservatory Theatre Ensemble at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley.

Its 300 drama students stage an eightproject season annually, presenting 55 nights of plays in a three-quarter thrust, 200-seat theater. The local school district provides $6,000 annually for the program. Students and teachers, fundraising through grants, donations and ticket sales, raise an additional $200,000.

I have a dream job. Our program is non-audition—anyone can participate and it’s not extracurricular. Students register for the class and they can have a four-year sequential theater experience from ninth to 12th grade. Acting, directing, design and production are treated as equal threads braided together— so the apple that everyone’s reaching for is not necessarily the leading part in the play. Approximately 20 percent of my graduates go on to study one creative discipline or another at the college level. The other 80 percent are just as strong artistically, but they want to be doctors, mechanics or whatever. Because we don’t play favorites, they all leave having directed a play and designed a set, and knowing how to hang, focus and program lighting instruments. They can all mop and paint. The thrill for our three drama teachers is not making fabulous theater; it’s in the power of theater as a tool to reach kids and create change.

Philosophically, we believe that all students need to make art is the opportunity, the setting and the training.

Young students are becoming risk averse. The whole idea of the arts is to make as many mistakes as you can as fast as you can, right? At times it feels like other schools are saying the exact opposite. Because if you only get that B in algebra as a freshman, you may not get into that college, and “your life is over.”

Invention and ingenuity are not going to come from more rote learning and by fitting into a pre-existing mold. The arts turn out incredibly inventive, resilient and flexible students, and that’s what we’re seeing here… CalArts was a great influence on my teaching. I loved being there—not just for the campus-wide cross-pollination of the arts, but the sense of ensemble was very strong, the way the MFAs and BFAs joined together. And the mentoring and intimacy of instruction were terrific. •

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DENISE DAVIS

ART MFA 99

Denise Davis’ first teaching experiences were in CAP and the California State Summer School in the Arts (CSSSA).

Subsequently she taught at MOCA and at a private school, before joining the faculty at Fairfax Visual Arts Magnet High School in 2003. With her husband Scott Davis (Art MFA 05), she has collaborated on a wide range of art projects including photography, video, sculpture and installation. Their work has been exhibited widely and resides in numerous public collections.

I teach five classes a day, five days a week. In a public school it’s not just about the art. It’s everything. It’s about classroom management and teaching morals and conduct—rules about how to behave. That’s a big part of it. If you can’t handle that, the discipline, and understand where the kids are coming from, you’re not going to be a very effective teacher. There are some kids who are really into art. That’s their thing and they’re going to run with it. And then there are kids whose parents got them into the school because they thought art would be good for them. They’re not invested in what I’m doing, but I have to try to reach them as well. Maybe I’ll have a kid telling me every day, “I hate this class.” And then I get him a year later, he signs up for it again, and he’s telling me how much he likes it… I try to do projects that are meaningful to them, to kids of different cultural backgrounds. For example, even though my students are predominantly Hispanic, they’re not all the same Hispanic. So, I can’t give them all a lesson that deals with Mexico—some are from El Salvador or South America or Cuba or Puerto Rico…

Class size is certainly more challenging in public schools than in the private sector.

Fairfax Visual Arts Magnet’s maximum class size for art is 34, which means that you can have up to 34, but can also have less, perhaps 20 students in a class.

I’ve heard some teachers, outside the magnet, say that they’ve had as many as 42 in a class. Before the budget crisis, there was more money; I didn’t really have a problem getting supplies or taking a field trip. But once the crisis hit, my budget was substantially slashed. Then the kids weren’t shooting as much film or making as many prints. I had to start thinking about what I could do that didn’t require money. What could I bring to the classroom that would still give the kids a good experience? I introduced art projects that weren’t photographic. Then, teachers had to be proactive about how we were going to get more money. Some applied for grants or looked for potential donors online. •

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FROM WITHIN

CAP at 25

GLENNA AVILA, CAP’S FOUNDING DIRECTOR: The impetus behind CAP was the major decline in arts programs in the public schools. Steve Lavine saw what was going to happen, and he had already made some genuine connections with community-based arts organizations. He also realized that CalArts students were geographically isolated in Valencia—cut off from the L.A. communities in which artists were working. Through his relationships with national foundations he was able to fully fund CAP for its first four years. In terms of its depth and scope, there was really no other program in the country like it.

A few things were important from the start. First, we had to go to the communities we wanted to reach and combat the paternalistic notion of outreach—which is bringing people to your campus. When you hear about the arts being eliminated in schools, it’s always the lower income schools that suffer most. Private schools always had and always will have the arts. So, if we were identifying a problem to be solved—especially for potential funders or donors—it was very easy to show that these were the schools that needed the arts. Through our work, we realized, on a personal level, how satisfying it is to work with these students who were so hungry for this kind of education.

CalArts’ commitment to public arts education deepened considerably in 1990 with the launch of the Community Arts Partnership (CAP)—the first program of its kind in the country. Linking CalArts with community arts organizations and public schools throughout Los Angeles County, the award-winning, nationally emulated program offers free arts education, primarily for underserved youth ages 6-18. CAP programs are designed and taught by CalArts faculty, alumni, and current students, and provide CalArts student instructors with substantive teaching experience as well as a source of income during their residencies. Over the past 25 years CAP has partnered with 12 different public school districts in Greater Los Angeles, beginning in South and East L.A. with jazz and world music performances and workshops in public high schools.

Early partnerships with the Theater Program at Plaza de la Raza and with Watts Towers Arts Center continue to this day.

Second, in designing programs for underserved areas of L.A., the students who were teaching had to be representative of the students in those places. That’s very important because we see a lot of organizations doing this work in South L.A., and all of their teachers are white. That’s not an optimal situation. We did not say, “You’re African American. You’re going to teach in Watts.” However, every single team of students that we organized was made up of a mix of people from different cultural backgrounds, so that the students in the community saw representations of themselves in the teachers, and they also saw people from varied cultural backgrounds working together. Our underlying mission was to promote diversity.

While CAP was not set up as a recruitment vehicle, in our very first year four students from the Watts Towers Arts Center Jazz Program applied to CalArts and were accepted. So, we found ourselves at a turning point. I felt very strongly that we could not have this program if we weren’t willing to help students take the next step. We couldn’t open the door, and then when they wanted to come to CalArts, slam that door in their faces. A Trustee, Jon Lovelace, stepped forward and made an anonymous gift that provided full scholarships for those first four students. It was a lovely thing to do and Jon was my hero. That was the beginning of the CAP Scholarship program.

While we don’t have jobs for all 1,500 CalArts students, we would like to accommodate the largest number of students who are interested. Teaching in CAP isn’t just a job. We’re looking for those students who are interested in teaching.

Maybe they’ve never taught before and this is a chance to dip their feet in and figure out whether or not they’re good at it, or even like it. From the start I pushed hard to pay our student instructors well. As an arts college, how could we not support artists? Teaching is important work. It’s more valuable than being sent off to make copies or whatever. As an educational institution we should value teaching, and value it highly. Of course, our student teachers are gaining something else: they’re experiencing that wonderful feeling that comes with giving back, and getting a lot back in return… •

FALL 2015

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Online Learning Gets Creative

BY FREDDIE SHARMINI

This September CalArts took another major step into the global arena of online arts education by expanding its partnership with Silicon Valley company Coursera, the leader in distance learning technology.

It rolled out the first in a line of specially developed class bundles, called “Specializations,” on the tech innovator’s “massive open online course” (MOOC) platform, which serves more than 14 million registered users worldwide.

Directed by Animation faculty, the new, narrowly targeted four-class track in video game design is part of a CalArts

lineup that also includes courses in graphic design, poetry and site-specific dance.

But as Provost Jeannene Przyblyski attests, “the partnership with Coursera is only one part of a wider, multipronged online education effort to extend our reach to communities of artists and learners across the globe, and to provide them with a portal into our unique brand of creative pedagogy. The world is very interested in CalArts; it wants access to what we have, our expertise and our pool of amazing creative people.”

Students from points all over the globe are connecting and building learning communities through online classes—including a slate designed and produced at CalArts.

FALL 2015

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ONLINE LEARNING

Week 1: Fundamentals of Imagemaking Intro and Overview Images and Denotation Imagemaking Techniques Images and Connotation

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"Our investment in online learning isn’t because we merely want to put some courses on the internet. It’s actually because we want to be a substantive force in shaping the possibilities of online education for the arts, tailored specifically for creative communities." —Jeannene Przyblyski Apart from the Coursera classes, Przyblyski points to the growing mix of online courses —supplied via the CalArts Office of Global Initiatives—that includes a trio of animation, character design and graphic design portfolio workshops for prospective college applicants; a music theory lead-in to the Gateway Program for first-year music students; the art history portion of a professional development program for animation artists currently underway at Mexico City’s Ánima Estudios; and, finally, the faculty-driven incubation of an independent, arts-focused online learning platform called Kadenze, which spun off from an earlier CalArts MOOC on Coursera.

Opposite, clockwise from top: Fran Krause, associate director of CalArts’ Character Animation Program, teaches a class in concept and art for aspiring game designers.

Screen shot from Krause’s class. Background image by BFA student Quinne Larsen.

Studio recording session with Character Animation faculty Dariush Derakhshani, left, with production team members Joshua Gleason (Film/Video MFA 14), center, and Thorbjorg Jonsdottir (Film/Video MFA 09).

Graphic Design faculty Michael Worthington teaches a class in fundamentals of the discipline.

Graphics by Edwin Alvarenga (Art MFA 14); editing by Film Directing faculty Ki Jin Kim (Film/Video MFA 10).

This page: Provost Jeannene Przyblyski taught an online class titled “Live! A History of Art for Artists, Animators and Gamers.” In one session she chatted with School of Art faculty Lecia Dole-Recio in her studio.

“In one sense, ‘ed tech’ and online educational tools are really just that: more tools in the education toolbox,” Przyblyski says. “No one here would even imagine online classes as any kind of substitute for the intimate, hands-on, individualized mentoring at the core of the CalArts experience. But as educators we do have to stay abreast of the changes in how young people learn today, stemming from better technological tools and the unprecedented interconnectivity born of social media. And those changes are here to stay. So, in a larger sense, our investment in online learning isn’t because we merely want to put some courses on the internet. It’s actually because we want to be a substantive force in shaping the possibilities of online education for the arts, tailored specifically for creative communities.

“It’s the CalArts way: just as the first generation of CalArts educators redefined arts pedagogy in their time, we want to innovate in the online field by applying our proven methods of teaching and learning, and the quality of our creative thinking. Coursera’s extension of our partnership speaks to our ability to ‘keep making it better.’”

Importantly, Przyblyski adds that the rampup in distance learning not only supports the central cultural role of the Institute “as an incubator for the arts” by increasing “reach and accessibility,” but it also brings in new revenue—thereby helping to contain the cost of tuition for current and future CalArtians. All of the Institute’s online classes either charge fees, or, in the case of those on Coursera and Kadenze, are in FALL 2015

line to collect fees if participating students obtain verifiable “certificates of completion” in order to document their newly acquired skills or otherwise augment their educational or professional profiles.

In 2012 CalArts introduced its first online course, an eight-week, noncredit portfolio development workshop led by Character Animation faculty John Mahoney, on the collaboration site Tenlegs. That same year, Coursera, the startup launched by two Stanford professors, invited the Institute to join its circle of partners, as one of the elite colleges and universities that would supply sophisticated classes in the form of MOOCs on its platform, offered to any registered user free of charge. Coursera defined the goal as opening up “access to the worldclass education that so far has only been available to a select few.” This promise of “education without limits,” extended by Coursera and peers such as Udacity and edX, has since drawn tens of millions of learners from every region of the globe.

MOOCs can run from four to 12 weeks and usually consist of video lectures, weekly assignments and exercises, and various forms of individualized online exchange and feedback; some courses include a final exam or project, while others, especially in the humanities and social sciences, use peer review. At first MOOCs did not carry any academic credits, but increasingly Coursera and other providers are looking to find ways by which students can incorporate their coursework into official school records, and by which both the ed tech companies and the partnering schools can monetize their services by awarding credentials.

CalArts stands out as the only comprehensive arts college on a roster of Coursera partners that features Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Caltech and France’s École Polytechnique. Fittingly, when CalArts unveiled its first MOOCs on Coursera two years ago, it was a selection notable for the eclectic, multidisciplinary range of creative practices the institute represented. “Live!: A History of Art for Artists, Animators and Gamers,” was taught by Przyblyski, who in addition to her role as provost, is also a member of the Art faculty. “Introduction

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ONLINE LEARNING

“The course has generated this tremendous online community of artists in the forums, and it’s like a massive seminar. The artists are throwing themselves into the discussion with such fervor because they’re thirsting for contact. They want to connect their creative process, often done under the radar, with what their counterparts are doing halfway across the world."

—Stephan Koplowitz

to Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists,” taught by Ajay Kapur, director of the Music Technology Program, focused on creating digital “instruments” that perform in response to program logic. Lastly, “Creating Site-Specific Dance and Performance Works,” taught by Stephan Koplowitz, dean of The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance, explored a range of best practices for staging live performance in public spaces.

The response was explosive as more than 100,000 students enrolled for the three CalArts offerings. “Demand has been great from the beginning—so we know, as does Coursera, that we’re onto something,” says Przyblyski. CalArts was clearly filling a niche previously left vacant.

The scaled-up structure of MOOCs has proven amenable to instruction in science, math, programming and, more recently, subjects across the humanities. But how can online class formats support the development of artistic expression? How do the CalArts online classes actually work? What kind of creative skill and know-how do they impart?

Of the first CalArts MOOCs, Koplowitz’s class is arguably the most counterintuitive —and unlikely. On its third go-around this fall, here is a course devoted to a complex physical art form, site-specific performance, that is expressly defined by a relationship to a location, its material properties, lived-in history, atmosphere—all requiring first-hand experience. And yet consideration of such work is now being disseminated via the internet, an epitome of placelessness, to thousands of students in 150 countries, each one with his or her own set of physical sites in which to set a performance. Starting out with such an apparent contradiction, this class in fact offers a telling case study of classic CalArts pedagogy put into the interactive digital world.

Opposite: CalArts students observe a sitespecific dance as part of a class led by Stephan Koplowitz on campus. The online version of the class taught by the CalArts Dance dean, who is one of the world’s leading authorities on site-specific performance, focuses on the preproduction of work as a creative process.

Koplowitz, one of the world’s foremost choreographers of site-based work, explains his approach thusly: “In first thinking about what would make for a meaningful learning experience about artmaking at the scale of a MOOC, I realized I couldn’t do an online class for thousands of people that dealt solely with the artistic process of dance and performance, in and of itself, because I wouldn’t be able to give enough individual feedback. But I also realized, as a practicing site artist, that so much of the creative decision-making actually takes place in preproduction, before you even engage dancers or performers in rehearsals. So my idea was to fashion the class as a ‘How-To,’ as a methods or production class. And that’s †

the twist: I’m teaching production as a creative process. As I tell all my students, ‘Being an artist is also being a producer.’”

To maintain focus on production, the final assignment in Koplowitz’s six-week curriculum is not a finished performance, but a detailed project proposal, complete with site documentation and an itemized budget.

The other major requirement is participating in peer reviews, which means presenting weekly assignments for critique by classmates as well as providing feedback to at least two other students. “This class is not ‘self-directed’ or ‘self-paced’ learning,” notes Instructional Assistant Jen Hutton (Creative Writing MFA 13). “Engaging with other students in peer review and in the forums is part of what you have to do in order to pass the class,” she says. “Steve and I impress upon the students that they learn as much from responding to, and critically thinking through, the work of their peers as from developing their own projects.”

“Engagement” is very much the operative term for an art premised on responding to actual, rather than virtual, places. “You are expected to enter the real world, grapple with it,” says Andrew Gmerek, a Colorado digital artist who combines technology with live performance. “The course gets you out from behind the computer and into the spaces where art could happen. You learn to really look at the world around you and use that environment in your creative thinking.”

“What has been eye-opening,” says Koplowitz, “is not only the numbers of people and their nationalities, but the sheer breadth of expression dealing with site.

And we’ve been able to talk with each other, exchange ideas, learn together, even as we’re coming to the work from so many different backgrounds—dance, theater, music, visual art and points in-between.

“This shared impulse can be setting guerrilla dances in municipal buildings in Berlin, or installing a structure in the Sinai Desert and creating a performance around it. Or a young Colombian woman who made a beautiful site-specific performance in her backyard, enacting her family history. Or another artist who creates incredibly funny scenes of fight choreography tied to particular locations.

“The course has generated this tremendous online community of artists in the forums, and it’s like a massive seminar,” Koplowitz points out. “The artists are throwing themselves into the discussion with such fervor because they’re thirsting for contact. They want to connect their creative process, often

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GETS CREATIVE

done under the radar, with what their counterparts are doing halfway across the world.

Many are surprised to find out that there are other artists, of all stripes, who share similar concerns, and it’s a point of real validation— and inspiration.”

The two counterparts to Koplowitz’s site class have since evolved along different paths. Ajay Kapur’s programming course now resides on Kadenze, launched this summer by Kapur and fellow Music Tech faculty Jordan Hochenbaum (Music BFA 09) and Owen Vallis (Music BFA 08). Kadenze’s technology differs from Coursera’s in that it was developed by artists for artists; the platform is optimized for media-rich production with a far more extensive palette of interactive tools. Jeannene Przyblyski’s art history class, meanwhile, has branched off as part of the professional development intensive provided to the staff of Ánima in Mexico City. That online curriculum is now part of what Przyblyski calls a “library of digital assets” that can be adapted for use with other international partners such as schools and working studios.

“Part of our approach from the beginning was to employ online education as a form of research—both pedagogical research and market research,” she explains. “So the first three Coursera classes became a seedbed for Kadenze, on the one hand, and Coursera soliciting us for more classes in the arts, like the Specializations, on the other; and then, finally, my class serving as an entrée into professional development.”

The most far-reaching outcome, however, may well be the bountiful global connections springing up from the digital classrooms.

“The broader online reach,” says Przyblyski, “is allowing us to better imagine the formation of different kinds of learning communities far beyond our campus—made up of students who will stay in touch with each other and go on to collaborate in one form or another. Our vision of creative education is already having an impact on how different artists and lifelong learners are thinking and producing work.”

In this course, students will learn the history, theory, and practice of site-specific performance work. This class is geared toward

Therein lies the enduring CalArts theme, and it is now playing online. “If we reach artists, wherever they may be, and provide them with the skills and knowledge they need to activate their own creative potential,” declares Przyblyski, “they can go on to transform the world.”

FALL 2015

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SCHOOL OF ART Founding CalArts faculty John Baldessari (Chouinard 59, see next column) has received the National Medal of the Arts, the highest honor given to artists and arts patrons by the United States government.

The conceptual art trailblazer collected his medal from President Barack Obama in a Sept. 10 ceremony at the White House.

Baldessari was among a group of 11 honorees that included composer and singer Meredith Monk, author Stephen King and actress Sally Field.

As befits the outsize roles of CalArts and its predecessor, the Chouinard Art Institute, in the shaping of contemporary American artmaking, plenty of alumni and faculty, former and current, were on the roster of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s America Is Hard to See— the sweeping inaugural exhibition that was held at the museum’s new Renzo Piano-designed home in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Following the move from the Upper East Side concrete fortress to the more open, accessible and airy space downtown, curators used the occasion to reexamine the history of American

Top Left: President Barack Obama presents founding CalArts faculty John Baldessari with the National Medal of the Arts.

art since the founding of the museum in 1931, and in the process “tell a different story… than the lily-white version we’re used to,” according to The New Yorker.

The huge survey, which opened in May, featured work by alums John Baldessari (Chouinard 59), Ericka Beckman (MFA 76), Larry Bell (Chouinard 59), Nayland Blake (MFA 84), Mark Bradford (MFA 97, BFA 95, see below), Anne Collier (BFA 93), Sam Durant (MFA 91), Mike Kelley (MFA 78), Suzanne Lacy (MFA 73), Josephine Meckseper (MFA 92), Catherine Opie (MFA 88), Tony Oursler (BFA 79), Akosua Adoma Owusu (Art–Film/Video MFA 08), Lari Pittman (MFA 76, BFA 74), Ed Ruscha (Chouinard 60), David Salle (MFA 75, BFA 73) and Christopher Williams (MFA 81, BFA 79). The current Art faculty was represented by Durant, Charles Gaines and Harry Gamboa Jr., the latter as member of the Chicano art group Asco, while former faculty members included Baldessari, Vija Celmins, Morgan Fisher, Barbara Kruger, William Leavitt and Nam June Paik.

A new body of work by MacArthur Fellow and recently honored U.S. State Dept. Medal of Arts recipient Mark Bradford (MFA 97, BFA 95) was on view at the Hammer Museum over the summer. Amazingly, the exhibition,

Center: Lari Pittman, Untitled #16 (A Decorated Chronology of Insistence and Resistance), 1993. Acrylic, enamel, vinyl, glitter and crayon on wood, 84 x 60 1/16 in.

Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, gift of Peter Norton.

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© Ruthless Records

© Lari Pittman

Courtesy of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Photo: Ralph Alswang

NEWS FROM FACULTY, ALUMNI, STUDENTS AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE CALARTS COMMUNITY

Mark Bradford: Scorched Earth, was the internationally acclaimed artist’s first-ever solo museum outing in Los Angeles, where he was born, raised, attended college and currently resides.

Comprising a suite of 12 mixedmedia paintings, a video installation and a mural in the museum’s lobby stairwell, Bradford’s latest output reflects on the “psychogeography” of L.A., and on traumas of body and identity, as recalled from formative passages in his own lifetime. “An archaeology of memory, personal and cultural, is a primary thread running through it all,” observed the Los Angeles Times. In other news, the CalArts alum was the subject of a lengthy profile, “What Else Can Art Do?,” in the June 22 issue of The New Yorker.

New York’s Joshua Liner Gallery presented a solo exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by L.A. graphic designer and artist Geoff McFetridge (MFA 95), renowned as the founder of Champion Graphics, film titles designer (The Virgin Suicides, Adaptation) and, more recently, the “graphical futurist designer” on the Spike Jonze movie Her. Rooted in McFetridge’s signature style—playing on stripped-down imagery, smooth lines, matte colors and perspective—this body of work emerged from a method of systematic

Right: School of Art alum Eric Poppleton lensed the famous cover image for N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton album.

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repetition and refinement. “The process,” he says, “is that of drawing and redrawing an image until only the most essential pieces are left.”

Motion designer and art director Synderela Peng (MFA 01), of the design studio yU+co, received a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Main Title Design as part of the team that created the opening for the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge.

This summer’s hit biopic Straight Outta Compton, which chronicles the rise of the hip hop group N.W.A from the mean streets of Compton in the mid-1980s, borrows its title from the landmark 1988 debut album that revolutionized rap and hip hop culture. Its iconic cover image— looking up from below at the six band members while Eazy-E (the late Eric Wright) points a gun at the camera—was photographed by CalArts graduate Eric Poppleton (MFA 87). “The original Straight Outta Compton cover art summed up the album’s lyrics at the time,” Poppleton told CNN. “I’m not sure this type of imagery would be so widely accepted or presented in today’s commercial marketplace. Back then, it was more free rein.”

Marked by its blend of collage and community outreach, the

Courtesy of Henry Holt and Co.

Courtesy of New Museum

Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth.

Photo: Joshua White

DISPATCHES

vital yet understudied practice of Noah Purifoy (Chouinard 56) was the subject of a survey at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Purifoy’s signature projects include the 1966 group exhibition 66 Signs of Neon, which presented found-object works crafted from the debris of the previous year’s Watts Rebellion, and the collection of outdoor assemblages that constitute the artist’s magnum opus, the Joshua Tree Outdoor Desert Art Museum. Originally from Alabama, Purifoy graduated from Chouinard at the age of 40 and went on to influence artists such as David Hammons, John Outterbridge, Senga Nengudi and Mel Edwards, among others.

He passed away in 2004.

The New Museum is holding the first New York museum survey of work by Jim Shaw (MFA 78), revered stalwart of the Los Angeles art scene, whose visionary output has been among the most distinctive coming out of the city over the last 30 years.

“Moving between painting, sculpture and drawing… Shaw mines his imagery from the cultural refuse of the 20th century, using comic books, record covers, conspiracy magazines and obscure religious iconography to produce a portrait of the nation’s subconscious,” write the curators. On view through January 10, the

Top Left: Mark Bradford, Lights and Tunnels, 2015. Mixed media on canvas, 84 x 108 in.

exhibition, Jim Shaw: The End is Here, features selections from the series Dream Drawings (1992–99), Dream Objects (1994–present), and the sprawling My Mirage (1985–91), plus a presentation of Labyrinth: I Dreamt I was Taller than Jonathan Borofsky (2009)— a large-scale installation of sculptures and painted theatrical backdrops. Shaw came to CalArts with the late Mike Kelley (MFA 78), a fellow Michigan native and bandmate in the Detroit garage noise outfit Destroy All Monsters. The pair continued to collaborate in numerous art and music projects over the years.

SCHOOL OF CRITICAL STUDIES Cole Cohen (MFA 09) gives an astonishing, vividly rendered, surprisingly funny account of coping with a rare neuropsychological disorder—the result of a lemon-sized hole in her parietal lobe—in the memoir Head Case: My Brain and Other Wonders, published by Henry Holt and Co. earlier this year. Cohen’s condition, which causes learning disabilities and constant perceptual disorientation, was first diagnosed in the summer before she started in the Creative Writing

Center: Jim Shaw, Labyrinth: I Dreamt I was Taller than Jonathan Borofsky, 2009. Installation view. Acrylic on muslin stretched over plywood panels, dimensions variable. Collection of Eric Decelle, Brussels.

FALL 2015

Program at CalArts. Kirkus called the work “a beautifully wrenching memoir, as piercing as smelling salts… Rich with yearning and ache, [it conveys] a scrunched sense of claustrophobia and imagery of cinematic quality.”

Novelist and literary critic André Aciman hailed Head Case as “an eloquent, moving, witty, and unsparingly clear-eyed memoir of a mind that is unlike any other.”

Adjunct faculty Janice Lee (MFA 08) put out Reconsolidation: Or, it’s the ghosts who will answer you as part of the Success and Failure Series on Penny-Ante Editions. Born out of the loss of a loved one, Lee’s poetic montage connects the present with tenuous recollections as she sets out to “arrest memory’s flexible and vulnerable position in the lifelong process of mourning.”

Lee read selections from the new work at the book’s Sept. 23 launch at Skylight Books in L.A. New Jersey-born, Berlin-based artist Jumana Manna (MA 11) showed recent work as part of the international showcase Rendez-Vous, organized by the Biennale de Lyon 2015 and presented at the Institut d’art contemporain. Rendez-Vous uses a format that brings together artists selected by other biennial exhibitions around the world.

Right: The cover of Cole Cohen’s Head Case: My Brain and Other Wonders references the “lemon-sized” lesion in the author’s parietal lobe.

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Manna’s videos and sculptures, which explore the construction of identity in relation to history and contemporary marginal communities, were put forward by the Sharjah Biennial in the United Arab Emirates.

Maggie Nelson’s latest book, The Argonauts, was published

by Graywolf Press last May to resounding acclaim, and it promptly became a New York Times Best Seller. At once a romance and a work of “autotheory,” a portrait of a happy family and a critical meditation on desire, love and queerness, the hybrid memoir by the awardwinning poet, critic and essayist centers on her relationship with fellow CalArts faculty member Harry Dodge, of the School of Art. Nelson, who directs CalArts’ MFA Creative Writing Program, recounts falling in love with Dodge, who is fluidly gendered, and the subsequent pregnancy and birth of the couple’s child, and in the process captures the complexities and joys of a new kind of family-making.

“The Argonauts is a magnificent achievement of thought, care and art,” declared the Los Angeles Times. Nelson’s “superb exploration,” said The New Yorker, results in “an exceptional portrait both of a romantic partnership and of the collaboration between [her] mind and heart.” According

© Stephan Koplowitz

© Stephan Koplowitz

Cover: Jeenee Lee Design

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to Vanity Fair, the CalArts faculty member “slays entrenched notions of gender, marriage, and sexuality with lyricism, intellectual brass, and soul-ringing honesty.” The Guardian, meanwhile, called Nelson “one of the most electrifying writers at work in America today, among the sharpest and most supple thinkers of her generation.”

THE SHARON DISNEY LUND SCHOOL OF DANCE Ballet faculty Glen Eddy traveled east over the summer to set Czech composer Jiˇrí Kylián Sinfonietta for the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. This work was presented as part of the company’s season opener last month.

A pair of distinguished alumni are returning to CalArts to stage work for the school’s annual Winter Dance Concert.

Jacques Heim (MFA 91), artistic director of the L.A. company Diavolo/Architecture in Motion, and Yuanyuan Wang (MFA 03), artistic director of Beijing Dance Theater, are joining composition faculty Rosanna Gamson, of Rosanna Gamson/World Wide,

Top Left: Maggie Nelson’s newest book, The Argonauts, is a genre-bending memoir.

as this year’s featured choreographers. The Winter Dance Concert is slated for two weekends next month: Dec. 11–12 on campus and Dec. 18–19 at REDCAT. Dean Stephan Koplowitz realized a pair of new site-based works since last spring. The first, Piazze in Scena, was presented as part of the Spoleto Festival in Italy over the summer. Structured as a walking tour of Spoleto’s most iconic piazzas, the piece featured unexpected performances inspired by the architecture, history and personality of each location. The second was a performance entitled Play(as), commissioned by the San Diego Dance Theater’s annual sitespecific series Trolley Dances, which took place over two weekends in September and October. Elsewhere, Koplowitz received a Gerbode Foundation Choreographer Commissioning Award to develop a large-scale site work for Oakland’s AXIS Dance Company—one of the first contemporary dance troupes in the world to integrate performers both with and without physical disabilities. The new project will take place next year at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco.

and Practices for Teachers and Performers, co-authored with Mary Virginia Wilmerding-Pett, was published in July by Human Kinetics. The textbook is the first to combine dance science, somatic practices and pedagogy while addressing motor learning theory from a dance perspective. Since then, Krasnow has presented her work on motor learning and Limón technique at gatherings of the Performing Arts Medicine Association (PAMA) in Snowmass, CO, and Orange, CA, and of the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science (IADMS) in Vancouver and Pittsburgh.

Faculty member Donna Krasnow’s new book, Motor Learning and Control for Dance: Principles

Interactive performance pioneers Troika Ranch, directed by choreographer Dawn Stoppiello (BFA 89) and media artist Mark Coniglio (Music BFA 89), have been in residence at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, to realize a new work entitled SWARM. Informed by principles of “emergence”—the processes that determine the flocking of birds and similar natural phenomena—the immersive performance and installation uses an interactive score that is linked to the participation of audience members, individually as well as collectively. The Bessie Award-winning company is premiering SWARM this month at Holy Cross.

Center: Stephan Koplowitz set the site-specific dance Play(as) in San Diego’s Waterfront Park.

Right: Another performance choreographed by Koplowtiz, Piazza in Scena, was staged in Spoleto, Italy.

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SCHOOL OF FILM/ VIDEO Experimental Animation faculty Pia Borg and Film Directing alum Ian Samuels (MFA 12) have made Filmmaker magazine’s latest list of “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” Both filmmakers drew the attention of the magazine’s editors on the strength of work showcased earlier this year at Sundance: Borg’s Abandoned Goods, a collaboration with critic Edward Lawrenson, is a 36-minute documentary about an unusual collection of artworks made at a psychiatric hospital in postwar England, while Samuels combines live-action, puppetry and animation in Myrna the Monster, in which a “heartbroken alien dreamer” from the Moon struggles with big-city life in Los Angeles, like so many of her twentysomething contemporaries. Borg and Lawrenson had previously won a Golden Leopard at the 2015 Locarno Film Festival, while Samuels’ MTV-commissioned work has continued to barnstorm the festival circuit.

Character Animation alum Seth Boyden (BFA 15) has

© Heather Trawick

© 2014 Cartoon Network

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earned a Student Academy Award for his six-minute short An Object at Rest. His prize was one of three given out in the animation category by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the 42nd annual edition of the international student competition. Boyden’s short had already won the Woody Award at last spring’s CalArts Character Animation Producers Show. He collected his medal on Sept. 17 in a ceremony held at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Previous CalArts recipients of the Student Academy Award have included Disney-Pixar’s John Lasseter (BFA 79) and Pete Docter (BFA 90, see next entry).

Inside Out, the latest blockbuster animation from Disney–Pixar, “is an absolute delight—funny and charming, fast-moving and full of surprises,” according to The New York Times. Co-written and co-directed by Pete Docter (BFA 90), the Oscar-winning helmer of Up and a longstanding member of Pixar’s “brain trust,” the comedy unfolds in the mind of its young protagonist, where five personified emotions—Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear and Sadness— contend with each other. “This teeming, tear-duct-draining, exhaustingly inventive, surreal animated comedy is going to be a new pop-culture touchstone,”

Top Left: Created by Patrick McHale, Cartoon Network’s Primetime Emmy Award-winning miniseries Over the Garden Wall follows the brothers Wirt and Greg as they search for a way home through a strange forest adrift in time.

said New York magazine. “In all kinds of ways it’s a mind-opener.”

Inside Out, which had premiered at the 68th Cannes Film Festival in May, grossed more than $90 million on its opening weekend— the highest total to date for an original Pixar title. In other Pixar and Disney animation news, The Walt Disney Company’s D23 Expo this summer included first glimpses of the upcoming features The Good Dinosaur, directed by Peter Sohn (BFA 99); Finding Dory, the Finding Nemo sequel co-directed by Andrew Stanton (BFA 88); Zootopia, codirected by Rich Moore (BFA 87); Moana, from the veteran duo of John Musker (77) and Ron Clements, of Little Mermaid fame; and Toy Story 4, co-directed by John Lasseter (BFA 79), DisneyPixar’s creative chief. In addition, the company confirmed Brad Bird (76) as writer-director of The Incredibles 2 and Chris Buck (78) as co-director of Frozen 2.

The selections of the experimental Wavelengths section of the Toronto International Film Festival included Psychic Driving

by CalArts alum William E. Jones (MFA 90); Prima Materia by faculty member Charlotte Pryce; two shorts, The Reminder and Untitled, by MFA candidate Behrouz Rae; Santa Teresa and Other Stories, the thesis film

by Nelson Carlo de los Santos

Right: Heather Trawick’s 16mm thesis film, The Centre of the Cyclone, tracks a passage from the corporeal to the metaphysical, by way of “marooned sailors, a moment of celestial chance, demolition derbies, and a slipping into the ether.”

FALL 2015

Arias (MFA 14), and Drag Strip

by Pacho Velez (MFA 10) with Daniel Claridge. Jones begins with a 1979 television broadcast, in which the wife of a Canadian politician recounts CIA mindcontrol experiments, and dissolves it into a “psychedelic miasma” of scan lines and video interference. Pryce’s abstraction shows “delicate threads of energy as they spiral and transform into microscopic cells of halcyon dust,” in the process “rendering Aurelian homage” to the early photographic studies that revealed phenomena just beyond human vision, while Rae’s two one-minute shorts are reflections on personal histories; de los Santos Arias provides a radical take on Roberto Bolaño’s epic novel 2666; and Velez and Claridge serve up an exhilarating blast of raw Americana from a racetrack in upstate New York.

The New York Film Festival’s Projection series—the successor to the venerated Views from the Avant-Garde showcase—had its customary share of work from CalArts experimentalists.

The program this year featured the world premieres of Vivir para Vivir/Live to Live by Laida Lertxundi (MFA 07), Half Human, Half Vapor by Mike Stoltz (MFA 14), and The Centre of the Cyclone by Heather Trawick (MFA 15). Also on the lineup

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© Paula Court

Courtesy of Julia Holter.

Album cover photo: Rick Bahto

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were Port Noir by Laura Kraning (MFA 09), Prima Materia by Charlotte Pryce (see previous entry); Santa Teresa and Other Stories by Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias (MFA 14, see previous); and two brand-new works by School of Theater faculty: Janie Geiser’s Cathode Garden and Lewis Klahr’s Mars Garden. Lastly, School of Art alum Victoria Fu (MFA 05) presented a “habitable” projection installation entitled Velvet Peel 1.

Cartoon Network’s Over the Garden Wall, the whimsical, deceptively complex show created by Patrick McHale (BFA 06), won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program, beating a field that contained such well-known, distinguished brands as The Simpsons, South Park, Bob’s Burgers and Archer.

McHale shared the Emmy with the show’s producers, writers and animation directors.

Meanwhile, CN’s Adventure Time, created by Pendleton Ward (BFA 05), won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding ShortForm Animated Program for the episode “Jake the Brick.” In the individual categories, Alonso Ramirez Ramos (BFA 10) and J.J. Villard (BFA 04) each collected a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation. Ramos won for his storyboards on Gravity

Falls (Disney XD), created by fellow CalArts alum Alex Hirsch (BFA 07), while Villard was recognized for his character design work on King Star King (Adult Swim), of which he is a co-creator.

CalArts alumni are not only making waves as artists and filmmakers; they also are moving upstairs in the home office.

Annie Award-winning character designer Shane Prigmore (BFA 99), known for his work on Coraline, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Croods, has been named Vice President of Creative Affairs at Disney Television Animation, the production arm that supplies Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior.

THE HERB ALPERT SCHOOL OF MUSIC More than 40 CalArts students, alumni and faculty, both current and former, traveled to the famous Ojai Music Festival this summer to participate in an environmentally-scaled outdoor concert of a 2013 piece by Pulitzer Prize winner John Luther Adams (BFA 73). The West Coast Top Left: Music dean David Rosenboom (left) and William Winant perform Zones of Influence at the Whitney Museum of American Art. CalArts alum Jinku Kim supplied the projected visuals.

premiere of the composer’s Sila: The Breath of the World was performed by some 80 musicians dispersed throughout Ojai’s Libbey Park, where concertgoers could freely roam and take in the different experiential vectors offered by the music. Inspired by the Inuit concept of the spirit animating the world, Sila is part of the Alaska native’s ongoing exploration of sound in outdoor environments. Elsewhere at the festival, the stagebound portion of the program included performances of Become River, another landmark from Adams, and two works by Rand Steiger (MFA 82): Concatenation, for bassoon and electronics, and Template for Improvising Trumpeter and Ensemble.

Featuring the mesmeric vocal stylings of acclaimed tenor Timur Bekbosunov (MFA 08) and the haunting experimental music of Daniel Corral (MFA 07, see next column), the L.A.-based post-punk glam outfit Timur and the Dime Museum had a three-night run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. The group, which also includes guitarist Matthew Setzer (MFA 08), bassist David Tranchina (MFA 08) and drummer Andrew Lessman (BFA 09), performed its full-evening operatic song cycle Collapse—a rock requiem mass for the natural

Right: Critically revered music alum Julia Holter appears on the cover of her latest avant-pop album, Have You in My Wilderness, which came out in September.

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world undergoing ecological ruin. The production, which amplifies its trenchant social commentary with bold dramatic figuration and cabaret stagecraft, incorporates interactive video projection created and live-mixed

by Jesse Gilbert (Film/Video MFA 02). Timur and the Dime Museum had previously presented Collapse at REDCAT. In addition to his work with Timur and the Dime Museum, composer and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Corral (MFA 07) gave a live electronic performance at the L.A. space Automata to mark the release of his first solo album, Diamond Pulses, on Orenda, the label started by Daniel Rosenboom (MFA 07, see next page). The new work is a single 32-minute composition—an epic electronic soundscape that combines classical minimalist influences, Balinese rhythm undercurrents and modern production aesthetics. Diamond Pulses had “started as a mockup for a microtonal Plinko [pricing] game/sound installation,” Corral explains. “I was looking through [the late composer] James Tenney’s musical sketches, and he worked a lot of ideas out on graph paper. I got a pad… and what I immediately scrawled out was a combination of The Price is Right and an 11-limit tuning system.” The album launch

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show at Automata also brought a pair of special performances: Louis Andriessen’s uncompromising minimalist classic Workers Union, played by pianist Danny Holt (MFA 06) and percussionist Mike Robbins (MFA 02), and Philip Glass’ Two Pages, by Holt alone.

Avant-pop singer-songwriter Julia Holter (MFA 09) has put out her eagerly awaited fourth album, Have You in My Wilderness, on the Domino label. A follow-up to the much celebrated Loud City Song (2013), the new collection of 10 radiant ballads is arguably her most sonically intimate recording yet, with Holter’s supernal voice ringing through shimmering, dreamlike textures. “Superlatives barely do the record’s beauty or brilliance justice,” gasped Under the Radar. “This is not a record that wants or needs to be solved,” said Mojo, “but the clues and traces it leaves behind are so compelling it’s difficult to let it alone.” Coinciding with the new album’s release, Holter made the cover of The Wire, the U.K.’s premier alternative music magazine.

She kicked off her latest international tour in October, opening for Beirut in San Diego, L.A. and Berkeley before heading out to Europe.

In conjunction with the opening of The Whitney Museum of

Courtesy of the Getty.

Photo: Craig Schwartz

Courtesy of the Getty.

Photo: Craig Schwartz

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American Art’s new home (see page 22), the museum also inaugurated its new music performance space, the Susan and John Hess Family Theater, with a three-day concert series devoted to the pioneering music of David Rosenboom, dean of The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts. Co-presented with Brooklyn’s ISSUE Project Room, David Rosenboom: Propositional Music featured a selection of his major experimental works, spanning a half-century from Continental Divide (1964) through Ringing Minds (2014). The New York Times hailed Rosenboom as “an avatar of experimentalism,” while the series curators, remarking on the “relentless inquisitive nature” of the composer, performer, conductor, author and educator, wrote that “his work distinguishes itself by drawing from scientific, artistic, social, and cosmological thought, gleaning the potentials for music to apply and advance interdisciplinary organizing principles and research in revealing the collective knowledge that connects us to our universe.”

Rosenboom, holder of CalArts’ Richard Seaver Distinguished Chair in Music, was joined on stage by a procession of allstar performers, including virtuoso percussionist William Winant (72), faculty colleagues I Nyoman Wenten, Pandit Swapan

Top Left: Vivis Colombetti as Tita in an outdoor production of Luis Alfaro’s Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles at the Getty Villa. CalArts alumna Jessica Kubzansky directed the contemporary Angeleno adaptation of Euripides.

Chaudhuri, Ustad Aashish Khan, and Vinny Golia, as well as his son, CalArts grad Daniel Rosenboom (MFA 07).

Experimental Music Practices alum Jinku Kim (MFA 12), Experimental Animation faculty Maureen Selwood, and lightshow artist Tony Martin provided the accompanying visuals.

SCHOOL OF THEATER Robert Barnhart (BFA 87), John Bradley (BFA 07) and Daniel Boland (BFA 95) stood among the winners at this year’s Creative Arts Emmys. Barnhart collected his eighth career Emmy for Lighting Direction For a Variety Special for his work on The Super Bowl XLIX Halftime Show Starring Katy Perry. Bradley and Boland took home their first and second Emmys, respectively, for Outstanding Lighting Design/ Lighting Direction For A Variety Series as members of the lighting team for The Voice on NBC. Over at the Primetime Emmys, Don Cheadle (BFA 86) earned his fourth consecutive nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his portrayal of Marty Kaan in Showtime’s House of Lies. The nom was the eighth of Cheadle’s career.

Right: Kubzansky with MacArthur genius Alfaro, one of the city’s foremost homegrown creative forces.

FALL 2015

Alison Brie (BFA 05) and Sola Bamis (BFA 11) reprised their roles, as Trudy Campbell and Shirley, respectively, during the final run-in of the iconic AMC series Mad Men last spring. Brie had starred in nearly 40 episodes of the acclaimed 1960s period drama since 2007, while Bamis made eight appearances during Mad Men’s final two seasons.

Elsewhere on the small screen, Brie also returned as Annie Edison on her other high-profile vehicle, Community, as the beloved cult sitcom made its debut on Yahoo’s streaming service, Yahoo Screen, after five seasons on NBC. On the big screen, Brie played the leading role, Lainey, opposite Jason Sudeikis, in the rom-com Sleeping with Other People.

Brad Culver (BFA 07) played over-the-top amateur actor Alan in South Coast Repertory’s production of Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors. This farcical adaptation of Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters, set in swinging 1960s Brighton, England, is a co-production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where it debuted in August.

Following roles in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, HBO’s Togetherness and ABC’s The Astronaut Wives Club,

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Courtesy of Deena Selenow. Photo: Amber LaRosa

Courtesy of Janet Sternburg and Hawthorne Books

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Dana Gourrier (MFA 10) is next appearing in Tarantino’s upcoming spaghetti western The Hateful Eight. She also served on the jury of the 2015 Peace and Love Film Festival in Örebro, Sweden.

Galatea, a new play written and directed by Brittany Knupper (MFA 21) and featuring a company made up almost entirely of CalArts alums, had a 10-day run at L.A.’s Son of Semele in September. The drama ruminates on the subculture developed around lifelike silicone sex dolls and the implications for real women of this trade in feminine objects. The cast included Caitlin Teeley (BFA 13), Richard Pluim (MFA 13), Ramon Camacho (MFA 14), Michael Ho (BFA 14), Chrissie Harms (MFA 13), Caitlin Ribbans (BFA 14) and Katherine Keyte (14). Scene and video design was by Dallas Wexler (BFA 12), costumes by Lynne Marie Martens (MFA 12), lights

by BFA candidate Lauren Sego and stage management by Andrew Lia (13). Galatea was developed at CalArts as Knupper’s Writing for Performance thesis project.

Jessica Kubzansky (MFA 94) staged a production of Luis Alfaro’s Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles at the Getty Villa’s outdoor amphitheater in Malibu.

Produced by Pasadena’s Theatre @ Boston Court, where Kubzansky

is co-artistic director, the play reimagines the Euripides drama as a Boyle Heights immigrant tale. “Kubzansky’s production,” said the Los Angeles Times, “brings to the work a lovely classical poise through her ace design team, poignant leads and pungent supporting cast.”

Kubzansky’s recent credits include the world and New York premieres of Sheila Callaghan’s Everything You Touch, at Boston Court and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, respectively; Pygmalion at Pasadena Playhouse; and RII, an adaptation of Richard II for three actors, at Boston Court. Mojada’s design team, meanwhile, included faculty set designer Efren Delgadillo Jr. (MFA 03), who was no stranger to the Getty Villa’s Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater: he had designed the monumental set for the CalArts Center for New Performance (CNP) production of Prometheus Bound at the same venue two years ago.

Watts Village Theater Company marked the 50-year anniversary of the 1965 uprising in Watts with a production directed

by Deena Selenow (MFA 13). The historical drama, Riot/Rebellion

by Donald Jolly, weaves together numerous first-person accounts of those fateful six days in August in a documentary style

Top Left: Watts Village Theater Company’s production of Riot/Rebellion, written

by Donald Jolly and directed by Deena Selenow, arrived at downtown’s Los Angeles Theatre Center in September after two earlier runs in Watts.

as it “seeks to make harmony from the discordant voices of a community that refused to be silenced.” Selenow staged the work at multiple venues: first at the Mafundi Institute on 103rd Street in Watts; then at the Watts Labor Community Action Committee headquarters on South Central; and eventually at Los Angeles Theatre Center’s 320-seat Theatre 3 in the heart of downtown. The six-member cast included Jacob Gibson (BFA 15), Roberto Martin (BFA 15) and Carol Simon (MFA 14), with scene design

by Mark Kanieff (MFA 15), lighting by Lauren Wemischner (BFA 10) and costumes by Lena Sands (MFA 15).

INSTITUTE Janet Sternburg, author, photographer and wife of CalArts President Steven D. Lavine, tells a remarkable story in her latest book, White Matter: A Memoir of Family and Medicine (Hawthorne), which has been selected by Publishers Weekly as one of “The Big Indie Books of Fall 2015.” The former member of the Critical Studies faculty contextualizes her own family’s painful, often hidden struggle with mental illness within the wider 20th-century histories of psychiatry and neurobiology—

Right: Cover of Janet Sternburg’s new book, White Matter: A Memoir of Family and Medicine.

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and in particular the practice of lobotomy. “White Matter is a stunning achievement, attempting nothing less than to understand the impossible,” according to Ladette Randolph, editor of the literary journal Ploughshares.

“Sternburg is a master at creating the perfect structuring metaphor through which to tell her family’s history and by which to illuminate a particularly dark time in our nation’s history.” The new memoir follows the acclaimed Phantom Limb: A Meditation on Memory as the second book in a trilogy on the intersection of personal history and neurology.

“Over the last several years, writers as different as the late David Foster Wallace and Leslie Jamison have expanded the boundaries of the essay and memoir,” noted Tom Teicholz in Forbes magazine. “Sternburg in Phantom Limb and now with White Matter is part of this vanguard.”

SIZE DOESN’T MATTER. . s e o d t f i g y r e v But e The CALARTS FUND supports student scholarships, faculty-artists, programs and services not covered by student tuition, and transforms the day-to-day experience within each of the Institute’s six schools.

YOUR GIFT: EQUIPS our faculty with the resources that make dynamic, creative instruction in the arts possible; EMPOWERS CalArts students with the space, tools, and mentoring that engender critical thinking, imaginative problem-solving, and their passionate pursuit of the new.

By making a gift to the CalArts Fund, you become an important contributor to the education and growth of the world’s next generation of transformational artists.

At whatever level you choose to give, your generosity makes a difference and is truly appreciated.

EVERY GIFT MATTERS.

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Cover Image: Set up in the Main Gallery and other spaces throughout the campus, the 2015 edition of the CalArts Digital Arts Expo showcased the latest technology-levered art developed by CalArts students.

The work on display included an eclectic range of interactive digital performances as well as new, often unconventional applications of digital tools across the creative disciplines.

CalArts is published twice each year by the CalArts Office of Communications.

California Institute of the Arts Steven D. Lavine, President Jay Carducci, Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, Office of Communications Editorial: Stuart I. Frolick and Freddie Sharmini Design: Julie Moon (Art MFA 11) with Cassandra Chae (Art MFA 07) and Jacob Halpern (Art MFA 15), Creative Direction: Stuart Smith (Art MFA 02) Typefaces in this issue include: McBean by Benjamin Woodlock (Art MFA 13), LL Circular by Laurenz Brunner, and Portrait by Berton Hasebe Photography: Steven A. Gunther and Rafael Hernandez (Art BFA 11)

Headliners — 2 Creating Change in Public Arts Education— 6 Online Learning Gets Creative — 16 Dispatches — 22

Telephone: 661 255-1050 E-mail: communications@calarts.edu