Building unity & community through jazz

By Camden Chaffee

The first annual IU South Bend Jazz Fest made its debut this past September 2019. The concert provided IU South Bend with a sense of unity and an afternoon full of jazz music. Featuring trumpeter, Rodney Marsalis’s Philadelphia Big Brass, and various local student jazz ensembles, the outdoor concert attracted IU South Bend faculty, staff, students and the community. It was the first outdoor concert in IU South Bend history.

The idea for the event stemmed from students looking for a positive way to bring unity to the entire student body after an incident of hate speech occurred on campus. “The festival was motivated by an incident in which degrading comments were made directed towards African Americans,” Dr. Curtis, dean of the Raclin School of the Arts explains. “The IU South Bend Student Government Association (SGA), along with the music department, collaborated to put on a jazz concert to unify our campus.”

When an open forum was held on campus after the incident took place in early 2019, students looked for a way to show solidarity with those targeted by the hate speech. Dominick Rodriguez, SGA senator, approached Curtis and suggested holding a Jazz Festival on campus.

“I thought that a jazz festival was a good thing to bring people together because music expresses what words cannot,” Rodriguez reflected. “Jazz was created by people of color and evolved into so much more. Jazz is a genre of music that will always find its way into people’s hearts because it’s not just one specific kind of tune. It is multiple tunes, and it continues to branch into different categories of jazz. For example, did you know that samba music is under the category of jazz? This is one of the major pillars of music, and music brings people together just like food.”

In a letter written by Kevin Schascheck, former SGA president, he stated that the IU South Bend campus “needed something which would speak to every person that walked the halls of IU South Bend.” Their answer was jazz music.

“I’ve always been about trying to get people together, and music does just that,” Curtis says. “Jazz is one of the things that is so universal in black music. People tend to gravitate towards that. For me, the fact that the SGA thought of this and came to us, the School of the Arts, shows me that they know what the school is all about.”

Curtis was key in providing contacts for the evening’s performance. The funding for this event was provided by local sponsorships and grants, including from First Source Bank, Indiana Trust, and Indiana Arts Commission. The SGA also played a major role in funding for the event, by tapping into a surplus of money from the previous year.

Dennis Gamble, director of both the IU South Bend Jazz Band and the Mishawaka High School Jazz Band, was one of the local performers and able to share the stage for this very important event. “It was a real pleasure to be able to be a part of the show and it was an honor for myself and my high school students to be asked to perform.”

Rodney Marsalis shared the same enthusiasm when asked about playing in support of such an important purpose on the IU campus.

“This is a really cool event here,” Marsalis explained when reflecting on the performance. “It’s a free event for the South Bend community, so there are no financial barriers and its just a great way for the community to come together. I really believe that music can heal the world.”

Juan-Carlos Alarcon, BME ’19 Music Education, was one of the IU South Bend students who attended the event. Alarcon has a major presence on the campus, as he is one of the two School of the Arts students who took home three Grammy awards in 2018. “One of the greatest aspects of the music department and the university is the way they can bring people together through the healing power of art,” Alarcon says.

As Rodney Marsalis’s Philadelphia Big Brass opened their performance with the hymn, Just a closer walk with thee, the smiles and enthusiasm of the crowd showed that music can bring people together and help alleviate the pain of racism and hateful remarks.

The Arts Lecture Series made its round once more this year, pushing the conversation forward with developments in art education.

Jeff Horwat, assistant professor of art education, took the stage during the 2019 academic year to talk about the exciting, new topic of arts-based research, as well as wordless novels, also known as graphic novels.

Most of his lecture focused on artsbased research and its impact on art, particularly, his own work.

Arts-based research draws from qualities of art to explore different personal, social, and emotional issues.

Inspired by This American Life (from Chicago Public Media), “I organized my personal story and mapped out the narrative into six different chapters, each addressing a major episode in the development of my work.” Horwat explained the basis behind his area of research. “I thought of the presentation as a kind of artful storytelling project, going through old photos and arranging things to present a visual experience of my work.”

“Being mindful of my audience, time constraints, and the goals of the presentation, I did a lot of editing so that I wasn’t presenting anything that was too personal or irrelevant to my audience. I wanted to find a delicate balance of being approachable, casual, and engaging but still scholarly and substantive; the intent after all was to teach people about not only my work but the ideas, theories, and methods that inspired my work— something I felt could be applicable to others,” Horwat explained.

In addition, Horwat presented some of his past and current works of art. He spoke about how he ran across wordless novels and their connection to arts-based research.

As a graduate student, Horwart was in the middle of an art education conference in Texas. He skipped presentations to go to the art museum in Fort Worth. At the museum, there was an exhibition of prints done by Lynd Ward and Frans Masereel, both illustrators in the early part of the 20th century considered to be the developers of the graphic novel.

“At the time, I was in the middle of writing my dissertation and was really burned out on writing,” Horwat reminisces on his past. “I missed drawing and painting, so his work resonated with me, while also reminding me of the potential of the visual image to communicate complex ideas, thoughts, and feelings. I got a book at the bookstore by David Barona which was a compendium of contemporary wordless book artists. Inspired by Lynd Ward and Frans Masereel, I decided to create a wordless book as an alternative way to think through some of the ideas I’d been writing through in my dissertation, a side project to feed my inner artist while I wrote a conventional dissertation.”

This side project has led him to think about how research and wordless storytelling could be connected to one another, inspiring him to a new direction with his work.

Fine arts students took a lot from Horwat’s lecture. Art-based research is an alternative way of art making, it can help students further their work conceptually and help broaden the relationship between creating and understanding.

All in all, Horwat feels the lecture series was a success.

“It was an honor to present my work to faculty and students. Over the past five years, I talked about my work and taught through my ideas only in the context of the curriculum that I've taught—using myself as a model for the kind of ideas I want students to understand.”

born to be

CREATIVE

Take your place in a community of artists to explore the theory and practice of fine art. From the fundamentals of 2D and 3D art to in-depth study of a single medium, IU South Bend students develop their creative and critical skills. Enjoy personal attention from an inspired faculty of recognized painters, printmakers, graphic designers, photographers, and sculptors. Expand your experience by traveling with the faculty to study art in Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance, while immersed in the history of art and architecture.

For degree offerings and more info about IU South Bend fine arts programs, visit us on the web at finearts.iusb.edu.