Spring 2023 Mason Gross Magazine

MGSA

MASON GROSS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

A GLOBAL TREASURE

RUTGERS CELEBRATES 20 YEARS AT SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE THEATRE IN LONDON

1,024

STUDENTS

32 STATES FROM 22 FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND

5 RESEARCH CENTERS + INITIATIVES

OUR LEADERSHIP

J ason Geary

Dean

R e becca Cypess

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

Annabelle Luu

Associate Dean for Finance and Administration

Marshall Jones III

Associate Dean for Equity

Mandy Feiler

Assistant Dean for Admissions and Enrollment Management

Lisa Sanon-Jules

Assistant Dean for Advising and Student Success

Denyse Reed

Director of Development

Marc Handelman

Chair of the Art & Design Department

Gerald Casel

Chair of the Dance Department

Steven Kemper

Director of the Music Department

Ellen Bredehoft

Chair of the Theater Department

Patrick Stettner

Director of the Rutgers Filmmaking Center

Kevin Bott

Director of Rutgers Arts Online

Jade Cintrón Báez

LETTER FROM THE DEAN

The 2022–23 academic year was our first guided by the three core pillars of Inclusive Excellence, Collaboration, and Community articulated in our Mason Gross Future Roadmap. The pages that follow provide ample evidence of how we have begun implementing these values, but I’ll touch on a few highlights here. We are especially excited about this year’s debut of “Interplay,” a first-year interdisciplinary course that offers collaborative experiences in each of the school’s five artistic areas. This course not only establishes collaboration as a foundation of our undergraduate curriculum but also creates networks that students will draw upon during their time with us and after they graduate.

Our collaborative efforts have also reached beyond Mason Gross. Next year we will introduce a minor in Creative Expression and the Environment that is jointly offered with the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences as well as the School of Arts and Sciences. In addition, Mason Gross has recently launched an Arts in Health Research Lab in partnership with the School of Public Health and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. This initiative, aimed at establishing Rutgers as a national leader in this burgeoning field of study, is meant to produce research that quantifies the impact of the arts on health and wellness in society.

We continue to build relationships with community partners as a means of broadening access to the arts. One of the feature stories in this issue describes the many avenues for students in the Department of Art & Design for engaging communities through their artwork. Mason Gross has expanded its partnership with Middlesex County and with New Brunswick Public Schools and has collaborated with the Cicely L. Tyson Community School of Fine and Performing Arts in East Orange, whose high school choir was featured at our annual MLK celebration.

Inclusive excellence is at the heart of all our pursuits. Among the many illustrative examples that you’ll read about are the 20th-anniversary celebration of the Rutgers Conservatory at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, and the April performance of the Kirkpatrick Choir and Glee Club at Carnegie Hall.

We ended the academic year on a high note by recognizing the excellence of two Rutgers alumni: acclaimed actor Kevin Chamberlin, who spoke at the Mason Gross commencement, and Emmy-winning Abbott Elementary star Sheryl Lee Ralph, who delivered the Rutgers–New Brunswick commencement address and received an honorary doctorate. Seeing the torch passed from one generation to the next filled me with hope for the future—and for the role that Mason Gross will play in shaping it.

Director of Rutgers Comm unity Arts THIS

m asongross.rutgers.edu

© 2023 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

KEITH MUCCILLI

MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED FOR ALUMNI, FACULTY, STUDENTS, EMPLOYEES, DONORS, AND FRIENDS OF THE MASON GROSS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS. YOUR FEEDBACK AND NEWS ITEMS ARE WELCOME. PLEASE WRITE TO ALUMNI@MGSA.RUTGERS.EDU OR TO MGSA MAGAZINE, MASON GROSS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS, 33 LIVINGSTON AVENUE, NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ 08901.

MASON GROSS

SPRING 2023 MAGAZINE

“Isaw shows that provoked me, questioned me, screamed in my face, or simply grossed me out. And it was amazing. ”– Stage management student Molly Pair , part of a group that saw 20 plays in 21 days as part of an exploration of Berlin’s theater scene led by Head of Dramaturgy Christopher Cartmill .

6

A GLOBAL TREASURE

Rutgers Conservatory at Shakespeare ’ s Globe celebrates 20 years in London.

15

THE PLAY’S THE THING

A new schoolwide course called “ Interplay ” is steeped in cross-disciplinary collaboration.

22

“ WITH ACCESS WORK INTEGRATED INTO ART, SCIENCE, TRANSPORTATION, MEDICINE, AND ARCHITECTURE, WE CREATE SPACE FOR PEOPLE TO SHOW UP FULLY AS THEMSELVES, NOT AS A PROBLEM, BUT AS A HUMAN. ”

Dance alum Anna Gichan ’s deafness spurs her to advocate for equity onstage and off.

ON THE COVER : This year ’s cohort of third-year actors and designers on stage at Shakesepare ’s Globe Theatre in London.

11 19 21

Art & Design alum partners with Old Navy on a Black History Month T-shirt.

Three Theater and Music student leaders make Rutgers history.

Art & Design alum ’s work greets visitors at Newark Liberty International Airport.

EDITORIAL STAFF

E ditor: Laurie Granieri

C ontributing writers: Risa Barisch, Anna Gichan (BFA'17), Lisa Intrabartola, Mike Lucas

D esigner: Mónica Toledo-Fraginals

Photo by Pete Le May.

LYNNE DELADE

JOANNE MASON

A GLOBAL TREASURE

By Risa Barisch

Acting student Talli Basile admits that Shakespeare used to make her nervous. His works were difficult to read and hard to understand, she says—not to mention unrelatable.

“All of his work felt like museum pieces,” says Basile, who despite having seen plenty of contemporary interpretations still couldn’t make a connection. “I didn’t think there was necessarily anything lying in those plays that was relevant to modern audiences before I got a closer look at it.”

Basile got that closer look when she traveled to London to study at the Rutgers Conservatory at Shakespeare’s Globe last fall. Now in its 20th year, the program was founded as a partnership with the Globe, an international education and research center, and aims to immerse thirdyear acting and design students in all things Shakespeare and theater through classes, workshops, cultural trips, and outings to U.K. venues and festivals.

Basile says her six months of study at the Globe were “a life-changing experience” of unpacking and getting to know the work—and the playwright and businessman behind it all.

“It just felt like we were at the core of everything that he was trying to do,” says Basile, who had never traveled outside of the United States. “It felt like Shakespeare was for me for the first time.”

W HERE IT ALL HAPPENED

Living and working in London, surrounded by the backdrop of what Shakespeare wrote about, is key to understanding his work, says Barbara Marchant, who co-founded the Rutgers Globe program along with Israel Hicks, the late chair and artistic director of the Mason Gross Theater Department, and Patrick Spottiswoode, retired director of Globe Education at Shakespeare’s Globe.

ELLIE KURTTZ

“Students are in the neighborhood where it all happened; they live it,” says Marchant, who retired from Rutgers in 2021 after 25 years on the theater faculty. “They can go over to Middle Temple Hall as they’re reading Twelfth Night—that’s where that took place [in its first recorded performance in 1602]. It puts them in touch with history as well.”

Acting students participate in intense classical training that includes classes in language, movement, voice, singing, and combat, culminating in a performance in the spring on the stage of the Globe Theatre, a reconstruction of Shakespeare’s original “wooden O” playhouse.

Marchant points out that while other American conservatory acting programs send students to the Globe, the amount of time that Rutgers students spend there is unmatched, allowing them to focus on a fulllength production.

“For them to spend six months immersed in this work—they know it, they understand it,” Marchant says. “There’s a confidence after they’ve completed this work.”

Nearly 400 people packed into the open-air theater on opening night of this spring’s performance of The Comedy of Errors, including Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway and Mason Gross Dean Jason Geary, who were in town to celebrate the program’s 20th anniversary. Despite the frigid conditions, the performances were mesmerizing, says Cameron Knight, head of acting and coordinator of the Globe program.

“I f you can master Shakespeare—if you can handle that text—you can handle anything.”– Barbara Marchant,co-founder of the Rutgers Conservatory at Shakespeare’s Globe

Students from the 2016 Globe cohort performing A Midsummer Night's Dream.

RUTGERS CELEBRATES 20 YEARS AT SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE THEATRE IN LONDON

“To see [students] own themselves and their identities and their skills onstage was amazing,” says Knight. “For them to step on to that stage and be celebrated and cheered on is something they’ll take with them the rest of their lives.”

For Basile, the performance “felt like everything,” she says.

“It feels like a spiritual experience, where you’re connected to all of the people who came before you, to Shakespeare, to all of the people that are coming after you,” Basile says. “I felt like I was a part of something special just standing on that stage.”

AN ACTOR ’ S PLAYGROUND

For Jasmine Carmichael, studying at the Globe in 2010 made Shakespeare feel “relatable, relevant, a part of the culture of now,” she says. A director, teacher, and professional actor (best known for her role opposite Giovanni Ribisi in Amazon’s Sneaky Pete), Carmichael came away from the Globe program with both an in-depth knowledge of classical text and the confidence to fully embody Shakespeare’s characters.

“Studying at the Globe, I was immersed in a community of artists whose love of language, knowledge of theatrical history, and commitment to technique made me excited to work with them and learn from them,” says Carmichael. “Being there made me feel that I was a part of something special and reinforced that the work of being an actor is an awesome responsibility that must be respected and taken seriously.”

“It feels like a spiritual experience, where you’re connected to all of the people who came before you, to Shakespeare, to all of the people that are coming after you.”

Marchant has delighted in seeing the reputation that the Rutgers Globe program has built over two decades and says she has seen many students get jobs because of their training.

“It gives them immediate cred,” says Marchant. “If you can master Shakespeare—if you can handle that text—you can handle anything.”

The program has evolved over the years to include MFA actors as well as theater design and production students, who travel to London during the fall semester to learn from industry professionals in classes that take place on location in studios and theaters as well as in site-specific venues.

Other changes have come to the curriculum, including adding courses in stage intimacy and drama therapy to address students’ mental health. There is also an expanded focus on examining some of the more problematic themes—like misogyny, racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia—scattered throughout Shakespeare’s work.

“It’s important that if our actor training and our acting itself is to have any relevance, it has to stay current and ask questions and scrutinize itself,” Knight explains. “Otherwise, we’re simply teaching appreciation of something and not the relevancy of something.”

As the partnership with the Globe continues into its next chapters, one thing remains constant: the pride and respect for Shakespeare and theater that is felt everywhere throughout London, says Carmichael.

“When I first arrived in London, the customs agent checking my passport asked me why I had come to the city,” says Carmichael. “I told her I was studying acting at the Globe. She looked at me, smiled cheekily, and said ‘Oh, so you’ve come to learn how to do it right.’ That for me encapsulates the benefit of studying Shakespeare in London.”

SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE

and other programs throughout the school by visiting go.rutgers.edu/givetomgsa or contact Denyse Reed, Director of Development, at denyse.reed@mgsa.rutgers.edu.

– BFA Acting student Talli Basile

COURTESY OF THE GLOBE

Theater alums Jasmine Carmichael and Tim Giles in a 2010 performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Globe.

FACULTY + STAFF NEWS

The American Academy in Rome has awarded faculty and MFA Art & Design alum Jeanine Oleson the Rome Prize. Recipients receive a stipend, workspace, and room and board at the Academy’s campus in Italy.

Filmmaking’s Kevin Allen designed and mixed Nomotopowell, a documentary on the history of lost settlements and human skulls around a Florida village.

Theater’s Jessica Kahkoska is a recipient of the National Archives Foundation’s Cokie Roberts Women’s History Fellowship. Kahkoska plans to research stories of women during the Nuremberg Trials with the goal of creating a TV series.

Dance’s Jeff Friedman received a $25,000 grant from the New Jersey Health Foundation (NJHF) in support of the school’s Integrated Dance Collaboratory. According to the NJHF, this funding is devoted to “projects addressing important health-related community, social, and education issues impacting society.”

The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation awarded Art & Design’s Didier William a $20,000 grant. The biennial competition is meant to provide artists the opportunity to produce new work. Didier William: Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè, the largest retrospective of William’s career, was on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami (MOCA NOMI) from November 2 through April 16. In a write-up on the retrospective, The New York Times calls William’s landscapes “dreamy and disorienting.”

In October, Todd Nichols, director of university bands and athletic bands, and Julia Baumanis, assistant director of bands, were named Scarlet Knight Transfer Champions for their support during National Transfer Student Week. Both were nominated by student Jordan Lees, who felt the impact they have made on the Rutgers student experience. “They are some of the loveliest people I have ever met, they are the marching band directors, and they are awesome,” Lees said. “They make me feel like I am very welcomed as a transfer student and they put trust in me as a leader to help then make the band as good as it is.”

Mark McKnight of Art & Design has been named a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow. He’s one of 171 fellows in 48 fields, and only one of two fellows this year from Rutgers. “My artistic process is dictated by the belief that if I trust my intuition and remain curious and attentive to the work and the world, the point of

my pictures (which are often made intuitively!) will always, eventually, become clear,” McKnight says. The photography project for which McKnight is receiving support, “Psalm,” is influenced by the artist’s dreams, the writing of Carl Jung, and the Paul Celan poem his series is titled after.

In February, Everyone Keeps Me and New Pam Tanowitz by Pam Tanowitz of the Dance Department had a two-week run at the Royal Opera House in London. Everyone Keeps Me was created by Tanowitz for The Royal Ballet in 2019. The performance received high praise from The Spectator, which called it a “dazzling duet.” Meanwhile, The New York Times calls Tanowitz’s “Mosaic,” set on New York City Ballet dancers, “the finest new offering to come from City Ballet in ages.” The piece is listed among the Times’ s Best Dance Performances of 2022.

John Yau of Art & Design is the 2022 recipient of the International Award from the Hunan Academy of Poetry.

Frederick Curry is the recipient of the National Dance Education Organization 2022 Outstanding Leadership Award in the Area of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The award honors an individual who has created DEI-centered ideas for programs, projects, or curricula; has demonstrated impact on a local, state, national, or international level; and has inspired this leadership in others.

Melissa Dunphy’s opera Alice Tierney ran at Oberlin Conservatory from January 27 to 29. The opera focuses on four archaeologists engaged in excavating the site of Tierney’s death. Along the way, they all develop their own theory of who she was; each version is played by a different soprano. This production is the Oberlin Opera Commissioning Program’s first world premiere.

Donald Holder, head of lighting design, is the seventh recipient of the Paky Award, presented in November at the Lighting Dimensions International Conference in Las Vegas. The award honors people who have made major contributions to the lighting industry, and Holder certainly fits the bill: He has designed 59 Broadway productions and has been nominated for 14 Tony awards, winning the Tony for Best Lighting Design for The Lion King in 1998, and for the 2008 revival of South Pacific. Holder also created the lighting design for last November’s film Spirited, a musical comedy adaptation of A Christmas Carol starring Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell, and Octavia Spencer. In the spring, Holder designed the lighting for The Metropolitan Opera’s production of Champion, by the late William Fielder’s former jazz student Terence Blanchard

Gerry Beegan of Art & Design is featured in an episode of the PBS YouTube series The Bigger Picture with Vincent Brown, which reexamines iconic American images. Beegan discusses scholar-activist Angela Davis’s “Wanted” poster.

In November, Head of Acting Cameron Knight served as a panelist at the Shakespeare and Race 2022: Spoken Word(s) conference organized by Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. Knight spoke to The Guardian about issues surrounding color-blind casting: “What it does is erases the identity of a person that you’ve hired,” he said. “To have true diversity you have to make room for the experience of the person that’s doing it.”

Tepper Chair Park McArthur is a recipient of The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. Past recipients include Art & Design faculty Steffani Jemison and Music alum Courtney Bryan.

In May, Garden State, an experimental documentary short by Art & Design’s Julie Langsam, was an official selection of the International Filmmaker Festival of New York.

Scott Ordway is a recipient of a 2023 Chancellor-Provost Award for Excellence in Cross-Disciplinary Scholarship. Ordway took the lead in coordinating “Interplay,” an interdisciplinary course for first-year students that made its debut in the fall. Read more about “Interplay” on page 15.

CONCERTS FROM YOUR COUCH

Catch live-streamed music performances from Nicholas Music Center! Stream performances during the fall and spring semesters at go.rutgers.edu/nmcstream, or browse the event page on our website and click on the “View the Live Stream” button.

Water Music: In December, Music faculty Kraig Alan Williams led a partnership with the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and the School of Engineering on a multimedia concert event, Deep Blue: The Beauty of Our Water World The concert featured the Rutgers Wind Ensemble and blended live music, video, still photography, lighting, live commentary from Rutgers researchers, and other elements to communicate the dangers of microplastics in our waterways.

LYNNE DELADE

MUSIC

NEW FACULTY

ART & DESIGN

“Mason Gross has a really exciting history that I’m honored to be a part of,” says Mark McKnight, assistant professor of expanded photography. “I’m looking forward to figuring out where my work, ideas, and approach fit into it all.”

DANCE

“Seeing the spark in students’ eyes tells me they are engaged in their work…. In the spirit of bell hooks and her writings, I think of teaching as a practice toward liberation,” says department chair Gerald Casel.

FILMMAKING

“My primary goal and joy as a teacher has always been to do my best to deeply understand the work that any given student wants to make–in the way that the student wants to make it–and to be in service, primarily, of that,” says Assistant Professor Shawn Snyder

MARSHALL JONES III

“Performing in an orchestra is like harmonizingly communicating with a large group of people to create a most spectacular musical moment,” says Ching-Chun Lai, director of orchestral activities and engagement. “The process is spontaneous and takes great focus. It is amazing and incredible when you do so with so many people all together.”

“I look forward to making connections with K–12 music programs in and around the Rutgers community in hopes of building relationships with future Rutgers students,” says Marjoris Regus, assistant professor of music education. “I believe it is important we stay connected with young learners so that they may see themselves in academia at an early age.”

T HEATER

“Before I became an acting teacher I worked as a talent representative,” says Deb Jackel, a newly minted assistant professor in the acting program and an alum of the BFA program. “So being able to teach actors the art of auditioning and how to navigate the industry gives me the opportunity to [use] my knowledge in a really cool way.”

ASSOCIATE DEAN

FOR EQUITY

“I plan to institute sustainable practices and policies to ensure that all MGSA students are equipped with the resources to reach their potential, as artists and as citizens,” says Jones, an MGSA alum and head of BA Theater, and the school's first associate dean for equity. “We are devoted to making certain all students feel and experience true belonging, and that they graduate with the necessary courses, communication skills, and empathy to thrive and make substantive contributions as we move toward the second quarter of the 21st century.”

Katherine Helen Fisher

Ian Byers-Gamber

Courtesy of Marjoris Regus

Genine Esposito

Courtesy of Shawn Snyder

Robert Young

ALUMNI + STUDENT NEWS

The Rutgers University Kirkpatrick Choir and Rutgers University Glee Club performed on April 4 at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium in New York City. They were joined onstage by the Riverside Choral Society to perform the Brahms Alto Rhapsody, featuring Grammy-nominated mezzosoprano Margaret Lattimore. The group also performed the Beethoven Mass in C and André Thomas’s “Mass: A Celebration of Love and Joy.” A few days later, 25 members of the Kirkpatrick Choir headed to Newark’s Prudential Center to perform with The Eagles on their “Hotel California” tour.

Theater alum Roger Bart stars as Doc in the Broadway run of Back to the Future: The Musical, opening in previews on June 30 at the Winter Garden Theatre. Bart was part of the West End cast of the show, which won an Olivier Award in 2022 for Best New Musical.

Class of 2022 Art & Design grad Johanna Cordasco, recipient of the Scott Cagenello Memorial Prize at graduation for her demonstrated commitment to helping others in the school and the wider community, joined Americorps to do conservation work across the country. “I’ve always been infatuated by the connection between art and nature, and I’m finding that the skills I learned from sculpture are carrying over a lot,” says Cordasco. “I’m excited to get to work with my hands, be around good people, explore and be a part of something meaningful.”

EdM Dance Education candidate Ally Ferry was selected by the Graduate School of Education to receive a Nancy Higginson Dorr Award for the promise she has demonstrated as a future educator. She has also been selected as one of three Rutgers candidates for the New Jersey Distinguished Clinical Intern Awards.

On April 27, Music alum Amanda Batista made her Metropolitan Opera House debut as the High Priestess in Verdi’s Aida. Batista spent this season as part of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. This summer, Batista joins the Académie du Festival d’Aix-en-Provence Vocal Residency in France. She’ll also make her role debut as Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo with the Aspen Music Festival as a Renée Fleming Artist.

Art & Design alum Juan Sánchez was awarded the 2022 Artist Award from the Artists’ Legacy Foundation in recognition of his 45-year career as an artist, activist, and educator.

Theater alum Calista Flockhart has been cast as Lee Radziwill, the younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, in season 2 of Feud, Ryan Murphy’s historical anthology on FX. The cast also includes Naomi Watts, Chloë Sevigny, Demi Moore, Diane Lane, and Molly Ringwald. Filming began in January.

If you caught the Halloween episode of Live with Kelly and Ryan, you saw costumes designed by Theater alum Tori Sterling Kelly with assistant costume designer/alum Clare Lippincott. Lippincott also is a costume production assistant on the Tony-nominated musical comedy Shucked, which opened April 4 at the Nederlander Theatre. Costume design MFA alum Caity Mulkearns serves as the show’s associate costume designer.

In August, MFA Art & Design alum Jason Baerg was featured on Vogue.com’s list of “15 Indigenous Artists to Know From This Year’s Santa Fe Indian Market,” an annual showcase of the works of Indigenous artists across North America. Baerg was in the exhibition Art of Indigenous Fashion at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Sante Fe as well.

Last summer, Dance student Amanda Osborne was one of only 100 students across Rutgers selected for President Holloway’s Rutgers Summer Service Internship Initiative. Osborne was at the Raritan Valley YMCA, focusing on wellness programs for seniors and preschoolers.

Theater alum Midori Francis joined ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy as a series regular for the show’s 19th season as intern Mika Yasuda. She also was part of the main cast of HBO Max’s The Sex Lives of College Girls, co-created by Mindy Kaling.

Music alum Eric Lindberg tells the Rutgers Alumni Association that his time as a student made him a better listener who became more open to diverse approaches. Now, he and his band Nefesh Mountain have released four albums of Americana roots music and have performed at the Grand Ole Opry. “I learned from my teachers that to really do the music thing, you kind of had to understand it all,” Lindberg says. “You had to know the many different walks, and that it’s all valid.”

MFA Art & Design alum Malcolm Peacock was awarded a Carnegie International Prize. The Carnegie International, established in 1896, is the longest-running North American exhibition of international art. Peacock was awarded the 2022 Fine Prize for two works.

In the fall, the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series Galleries at Douglass Library hosted Collective Yearning: Black Women Artists from the Zimmerli Art Museum, featuring prints, photographs, and multimedia artworks. The exhibit marked the first time the university has conducted a comprehensive review of its holdings of art by Black women artists. The exhibition was co-curated by Art & Design student Desiree Morales and alumni Kyle b. co. and Grace Lynne Haynes and includes work by late faculty Emma Amos, former Tepper Chair Kara Walker, and alums Atysha Fordyce and Nell Irvin Painter.

SEAN EBSWORTH BARNES

Tony-winning Theater Department alum Roger Bart, at right, as Doc in Back to the Future: The Musical.

DESIGN WITH A PURPOSE

OLD NAVY TAPS

ART & DESIGN

ALUM TO CREATE

BLACK HISTORY

MONTH T-SHIRT

By Lisa Intrabartola

Courtesy of Rutgers Today

Less than a month after earning her MFA from Mason Gross, a T-shirt Grace Lynne Haynes designed for Black History Month hit the racks at Old Navy. Haynes is the latest artist of color to partner with Old Navy’s Project We graphic tee series celebrating diversity. The shirt showcases her signature style: a Black female figure outfitted in bold colors and surrounded by fanciful birds.

“The faces of the women are not specific. I feel like anyone can see themselves in the women in my paintings,” Haynes said of her work.

“I really like birds because they represent freedom. Particularly for Black women, it’s important to find ways to be free in our everyday life.”

The opportunity to collaborate with the global retailer came in August when 15 Percent Pledge founder and fashion designer Aurora James spotted Haynes’ work on Instagram. Launched in 2020, the 15 Percent Pledge encourages retailers to reserve 15 percent of their shelf space for Black entrepreneurs.

Old Navy embraced the 15 Percent Pledge last summer, donating $500,000 to the nonprofit and expanding its Project We series.

“The 15 Percent Pledge was a huge part of me saying yes. They have collaborated with

so many artists of color in the past, so I knew this was a legit project I wanted to be a part of,” says Haynes. “Even in our Zoom conversations, they were very sensitive to the topic and wanted to make sure it represented me as an artist and a Black woman.”

in February. “And I would hope it would stimulate their imagination somewhat.”

This isn’t the first time Haynes’s work has been shared with wide audiences. In 2020, two of her paintings made the cover of The New Yorker; she’s also been featured in Forbes’ “30 Under 30 in Art and Style.”

After James shared one of Haynes’s designs with her Instagram followers, Old Navy spotted it and asked Haynes to participate in Project We. She submitted three designs for their consideration. The one the clothing store selected is now a bestseller.

“I hope it makes those wearing it feel empowered,” she says of the T-shirt that she could be seen sporting on Old Navy’s website and Instagram stories

Still, Haynes says the MFA experience helped her take risks, refine her voice as an artist, understand the psychology of color, and verbalize her work with more clarity.

“I remember one of my professors at Rutgers said to make art for the little girl in you. What would that little girl see? What would she need to see?” she says. “I feel so blessed to live in this time where we are open to different artists of different backgrounds. When I saw my little cousin in my shirt, it was so inspiring. I hope it helps little girls to know what’s possible for them too.”

“I hope it makes those wearing it feel empowered.”

– Grace Lynne Haynes

Haynes modeling her Old Navy T-shirt, made for Black History Month.

MAKING NEWS

By Sharon Waters Courtesy of Rutgers Today

Dance alumnus Eric Ortega keeps his foot in multiple worlds, whether working as an executive producer for ABC News or keeping his love of dance alive as an instructor with local studios.

In January, Ortega was hired by ABC to serve as executive producer of ABC News Live with Linsey Davis and executive producer of evening programming for the news organization’s streaming channel, ABC News Live. With degrees in dance and political science, Ortega has always merged his passions and recognized opportunities to achieve his goals.

“I do think of life in these big, blank-check moments. There are certain moments where it is just an infinite amount of possibility, and it’s just based on what you make of it. And I think that’s what Rutgers was –where so many people, so many interests, so many things came together,” says Ortega.

After hearing a political science professor talk about an internship opportunity, Ortega applied and was selected, spending spring 2010 in Washington, D.C., with a health care lobbying firm. That led Ortega to a fall 2010 internship that turned into a part-time job in Sen. Robert Menendez’s New Jersey office. He earned a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute fellowship on Capitol Hill and a job working for a congresswoman. He was still dancing, including a dance apprenticeship at STREB in Brooklyn, as a Rutgers student.

While working on the Hill, Ortega saw how news coverage could move a languishing bill forward, and he began cold calling TV stations, asking for a job. At 26, he started as an entry-level page at NBC. When Ortega asked his boss why she hired him, she replied that while he was qualified, he was also the only candidate who could start immediately; the others wanted the summer off.

“The biggest thing I learned from that was just always say ‘Yes’ and figure everything else out after. There are just so many people vying for the same thing, so raising your hand, saying yes and going 150 miles per hour toward whatever it is that you want will end up benefiting you in the end,” Ortega says.

Ortega worked his way up, as a writer and producer on various NBC shows, until he was a line producer at MSNBC. He then jumped to VICE News to be a senior producer, attracted by the chance to develop long-form storytelling.

His latest move to ABC was a chance to combine all his news skills – longform and breaking news. “I love both equally, the same way as in college when I loved dancing and political science,” says Ortega.

After working on the Linsey Davis show, which begins at 7 p.m., Ortega oversees breaking news until midnight. Ortega started the ABC job the week of the protracted voting for a new speaker of the House of Representatives. “I came in every day with a weekend bag,” recalls Ortega. Rutgers is also where Ortega met his wife, Kelly Buck, a fellow dance major. When Ortega needed a volunteer to perform in his senior piece, Buck raised her hand, starting the romance. “It was very cinematic,” he says.

The couple has two young children and live in Connecticut. Buck is a choreographer and on faculty at a dance conservatory, and Ortega will be a guest artist on weekends. He also works with another studio, choreographing experiences for students. Despite news alerts constantly pinging his phone, Ortega makes time for dance.

“It kind of suspends time for a little bit when you have this group of students in front of you and you're teaching,” he says. “You have to put your phone down and do what existentially fulfills you for a little bit. It’s a welcome distraction, and also a creative fulfillment.”

Dance alums Eric Ortega and Kelly Buck with their children, Addison and Rowan.

COURTESY OF ERIC ORTEGA

FOLLOW THE SONS

FILMMAKING ALUMS ’ DOCUMENTARY ABOUT FRIENDSHIP AND FATHERS MAKES FESTIVAL CIRCUIT

By Risa Barisch

In Sam Spencer’s senior year as a filmmaking student at Mason Gross School of the Arts in fall 2020, he found himself stuck.

“I was kind of feeling uninspired that year,” Spencer says. “I had made so much work there that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to finish.”

Fall melted into spring and Spencer still had no idea what to do for his thesis, so he sought the advice of his professor, Danielle Lessovitz, who encouraged him to explore a “scary” topic that made him “really

MEMORIAM

DEATH DATES AND DEATH NOTIFICATION DATES THAT WERE RUN FOR THIS LIST: APRIL 1, 2022, to MARCH 31, 2023

THE MASON GROSS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS COMMUNITY REPORTS WITH GREAT SADNESS THE LOSS OF ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE SCHOOL. WE EXTEND OUR CONDOLENCES TO EACH OF THEIR FAMILIES AND CLASSMATES.

uncomfortable,” he says—his relationship with his biological father, a man largely a stranger during his childhood and someone he hadn’t seen in 10 years.

Lessovitz knew Spencer’s work to be “bold, inventive, and sensitive,” she says, qualities that would transfer to a thesis project she describes as “a story that was both personal and haunting to him.”

The result is a short documentary, We Are Suns, which screened at the Montclair Film Festival in October. The 30-minute film follows Spencer and his close friend, MGSA alum Chris Cuervo, as they drive across the country to meet up with Spencer’s father on the West Coast. Spencer and Cuervo shared the driving and the cinematography, and Spencer scored the film.

“It had crossed my mind in the past—I should go make something about this—but I never thought I’d actually do it because it made me feel sick to my stomach,” says Spencer, whose parents divorced when he was about nine weeks old. “Danielle told me if that’s how you feel about it, that’s what you have to do. That’s where great art is made.”

We Are Suns won the best documentary award at last year’s Burlington County Short Film Festival and was an official selection at several other festivals over the summer of 2022, including the Sarasota Film Festival.

“The charm of the film is the mystery or the anticipation of not knowing what’s going to happen,” Spencer says. “Everything happens for a reason, and it was the best possible thing that could have happened.”

Watch the trailer at go.rutgers.edu/mgsamag.

Dr. Paul Bruner, GSED '99, EDD (Creative Arts Education), MGSA Retired Associate Professor, March 31, 2023

Joyce Ware Kalbach, DC '59, BA (Music), Donor, February 12, 2023

Kenneth R. Hunt, MGSA '90, BMUS (Music), January 12, 2023

Yayoi Asoma, GMGA '07, MFA (Professional Visual Arts), January 1, 2023

Lucille C. Heller, Ed.D., Rutgers University GSNB '62 (Mathematics); GSED '82 (Science & Humanities Ed.), RU Retired Administrator, Donor, December 26, 2022

Donald Lee Gross, RC '59, (Economics), Donor, December 17, 2022

Yun-Yun Feng, GMGA '86, MM (Music); GMGA '92, ADPL (Music), December 3, 2022

Lynn Peters, GMGA '85, MFA, November 29, 2022

Jaclyn L. Kamm, MGSA '11, BFA (Theatre Arts), October 16, 2022

Dwight R. Kirkpatrick, Ph.D., RC '57, BA (Psychology); GSNB '60, MS (Psychology); GSNB '63 Doctor of Philosophy (Psychology), Glee Club, Donor, October 12, 2022

Bruce S. Nicholas, ENG '49, BS (General Engineering), Donor, October 10, 2022

Michael R. Curtis, RU Retired Faculty, Donor, October 3, 2022

Josiane E. Jameux-Joyce, GSNB, MA '72 (French), RU Retired Administrator, Donor, September 28, 2022

Rev. Alfred Moring Niese, Jr., RC '59, BA (English), Glee Club, Donor, August 15, 2022

Pamela G. Torain, MGSA '90, BFA (Professional Visual Arts), July 25, 2022

Robert E. Mortensen, ED '63, BS, Glee Club, Donor, July 18, 2022

H. Carl Willenbrock, Jr., ENG '45, BS (Ceramic Engineering), Glee Club, Donor, June 11, 2022

Dr. Robert H. Barron, RC '59, BA (Mathematics), Donor, May 23, 2022

William R. Palmer, ED '48, BS, Glee Club, Donor, May 1, 2022

All death notifications included in this issue of our magazine were submitted to the university after our last issue in spring 2022 and before going to press on this issue. We apologize for any omissions and ask that loved ones of deceased alumni, friends, donors to the school, faculty, and staff notify us by emailing records@ruf.rutgers.edu. Please be sure to include the full name of the deceased (and name as a student), death date, class year, and major. Thank you.

Dr. Shirley A. Smoyak, CNUR '57, BS; GSNB '69, Master of Philosophy; GSNB '70, Doctor of Philosophy, Donor, April 1, 2022

Rev. Richard B. Holzer, ED '55, BS (Secondary Education), Glee Club, Donor, April 2022

Dr. Janet A. Grice, GMGA '05, DMA, (Music), March 31, 2022

Chattles K. Hoffman, Jr., RC '58, BA (Business Administration), Glee Club, Donor, March 26, 2022

Dean E. Horowitz, MGSA '86, BFA (Professional Visual Arts), 2022

Paul J. Jansak, RC '52, BA (Economics), Glee Club, Donor, June 2, 2013

GIVING VOICE

MUSIC ALUM AMPLIFIES SELDOM-HEARD STORIES AND PERSPECTIVES

By Risa Barisch

On November 21, pianist, composer, and Music alum Courtney Bryan returned to campus for a performance and Q&A with students in Kynan Johns’s “Music Assembly” class.

Bryan and vocalist Joel Dyson took the stage at Nicholas Music Center to perform “Song to the Dark Virgin,” composed by Florence Price, followed by Bryan’s “Yet Unheard” with HELIX!, the new music ensemble at Rutgers directed by Johns, professor of conducting.

Following the performance, Bryan, Johns, and Dyson were interviewed by Carter Mathes, associate professor in the Department of English at Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, whose students in the “Black Music and Literature” course were in attendance as well.

“Yet Unheard” sets poetry by Sharan Strange to Bryan’s score as a musical memorial to Sandra Bland, whose death in police custody in 2013 raised questions of racial injustice and racial profiling.

“As an artist, the best way for me to deal with emotions brought on by these questions is through music,” said Bryan, who studied with the late jazz pianist and composer Stanley Cowell while at Mason Gross and is now a professor of music at Tulane University. “Through music, my aim was to mourn the tragedy of what happened to Sandra Bland and her unfinished contributions to the world, and yet celebrate the strength of her spirt and recognize her humanity.”

The previous day, Dyson had performed “Yet Unheard” with HELIX! at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City. The concert

featured other compositions by Black women composers alongside world premieres by Rutgers composition students.

Bryan also stressed the importance of illuminating Black composers that have long been ignored or overlooked, including Price, the first Black American woman to have an orchestral piece played by a major American orchestra, in 1932.

“What’s interesting about the progress we see now is that it’s a recognition of contemporary living Black women composers, and the world is catching up—but history doesn’t take long to erase its past,” Bryan told the students. “Along with championing the voices of today’s composers, it’s a chance to revive voices of the past.”

GRANT SUPPORTS

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT EFFORTS

In February, Middlesex County awarded the school’s Pop-Up Arts Across Middlesex County initiative $19,000 to widen the scope and impact of the program, which seeks to promote and sustain community engagement among MGSA students. Students have performed at local libraries and senior living residences, among other places.

The next phase of Pop-Up Arts kicked off in the spring semester with two projects involving undergrads: Cristina Marte’s “Teaching as an Artist” dance course, in partnership with Sisterwork, a New Brunswick-based organization that works to promote economic mobility among Latinas; and Julia Baumanis’s “Instrumental Methods” music course, in partnership with New Brunswick High School. Alum and Theater faculty John Keller serves as artistic director of the program.

LYNNE DELADE

THE PLAY ’ S THE THING

INTERACTIVE “ INTERPLAY ” COURSE FOCUSES ON COLLABORATION

By Risa Barisch

As a first-year actor with a busy schedule, Lilith Freund doesn’t have much time to interact with students outside of her major, much less learn about other disciplines at Mason Gross. And yet, Freund says this is a crucial time for networking and establishing new relationships.

“The first semester of your freshman year is the time you are most willing to put yourself out there and find your ‘people’ or friends,” says Freund. “We are hungry for connection.”

Freund’s first semester on campus would likely have been an insulated experience shared mostly with the 20 other students in her acting cohort if it weren’t for a new class created to foster connections among all Mason Gross students.

Introduced at the start of the fall 2022 semester, “Interplay” is designed to bring all five departments together to focus on the themes of play, experimentation, and exploration.

The one-credit class designed specifically for first-year students upholds one of the three pillars set forth by Dean Jason Geary last year to guide the school forward—collaboration—and is meant to lay the groundwork for future interdisciplinary partnerships.

Music Department faculty Scott Ordway, who developed and implemented the course at the request of Geary, says the timing was perfect.

“Coming out of the pandemic, there is an urgent need for us to rebuild our social networks, our habits of engagement with the world, our ability to focus on off-screen forms of culture,” says Ordway, an assistant professor of composition and music theory. “All of these things require teamwork, cooperation, and conviviality.”

The weekly class is organized into two-week modules that include a guest lecture from a Mason Gross faculty member about their work, collaborative process, and the dynamics of their artistic discipline followed by breakout sessions in which students work on a shared activity inspired by the information presented.

The goal, Ordway says, is for students to “learn about and experiment with all five [Mason Gross] disciplines side by side with their colleagues in other departments.”

identities. Students then created a movement piece centered on a social justice issue—anything from gun control to climate change or immigration.

“As we move into new stages in the pandemic, I am aware of the range with which students are experiencing unprocessed grief and embodied trauma,” Casel says. “Connecting them to a social justice issue helps them to focus on solutions rather than seeking problems and dwelling on them.”

Casel encouraged students to choreograph a series of movements or gestures to express the emotions behind their chosen issues, as well as to borrow tools from their own artistic practice, such as playing with tempo, duration, scale, tone, timbre, volume, transitions, collage, gesture, story, or calling cues.

Several of the breakout groups collaborated on pieces about school shootings, which surprised Casel but also “exposed how this particular generation has grown up with the fear of being shot while attending school,” he says.

That kind of intimate and honest interaction is another goal of “Interplay,” where students across the school have the opportunity to learn from, and be inspired by, a broad range of people and situations, Ordway says.

“We can’t collaborate if we don’t trust one another, and we can’t trust one another if we don’t know one another,” says Ordway. “We want to send the message that Mason Gross values collaboration and connectivity and is willing to make space in a crowded curriculum to foster those things.”

Patrick Stettner, chair of the Rutgers Filmmaking Center, presented a lecture about the basics of film image and sound and their creative applications. Stettner spoke about how filmmakers try to make impressionable moments using visual tools like slow motion and freeze frame, focus, movement, and depth as well as cinematography techniques and sound aesthetics.

“I wanted to help students better understand the elements at play when they watch a film—a peek behind the curtain, so to speak,” says Stettner. “This wasn’t very technical; it was a macro, 10,000-foot view of filmmaking.”

After Stettner’s lecture, which incorporated students’ reflections about a memorable film moment, students collaborated on making short pieces on their phones using a filmmaking app.

Although initially Stettner found it challenging to create a lecture for non-film majors, he says the students were eager to learn about and try their hands at the art form.

“I enjoyed the experience and the vibrancy of the students’ engagement,” says Stettner. “Several non-filmmaking students came up afterward, and it was great to hear their enthusiasm for the film clips I showed.”

STOKING CURIOSITY, BUILDING NETWORKS

Dance Department chair Gerald Casel introduced students to his work in a lecture focused on art and activism, sharing his research on structural racism in dance and presenting questions to students that explored their own social

This is especially important for students who will embark on professional artistic careers, Ordway adds.

“Many artists only learn good collaborative habits once they leave school, and then only by trial and error,” says Ordway. “With arts careers as competitive as they’ve ever been, I want our students to leave school with great collaborative habits firmly in place so that they can hit the ground running as they begin to establish themselves professionally.”

Dean Geary agrees.

“The class meetings I attended revealed students thinking together in bold and imaginative ways that will inform their own artistry and that will create a more collaborative environment across the school,” Geary says. “In a changing professional landscape that often requires collaboration and an entrepreneurial spirit, it’s important for students to begin honing these skills right away, and the personal networks that they build in a class like ‘Interplay’ can last a lifetime and can open doors in unexpected ways.”

For Freund, the class helped her achieve Ordway’s goals of leaving the class with a spirit of curiosity as well as new relationships. The bonds she forged are “connections that are deeper than just colleagues,” she says.

“Now I see individuals and professors on campus and stop to talk to them, rather than just pass by an unfamiliar face,” Freund says. “I found meeting others from different disciplines has allowed me to be a part of projects or hear about projects and then support my fellow artists in a way I would not have been able to if it was not for ‘Interplay.’”

“W

e want to send the message that Mason Gross values collaboration and connectivity and is willing to make space in a crowded curriculum to foster those things.”

– Faculty Scott Ordway

LYNNE DELADE

Head of Dramaturgy Christopher Cartmill with first-year students in a session on theater and the aesthetics of space.

By Mi ke Lucas Courtesy of Rutgers Today

ART FEST PRIVILEGES CREATIVITY BEYOND THE STUDIO

For art students, faculty evaluations of their work can be nerve-wracking.

Art & Design faculty Steffani Jemison notes that a review may make students feel as though “they are entering a pass-fail exam.”

Jemison says that she and fellow Art & Design faculty saw an opportunity “to reframe the evaluative parts of our curriculum to better reflect our goal of celebrating and supporting students.”

To that end, they created the Art & Design Spring Festival, a weeklong series of workshops, lectures, panel discussions, and other events that took place from March 20 to 24. Events included skill-sharing workshops, alumni

BELOVED COMMUNITY

ART AND SOCIAL JUSTICE PROJECT ENTERS SIXTH YEAR

panels, as well as lectures by visiting artists, a presentation about community-engaged public murals, and a collaborative chalkboard wall drawing. Participating alums included Ingrid Morales, Phoenix Harring, Rohan Mitra, Zahra Bukhari, Evie Horton, Anna Reid, Luis Romero, Cassadee Sicherer, and Hanifa Abdul Hameed

Department chair Marc Handelman says the festival was meant to focus on students’ experiences and interests outside classroom and studio settings.

“Rather than seeing these [skills and interests] merely as extracurricular activities, we recognize that what takes place in the classroom and studio has to be connected to our lives and passions and supported by our relationships, collaborations and the social life of our community,” he says.

BFA student Gracelda Neri led

a workshop that focused on balancing one’s digital, social, and academic lives. Graduate student Robbie Acklen led a workshop called “Water Works: Assembling a Human Fountain Sculpture,” an experiment in kinetic sculpture and collaboration.

Acklen, who has taught an analog photography course at Mason Gross and was one of the co-DJs for the festival’s dance party, saw the festival as “an opportunity for faculty to demonstrate to the students that learning is a lifelong endeavor.”

And, says Handelman, “If the festival works as we envision it, students will have the simultaneous experience of giving, learning, exchanging, and growing in all of these areas that are just beyond the periphery of their coursework, all the while feeling a sense of reprieve, of rest, of joy, and inspiration.”

Student Vanessa Nuckols’s graphic novel Reclaiming My Voice reflects her partnership with the Middlesex County Center for Empowerment, which supports survivors and significant others affected by sexual violence and works to eliminate sexual violence through community awareness and education. Reclaiming My Voice was on display in a window of the Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick as part of the annual Windows of Understanding arts and social justice initiative.

Early in the spring semester, Windows of Understanding, an arts-based social justice initiative launched in 2018 by Art & Design administrator of communications and collaboration Cassandra Oliveras-Moreno and other Rutgers alums, featured events and art interventions around New Brunswick, Highland Park, and beyond.

This year, more than 20 nonprofits paired with artist facilitators— including nine MGSA students and alums—to highlight the work these organizations are doing to reckon with issues surrounding mental health, violence prevention, women’s health, and food equity. Participating from Art & Design were alums Sarah and Usra Attalla, MFA student Alfred Dudley III, BFA students Salma Hussein Qutub, Vanessa Nuckols, Shreya Segu, and Fariah Siddiqui, BA student Ria Monga, as well as Theater alum Mahkai Dominique

Students Preston Romanienko, from left, Andrew Hargy, Yumna Enver, Aman Kashmiri, Stayshey Sagastume-Castillo, and Robin Mager draw on a collaborative chalkboard wall.

JEFF ARBAN

STUDENT COMMISSIONED TO CREATE ART REFLECTING SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK’S MISSION

Last fall, the Rutgers School of Social Work (SSW) commissioned BA Art & Design student Ria Monga to produce a public art project. The charge: create a piece of art that communicates the school’s strategic plan, Toward a More Just Future

Monga responded with an audacious, 20-panel vinyl installation stretching across the SSW building’s ground-floor windows at the intersection of George and Albany streets. The project was installed in March, featuring the school’s name in tomato-red graffiti-inspired lettering, the strategic plan’s title, as well as bold, swirling imagery referencing, among other things, the Black Lives Matter movement, the LGBTQIA+ community, and the school’s commitment to social justice, inclusion, and community.

PROGRAM AIMS TO PROVIDE RESOURCES TO LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT ARTISTS AND PREPARE THEM FOR HIGHER ED

By Risa Barisch

During the fall 2022 semester, Mason Gross School of the Arts and Rutgers Community Arts partnered with the Arts Institute of Middlesex County to present a portfolio development program to New Brunswick High School students. The series of art classes and artist talks, which took place on Saturdays from October 22 to December 17, featured workshops and professional-development seminars led by Art & Design students and recent alumni.

Students in the program created art in a range of media including drawing, print, painting, and digital and participated in discussions with guest speakers who introduced topics including building a career as a working artist, the business of art—like setting up an LLC, how to price work, and generating invoices—and ideas about where to hold an exhibition.

Instructors and guests included alumni Kyle b. co., Francesca Strada, Richard Siggillino, and

“Art is not just a reflection of our community, but a tool to shape it,” says Monga, who is earning a BA in Visual Arts and minor in Human Resource Management.

“…Cultivating the designs required an understanding and drive to learn more, all in the service of shedding light on important issues and inspiring positive change.”

Monga’s commission—SSW says they chose her from a pool of candidates—is part of a broader initiative that the Department of Art & Design has undertaken to foment community partnerships involving faculty and students.

Cassandra Oliveras-Moreno, the Department of Art & Design’s administrator of communications and collaboration, helped coordinate the project.

“Opportunities like this to activate, disrupt, and collaborate, fuel us in Art & Design,” Oliveras-Moreno says. “Seeing the work of our students extend far beyond the comfort of their studio walls is a great reminder of their agency. This installation at the intersection of Albany and George sits also at the intersection of art and social impact.”

Handelman says the program— which is expected to expand next year—serves to expose high school students who are passionate about art to a supportive studio experience while introducing resources available in a university context.

“Coming to campus each week and working with our instructors and learning about college life also helps to demystify higher education,” Handelman adds. “Ultimately, we want this portfolio development program to support and inspire high school students on their path to art school, whether that is at Mason Gross or elsewhere.”

Jahi Sabater; MFA student Sacha Vega and BFA student Tehyla McLeod; and local artist Louie Blaka. In addition, Mandy Feiler, assistant dean for admissions and enrollment management, and Marc Handelman, chair of the Department of Art & Design, spoke to students about the college application process and portfolio preparation.

Anasely G., a sophomore at New Brunswick High School, is an aspiring architect who participated in the program for professional development as well as the luxury of time to be creative.

“Art is my passion,” says Anasely G., “and knowing that I could devote

my time to art was convenient because at home I don’t have time to do much of my art.”

Anasely G. says one of her goals in making art was to “show people that it’s more about creativity than skill.”

“A lot of people think of art as being able to draw something exactly how they look at it, but that’s not always the case,” Anasely G. says. “Art comes in different forms and not a lot of people understand that.”

Work by Anasely G. and other students was featured in a special exhibition at the Civic Square Building in downtown New Brunswick at the conclusion of the program.

The pilot program was funded by a grant from the Arts Institute of Middlesex County and underscores the county’s commitment to helping local organizations, including Rutgers, increase engagement with their communities, says Jared Cardenas, head of education, outreach, and administration at the institute.

“We’re bridging people at the municipal level, the institutional university level, the county level, and the state level, where everybody is coming together to think about how to create access that could potentially be transformative for students,” says Cardenas. “So many institutions have voiced a sincere interest in having an impact locally and improving the lives of people who live here.”

JOHN O’BOYLE

LYNNE DELADE

Ria Monga in front of her installation with Cathryn Potter, dean of the School of Social Work.

New Brunswick High School student Anasely G. on campus participating in a Saturday workshop led by MGSA alum Kyle b. co.

FAREWELL SONG

DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF MUSIC PATRICK GARDNER, AKA “DR.G,” RETIRES AFTER 30

YEARS AT RUTGERS

By Risa Barisch

In reflecting on his three decades on the faculty of the Music Department at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Distinguished Professor of Music Patrick Gardner is hard-pressed to pick his most meaningful accomplishment.

There have been many special moments and important milestones for Gardner, who will retire this spring as director of choral activities and head of conducting—but throughout his Rutgers career, the underlying goal has always been to train young professionals to perform “significant music at the highest level,” Gardner says.

“There’s a lot of schools around the country that provide a great outlet for students to sing and have fun—and we do a lot of that—but the most important part of what we do is providing university-level intellectual engagement and artistic accomplishment,” says Gardner, director of the both the Rutgers University Glee Club and the Rutgers University Kirkpatrick Choir and director of the doctoral program in choral conducting, which he created after arriving at Rutgers in 1993.

In both choirs, Gardner has worked to elevate the output of the singers— who come from all backgrounds and programs of study at Rutgers–New Brunswick—as well as the repertory they perform.

Both ensembles have become nationally recognized and have performed in many high-profile events over the years. During this

past spring semester alone, the Kirkpatrick Choir and Glee Club performed at Carnegie Hall with the Riverside Choral Society (which Gardner has directed for 32 years), and three days later, the Kirkpatrick Choir performed alongside The Eagles during the closing night of the band’s “Hotel California 2023 Tour” at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

In 2017, the Kirkpatrick Choir performed Lou Harrison’s “La Koro Sutro” at Trinity Wall Street as part of a centennial celebration of the composer in a concert that The New York Times chose as one the best classical music performances of the year.

And in 2019, the choir was one of 14 ensembles from around the world (and one of only three from the United States) chosen to perform at the International Chamber Choir Marktoberdorf competition, where they won the top prize for best programming content.

Under Gardner’s direction, the Glee Club has performed at venues and with orchestras around the country, as well as toured internationally. The ensemble celebrated its 150th anniversary last year with a tour of Italy, performing at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, among other significant sites.

In addition to everyone’s favorite traditional Rutgers songs, the Glee Club has performed commissioned works by three Pulitzer Prize-winning composers: Jennifer Higdon, Lewis Spratlan, and William Bolcom. The composers “love that this

group of wonderful young university students of all types, from music majors to engineers to English lit majors, can perform at this level,” says Gardner. “That’s an exciting thing that I’ve found incredibly gratifying—because of world-class musicians like these composers, the Glee Club has helped contribute to the major classical music repertory.”

Jason Geary, dean of the Mason Gross School, points to Gardner’s tireless dedication to advancing the level of musical artistry at the school as one of Gardner’s greatest strengths.

“Patrick’s vision, experience, and superior musicianship has helped to transform the choral program at Rutgers into one of the most respected in the nation,” Geary says. “His legacy is one of having built on a long tradition of excellence in this area to elevate both choral singing and conducting to new heights.”

Gardner has also served as a musical mentor to countless students over the decades, including recent Music alum Erin Chang, a member of both the Kirkpatrick Choir and the Riverside Choral Society.

“Dr. G was extremely influential during my time as an undergrad—he taught me to always stay ambitious and passionate, to have longterm goals and visions, to shoot for the stars, and to not settle for mediocrity,” says Chang. “I was exposed to a variety of music and in the process of learning that music, I learned a lot about musicality and how to make a piece of music come alive.”

Rutgers College and Rutgers Business School alum Matthew Cirri, who first met Gardner at an audition for the Glee Club when he arrived on campus in the late 1990s as a biochemistry major, says that between the Glee Club, Kirkpatrick Choir, and Riverside Choral Society, he has sung with Gardner for over half his life.

“It’s inspiring to see Dr. G seamlessly shift between world-class conductor, faculty advisor, big brother, distinguished professor, and Rutgers advocate,” says Cirri, who now serves as president of the Rutgers University Glee Club Alumni Association.

“Wherever you are in life and whatever you need, he has something to offer you, and does so without judgment.”

Gardner’s promotion of Rutgers has been so prolific that he was designated a Loyal Son of Rutgers by the Rutgers Alumni Association, which cited him as “a tireless supporter and advocate for the university…a master at keeping alumni engaged with their alma mater—not just Glee Club alumni but all Rutgers graduates.”

For Gardner, everything comes back to teaching and the impact he’s had on generations of students.

“I’ve spent my entire life as a university professor…and the joy that I have in passing down my knowledge of the craft and the skills needed to present the choral art is a very fulfilling part of my life,” Gardner says. “It’s just something I’ve always done—I’ve always been a teacher.”

RFC RANKED

AMONG TOP FILM PROGRAMS

The Rutgers Filmmaking Center is included in The Wrap’s 2022 rankings for the country’s best film schools, citing the students’ ability to collaborate across disciplines via the school’s new “Interplay” course, and the Documentary Film Lab, which “has sent some two dozen students to shoot films in such far-flung locales as Antarctica and Indonesia.”

CHRIS LEE

POWER TRIO

ALL THREE STUDENT THEATER GROUPS AT RUTGERS–NEW BRUNSWICK ARE LED BY STUDENTS OF COLOR

By Lisa Intrabartola Courtesy of Rutgers Today

For the first time in 48 years, all three student theater groups at Rutgers–New Brunswick are being led by artistic directors of color.

It’s no coincidence, said the trio – Cabaret Theatre’s Uchenna Agbu, College Avenue Players’ Kyle Cao, and Livingston Theatre Company’s Kira Harris. Their diversity reflects a growing trend toward inclusion both at Rutgers and in the arts, media, and society at large, they say.

“For the first time, especially in America, we are finally seeing ourselves and friends and families in the stories that get told on TV, on Broadway, and in the movies,” says Cao, who is first-generation Chinese American and a senior majoring in music and minoring in Italian at the School of Arts and Sciences. “Our culture is starting to realize that people of color are a

part of the population, and we have talent and voices and stories that people want to hear.”

It is noteworthy that this is believed to be a first for Rutgers–New Brunswick student theater, says Agbu, a junior theater major with minors in creative writing and human resource management at the School of Arts and Sciences. The fact that it took this long reinforces the importance of ensuring students from all backgrounds can envision themselves in the performing arts, whether it’s on stage, in the orchestra pit, or working behind the scenes, she says.

“The first thing I did when searching for theater organizations on campus was look at their Instagram pages and their pictures for anyone who looks like me,” says Agbu, who is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. “When

people always see the same people they think, why should I try?”

The three say they used their platforms this year to select productions and assemble casts that reach broader audiences.

“I think I bring a really important perspective,” says Harris, who is Black and a senior at Mason Gross and New Brunswick Honors College majoring in music and minoring in theater and organizational leadership. “Viewing theater through the lens of someone who historically is not the most represented in theater, I feel even more committed to my role.”

Read the full story at go.rutgers.edu/mgsamag

MGSA MERCH

The signature collection

Art & Design BFA class of 2023 student Emma Broggi (pictured) designed the first set of items for the Mason Gross Signature Collection of tees and tote bags. View the collection at shop.masongross.rutgers.edu. The Mason Gross-branded e-shop features a variety of apparel and all kinds of merch, such as coffee mugs and keychains. T-shirts and sweatshirts can be personalized with identifiers such as “Actor,” “Artist,” “Dancer,” “Musician,” “Filmmaker,” etc. Keep checking the site, as new offerings are added periodically.

T ELL US ABOUT IT

+ Share kudos, news, and career moves via our online form at go.rutgers.edu/mgsaalumninews

+ Join the Mason Gross LinkedIn community to network, share news and job opportunities, and interact.

+ Connect with the Rutgers University Alumni Association at alumni.rutgers.edu to update your info or to access alumni resources, benefits, events, and more.

NICK ROMANENKO

Cabaret Theatre’s Uchenna Agbu, from left, Livingston Theatre Company’s Kira Harris, and College Avenue

Players’ Kyle Cao on stage at Cabaret Theatre.

NICK ROMANENKO

MGSA Graduation 2023

Approximately 270 students participated in the MGSA convocation ceremony on May 11 downtown at the State Theatre. Afterward, the group gathered in the atrium of the Civic Square Building to eat, drink, embrace, take teary selfies, and enjoy live music provided by a student jazz ensemble.

BFA filmmaker DeVonna Brockman wove a poem into her speech and reminded her fellow grads of their resilience: “We are all destined for greatness because we continue to answer when art calls. We continue to create through any circumstance—we continue the legacy that is art.” Tony-nominated BFA acting alum Kevin Chamberlin (aka Bertram on the hit Disney Channel sitcom Jessie) gave a speech to the graduates packed with advice about

how to maintain their humanity and succeed in the world of work—on stage, back stage, in the gallery space, the corporate world, and beyond. One salient piece of advice was simple: “Lift up and support each other as you head out into that jungle.”

And on May 14, Tony-nominated alum Sheryl Lee Ralph (aka Barbara Howard on ABC's hit comedy Abbott Elementary) addressed the Rutgers–New Brunswick class of 2023 in a speech that praised their resilience, saying: “We need people who have been through something and still have so much to give and share—that’s you.”

View more photos and watch the ceremony at go.rutgers.edu/mgsamag.

PHOTOS BY EM GALLAGHER

PHOTO OF SHERYL LEE RALPH BY NICK ROMANENKO

VISIT

BFA Art & Design alum and Newark-based muralist Layqa Nuna Yawar was one of just two artists commissioned to create work now on permanent display in Newark Liberty International Airport’s Terminal A. “The airport is a theater,” the painter told The New York Times “It’s like a soapbox, a place where you can reach the whole world.” His 350-foot-long mural, Between the Future Past, features famous and not-so-famous people connected to New Jersey. View a video about Yawar's commission at go.rutgers.edu/mgsamag

SEE

Tony-nominated theater alum Moritz von Stuelpnagel is set to return to the Great White Way this fall: von Stuelpnagel will direct Danny DeVito and his daughter, Lucy, in a new play by Theresa Rebeck, I Need That, presented by Roundabout Theatre Company. The comedy, about a widower grappling with how to let go of clutter after his wife’s death, is “a very humanistic, characterdriven, slice-of-life story,” says Lucy DeVito. “The themes speak to loneliness and love, and the hardships you experience with your family while getting older.” The show opens in October at American Airlines Theatre.

LISTEN

In April, NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concerts video series of live concerts marked 15 years. The concept: Bands performing in All Things Considered host Bob Boilen’s cramped Washington, D.C., workspace. The series has drawn music royalty, including Lizzo and U2’s Bono and the Edge, but MGSA has contributed plenty to Tiny Desk’s history, too: You can catch archival video of Tiny Desk concerts by Rutgers University’s homegrown Screaming Females, led by Art & Design alum Marissa Paternoster, Music alum Cristina Pato and The Cristina Pato Trio, and Music alum Peter Martin’s Third Coast ensemble, from 2012, 2013, and 2018, respectively. View

concerts at go.rutgers.edu/mgsamag

Layqa Nuna Yawar, Between the Future Past, 2021–22. acrylic paint and inkjet print on fabric mounted to aluminum panel. 18 feet-by-350 feet. Commissioned by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Munich Airport NJ, in partnership with Public Art Fund.

ZACK DEZON , COURTESY OF PUBLIC ART FUND

Alum Marissa Paternoster, center, lead singer and guitarist for Screaming Females.

CHRISTOPHER PATRICK ERNST

FIRST PERSON

DEAFNESS SPURS DANCE ALUM TO ADVOCATE FOR EQUITY ONSTAGE AND OFF

By Anna Gichan, BFA'17

As someone who is severely-to-profoundly Deaf, I access sound differently from the hearing majority. The tools I use to communicate include lip reading, body language, written notes, and ASL interpreters, when available.

When I moved to New York City after graduating from Mason Gross in 2017, I met leaders in the disability arts scene proudly owning their Disability, and I began to wonder for myself, What the world would look like if everyone was Deaf, shifting the narrative from being “a problem” that needed to be fixed through devices to embracing deafness as a strength.

With the Covid-19 pandemic, the invisibility of Deafness became more apparent because the ability to “blend in” through lip-reading no longer worked because of masking. This prompted some more questions: What does communication mean? How do I wish hearing people understood how I experience sound—especially in a dance setting?

I applied for the two-year CUNY Dance Initiative Social Justice Residency (CDI) in partnership with Brooklyn College and Brooklyn Arts Exchange with two goals: to develop my contemporary dance voice through teaching movement workshops; and to build a dance piece centered on my upbringing, which includes my Deaf journey with speech therapy, ASL, and observations of language and communication.

“Ibegan to wonder what the world would look like if everyone was Deaf, shifting the narrative from being ‘a problem’ that needed to be fixed. . . to embracing Deafness as a strength.”

Recently, I applied for the opportunity to share my work at a theater within a curated group and requested an ASL interpreter three weeks prior to our first group meeting. But instead of an interpreter, they offered me a microphone. The disappointment that I experience from the denial of communication needs is woven into much of my work at CDI Brooklyn College, culminating in a work set to premiere in December.

In January, Jeff Friedman of the Mason Gross Dance Department invited me to return for a three-week Integration Lab for disabled choreographers, with the opportunity to rehearse and to present work at Loree Theater and have our access needs met. During tech and the show, interpreters were present, and people were using notes apps to communicate with me. What a reassuring experience it was being able to solely focus on the work rather than worry about the communication process. I hope for a future where performing arts spaces have an access budget to hire interpreters. I hope for a world where more people are educated in various communication styles without fear of silent practices like ASL and written notes. With access work integrated into art, science, public spaces, and healthcare, we create environments for people to be fully engaged.

THE LAST WORD

[I missed] the 3 a.m. coffee runs at 7-Eleven during an all-nighter in the studios; going out for lunch during class breaks with friends; hearing the computers automatically restart at 6 a.m. in the lab,” Art & Design alum Fred Quayenorty said at the January 19 opening for Curtain Call, an exhibit at Mason Gross Galleries. The show featured work by 33 members of the classes of 2020 and 2021, all of whom had missed the chance to present their culminating artwork due to the Covid-19 pandemic. “Even when tired, working with other artists in such close proximity is something you don’t think about until it’s gone.”

AMANDA BROWN

THE LAST LOOK

The 2023 class of actors and designers hamming it up on stage at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London.

Rutgers,