Studio '16

STUDIO '16

T H E O F F I C I A L M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F U TA H C O L L EG E O F F I N E A R T S

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The arts are boldly impacting health; see how

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Student Karem Orrego brings diversity through film

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Art alum Jake McIntyre shapes economic development

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Kem and Carolyn Gardner support student achievement

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Annual Report thanks College of Fine Arts contributors

Photo: Michael Schoenfeld

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Cover Photo: Beau Pearson

ACH year, the pages of this publication aim to bring to life that which takes place in our studios: the research, the collaboration, the problem solving, the fun, and the creation of the visceral narrative of our lived experience.

While we will not divert from that mission, this year’s publication will be somewhat larger in scope.

See, as our society at large continues to realize art’s more significant place in our lives — far greater than hobby or entertainment — it spills out beyond the walls of our studios. It enters hospitals and medical schools, and tackles issues of social justice, human development, and economic growth. Art is healing bodies, fueling economies, comforting grieving families, celebrating cultural diversity, and rounding out the education of students not just in this college, but across our entire campus.

How? Because art is powerful. It is pervasive. It is limitless. It is a tool of culture. Art is not a thing that we do, but a foundational component of who we are as individuals and as collective peoples. It is the way we think, the way we interact, the way we perceive, the way we record our history, and the way we mend ourselves and the world around us.

Art affects everything, and — one could argue — everything affects art.

As always, I hope you enjoy these stories, and share my deep pride in the University of Utah College of Fine Arts’ ongoing contributions to creative and scholarly excellence across disciplines and across the world. ≠

RAYMOND TYMAS-JONES Associate Vice President for the Arts Dean, College of Fine Arts

LETTER from the DEAN STUDIO / 2016

THE PLACE WHERE DILIGENCE AND EXCELLENCE BECOME INFLUENCE

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ARTS & HEALTH / These four stories show some of the ways the arts are intersecting with health and impacting the way we heal.

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CREATIVITY CONNECTED / UtahPresents (formerly Kingsbury Hall Presents) is offering a fresh line-up of arts experiences with its expanded mission.

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EXPERIENCING THE ART / Alum and environmental artist, Mark Brest van Kempen, is back on campus as the 2016 Warnock Artist in Residence.

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DROPPING THE VEIL / Department of Theatre’s Julie Rada uses theatre to raise the consciousness of rape on college campuses and to shape the dialogue about creating change.

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MOVING AWAY FROM THE MARGINS / ScreenDance at the U celebrated its 10th anniversary this year thanks to Distinguished Professor of Modern Dance, Ellen Bromberg.

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THE MAKING OF DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI / Each year, the College of Fine Arts celebrates chosen alumni from each academic area who have gone on to be change agents in their fields.

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GUEST ARTISTS & SCHOLARS / In addition to the impact of our renowned faculty, students in the College of Fine Arts benefit from the multitude of guest artists and scholars brought to campus each year.

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GIVING LIKE THE GARDNERS / Find out how University of Utah alumni Kem and Carolyn Gardner provide opportunity for students in the School of Music.

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ANNUAL REPORT / It is with overwhelming gratitude that we name those who fuel the continued success of the College of Fine Arts with their generosity and philanthropy.

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CASTING LIGHT ON OPERETTA / School of Music professor Julie Wright Costa speaks to the genre of operetta and her relationship with the prominent Ohio Light Opera.

MORE THAN ONE / Peruvian film student, Karem Orrego, didn’t often see her culture represented in film, so she produced a film festival on campus to rectify that.

THE LAST BLANK CANVAS / Alum Jake McIntyre is using his arts background to revolutionize the economic development in his hometown of Ogden, Utah.

Photo: Karalee Kuchar

CONTRIBUTORS /

Photo: Matt Dilyard/The College of Wooster Company: The Ohio Light Opera

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TABLE of CONTENTS STUDIO / 2016

Contributors

Marina Gomberg, Editor in Chief/Writer Marina Gomberg is a Utah native and the Associate Director for Communications & Marketing for the University of Utah College of Fine Arts. She graduated from the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Science in Gender Studies (2006), and has been doing communications work for the last decade in the nonprofit, private and public sectors. Gomberg’s passions lie in the arts, activism, writing, and food. She lives in Salt Lake City with her wife, cats, and a baby on the way. She is a contributor to The Huffington Post.

Jimmy Kendall, Writer Jimmy Kendall is a Ph.D. student here at the University of Utah in the Department of Education, Culture, and Society, and long time advocate for the arts and social justice studies. He has done freelance work for The Missoulian and The Independent, and has worked professionally as an Adjunct Professor of Writing and University Administrator for several years. He graduated from the University of Montana with a Masters of English in Rhetorical Theory and Composition, as well as Teaching and Critical Pedagogy. Kendall continues to work for educational equity and social justice in his studies as a doctoral fellow, and believes art is central to holistic education and empathy. In his free time, he can usually be found writing poetry and theory, making music and bad art, and venturing into the wild. He currently lives in Salt Lake City with his wife and black lab.

Peg McEntee is a career journalist with decades of experience at The Associated Press, The Salt Lake Tribune and the Reuters wire service. As an AP newswoman, she covered virtually all aspects of Utah news, from the Wilburg Mine disaster, to the Mark Hoffman murders, to the Challenger disaster, as well as crime, politics, and anything else that needed to be reported and written. As an editor at the Tribune, McEntee directed and edited a variety of news teams and events, including the 2002 Olympic Winter games and the abduction of Elizabeth Smart. During her stint as an assistant managing editor, McEntee oversaw coverage of polygamy and the Crandall Canyon Mine disaster, among many other news events. As The Tribune’s metro columnist, McEntee wrote on a wide swath of topics, all from the perspective that everyone has a reason to be heard. McEntee is married, the mother of a daughter and the servant of two cats and one dog that keeps her on the trails she loves to hike.

On the Cover Ballet majors Sidney Haefs and Tyler Piwowarczyk rehearse for the fall 2015 student concert called “Fearless.”

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Photo: Amelia Walchli

Peg McEntee, Editor

contri

Students from across disciplines participate

in “Happening,” the culmination performance of

guest dance and theatre artist Octavio Campos, where they wore decorated paint suits and

performed movements on a vinyl flooring canvas

creating a unique painting.

Editorial Board

Special Thanks

Dean Raymond Tymas-Jones Dan Evans, Design Direction Martine Kei Green-Rogers Satu Hummasti Paula Lee Vedrana Subotic Wendy Wischer

Kathryn Atwood Josi Dubois Tyler Kunz Lynette Holman Sheri Jardine Heidi Makowski Jennie Nicholls-Smith Chris Santi Alysha Smith Shelley White

Design by modern8

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T

HE places where arts and health intersect are plentiful and diverse.

Artistic disciplines from music to dance are inspiring new technologies and new treatments that are more effectively healing bodies and minds across the globe.

by Marina Gomberg

At the University of Utah, these intersections are becoming more and more plentiful. Here, we share the stories of three such endeavors. But first, we start with an update about the College of Fine Arts response to this emerging interdisciplinary sphere.

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Sydney Cheek-O’Donnell The Shepherd of Our New Inquiries

Photo: Michael Schoenfeld

Arts & Health

approaches, so many needs and desires expressed,” said Cheek-O’Donnell. “This suggested both the urgency of the initiative and the necessity of appointing someone who would be able to help shape and focus it.”

Because the same was true of intersections between art and social justice, the Dean moved to create a new position that would steward these burgeoning interdisciplinary fields.

And, thus was the beginning of the Assistant to the Dean for Arts and Human Development appointment.

“The College of Fine Arts hadn’t focused on the integration of arts and human development in a cohesive or unified way; This isn’t the first time Sydney Cheek-O’Donnell’s name that research had only thus far been done in silos, so to speak, has graced the pages of Studio Magazine. Last year’s edition featured her work in collaboration with the School being done without knowledge of the others’ similar work,” of Medicine using theatre practices to help medical teams said Dean Tymas-Jones. “Through connecting these proven research methodologies, we can strengthen the vibrancy of the with their empathy and patient communications. She art community within our greater society. It’s time to focus made her foray into the world of arts and health some our time and attention on this essential endeavor.” time ago, and has been an emerging leader ever since.

Cheek-O’Donnell emerged from the applicant pool the But she wasn’t alone in this nascent field.

Cheek-O’Donnell has collaborated with School of Medicine perfect fit, and is already flexing her dramaturgical muscle to help find solutions to some of the faculty members’ challenges.

Assistant Professor (Lecturer) Gretchen Case for several “In some cases, faculty have reached the edges of their years, and they have just submitted a grant together to expertise after years of toil and need help identifying partners the National Institutes of Health to study the efficacy of who could move the research to the next phase of development. a theatre-based approach to teaching communication In such cases, my background as a dramaturg is very helpful,” skills to medical students. No stranger to the arts, Case is she said. “I ask a lot of questions, make observations about herself a Performance Studies scholar and theatre artist their work, and suggest an array of potential paths to follow who teaches the arts and humanities to medical students. in order to move things forward. Then I try to put the CFA And the UMFA has opened its galleries to Case and her faculty members in touch with researchers with expertise and students, who use guided art-viewing as a way to improve interest that overlaps.” their ability to read diagnostic images.

But that’s not all she’s doing. In her new role, Across the College, Modern Dance Assistant Professor Juan Carlos Claudio has been researching and finding the Cheek-O’Donnell is also researching best practices from other institutions, networking with peers across the country, and benefits of dance and movement for people living with looking for current offerings in the U’s coursework that could Parkinson’s disease, while Film & Media Arts Associate serve students with similar focuses and interests. She also is Professor Lien Fan Shen is creating an animation-based looking at the entire initiative holistically and hopes to steward mental health screening tool for developmentally disabled it into something more concrete. people. And these represent just a handful of projects.

What will come of this newly fueled effort? Perhaps a new So, in early 2015, Dean Raymond Tymas-Jones began center or institute — an established hub of researchers, artists, convening regular meetings of faculty members in the scholars, medical professionals, and human rights activists College working at this intersection of arts and health. It exchanging ideas. Perhaps the accelerated generation of new became apparent that the thirst for exploration in this and critical knowledge. Perhaps more. arena was amplifying, but the momentum was stalling in That story is yet to be told, but as artists know, sometimes places due to various challenges the faculty members were the process is as intriguing as the product. ≠ encountering.

“There were so many ideas, so many possible Assistant Dean for Art and Human Development, Sydney Cheek-O’Donnell, visits a workshop at Huntsman Cancer Institute with Guest Artist Margaret Peot, who was brought in from New York City by Engage Utah to facilitate several workshops with the Artists in Residence at the Linda B. and Robert B. Wiggins Wellness and Integrative Health Center that serves patients, caregivers, and hospital staff.

by Jimmy Kendall

For Endowed Chair of Elementary Music Education Nicole Robinson, the act of confronting death is not only necessary, but essential to our humanity.

“There is a politics to pain and death that gives pain and death an identity all its own,” she said. “If you look at how death, or the act of dying, or pain, is represented in today’s society, you can understand why these acts have negative connotations to them. What we want to do is to capture and represent life in a way where it becomes seen and viewed as a gift.”

And that is precisely what she has set out to do.

In union with Intermountain Hospice and Homecare, Robinson has designed a project called, “From Our Hearts to Yours,” which aims to record a patient’s heartbeat to later to be translated into a musical composition. The composition, which will be crafted by students from the U’s School of Music, is then gifted to the their caregivers, family members, and loved ones.

The culmination of this project, Robinson says, is not only a celebration of an individual’s life, but a chance for the individual, and those close to him or her, to view life, even in its last stages, as a gift—as something worthy of song. This, Robinson says, somewhat depoliticizes

The Last Composition From Our Hearts to Yours

the act of dying and death itself to focus instead on the beauty of life.

Robinson’s vision for the project is to partner students from a variety of disciplines, namely the arts and health sciences, in an effort to bring them closer to realizing the added health benefits the arts bring to the processes of healing, treatment, and medicine.

The integration of these disciplines, Robinson hopes, will allow students to observe how the arts not only empirically impact and astutely aid various degrees of human wellness, but also cultivate empathy.

This, according to Robinson, is one of the most vital components of “From Our Hearts to Yours.”

“Developing empathy is a key component to combating inequality,” she notes. “A primary component to oppression is a lack of empathy. The scope of the project aims to measure how to increase, improve, and inspire empathy in students. Thus, ‘From Our Hearts to Yours’ cannot exist without student participation.”

The integration of art with social justice pedagogy has long been a passion of Robinson’s. She has a national reputation for her outreach projects with various educational boards, and created the nationally recognized and award-winning “Middle Schools Memphis Project” with Shelby County Schools. The program was designed to reimagine and reorganize the pedagogies and outreach of music teachers in large urban districts.

Atop these accomplishments, Robinson is also known for her exemplary and progressive approaches to teaching and implementing integrative arts curriculum. Such transdisciplinary approaches, she said, inspired her to want to understand the relationship between arts and medicine, and what she calls, “the science side of things.”

But alongside observing and researching how the arts, namely music, aids in the processes of human development and well-being, Robinson was mainly concerned with what could be done to help ameliorate and reimagine how to enhance quality of life in its last stages. In discussing her motivations for undertaking the project, Robinson was keen to note her personal involvement with the project’s outreach and mission.

Having lost her father to cancer four years ago, the experience, she said, motivated her to view the project as more personal, adding, “my seeing the project as something that resonated closely with me made me understand why the work was important.” This, she said, is where the element of empathy returns.

The role of empathy, Robinson notes, is one of the most important elements to the project, adding, “any aspect of empathy is being able to put yourself in another person’s shoes. Sometimes, people are able to develop an empathy or understanding of something they have not have been able to experience firsthand.”

The raw process of “From Our Hearts to Yours,” Robinson says, affords students this opportunity. They begin to understand the relationship between death and life—that both are as much a gift as they are a song. ≠

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After some successful networking, grant writing, and important support from the Council of Dee Fellows, Jump Start was born. It’s a transformative and first-of-its-kind community building 10-week dance and word play workshop for people with Down Syndrome and their families. The classes were led

by Geber Handman and Bond, with the assistance of several University Modern Dance students, and was captured on film.

The participants with Down Syndrome weren’t the only ones who benefitted from this first set of weekly gatherings. Family members who had ached for inclusive activities deeply cherished the time spent together. The University students walked away with life-changing experiences, as well, and several have graduated to go on working in this niche.

One of the University teaching assistants, Amanda Newman, remembers a pivotal moment with one of the families.

“We were all just rolling on the ground laughing,” she said. “It was this huge realization for me of: this isn’t us giving something to them or creating an opportunity for them. It’s these families opening their doors.”

With the first workshops’ resounding success, in came additional support from Utah State Office of Education and Assistant Dean for Arts Education and Community Engagement, Kelby McIntyre-Martinez, which facilitated the completion of the documentary film, the creation of a new teaching methods course for Modern Dance and Special Education students, and the implementation of a new course of workshops to be held in the community.

One can almost hear the sound of the original goals being checked off. And then some.

“This work is not about teaching a particular style of movement,” Geber Handman says. “It’s about finding ways that special education students don’t have to be the ‘special ed’ students; they can be part of the larger fabric of society. It’s about seeing people for who they are, appreciating their differences, and then guiding them in a way that provides new experiences, new information, and new opportunities.” ≠ Geber Handman (left) participates in an activity called "Passing the Love" with the Jump Start attendees.

Jump Start Celebrating Difference 6 STUDIO / 2016

Photo: Twig Media Lab

by Marina Gomberg

Every child welcomed into this world is special. Each comes with their own set of unique quirks, likes, dislikes, challenges, and strengths — and all of them have the potential to change the world with their presence.

Such was the case with Julian, the son and second child of Pamela Geber Handman, Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Dance at the University of Utah. Julian was born with Down Syndrome, among other beautiful attributes, and has widened Geber Handman’s paradigm in profound ways, including inspiring new explorations in her work.

When Julian was born, Geber Handman had been teaching at the U and living in Utah for 11 years. That was preceded by her successful career as a professional dancer and graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (BFA in dance) and University of Washington (MFA in dance, emphasis in education and kinesiology) where she engaged core interests: dance, health, and teaching.

Julian would be the impetus for those interests to converge yet again. When he was born, Geber Handman says, her family connected almost instantaneously with new professional services, friends, and families. One such person was Melissa Bond, a writer who also has a young son with Down Syndrome. The women bonded quickly, but neither knew then what powerful impact their friendship would have on the world.

“During that time, I came to really struggle with the word ‘disability’,” Geber Handman says. “ It separates instead of includes, and it implies a lack of something. Yet, we all have special needs, we all have individual gifts and strengths, and we all need help in various areas.”

But the reality is that students with special needs are almost always segregated from typically developing students. That division feeds the general population’s unfamiliarity with Down Syndrome and restricts the students with Down Syndrome from the diverse array of course offerings — including, oftentimes, access to artistic experiences.

Geber Handman and Bond dreamt of a remedy. The two wanted to use art and education to build community, and to create spaces that facilitated a greater understanding of difference — not minimizing difference, but celebrating it.

Their overall goals were three-fold. First, they wanted to create the workshops and provide direct and immediate services to the local community. Second, they wanted to capture the essence of this work in a film, to more broadly educate the community about the importance not just of arts education, but inclusive education. The final goal was to take the program to other communities within Utah and across the country.

by Jimmy Kendall

There is little in our language or realm of knowing that prepares us to understand how to deal with cancer.

The “knowns” of the thing are basic. It is hard. It is lethal. It is common. It can sometimes be treated. It can sometimes be fatal. It makes us strongly aware of our humanity and mortality. The unknowns are less straightforward.

Within these struggles, says Mary Ann Lee, Director of the Tanner Dance Program, is the fundamental need to be and feel normal again. Cancer, she says, has a way of simultaneously making a person confront how incredibly human he or she is, and how incredibly inhumane the world can be. Dancing, she claims, is what allows one to get back in touch with his or her humanity and the humanity of others amidst a world that appears anything but sincere.

“What else is dancing,” she asks, “but the expression of a need to be normal?”

Lee currently teaches “Step Into Life,” a dance class for the Linda Lee guides a "Step Into Life" participant through healing movements.

B. and Robert B. Wiggins Wellness The process of redefinition, of reacquainting oneself and Integrative Health Center at the in respects to identity and subjectivity, is a central facet University of Utah. The class is based around a creative to the art of dancing, and what makes “Step Into Life” and inclusive approach to dancing that focuses on essential to understanding the links between the arts the benefits of exercise and movement to reacquaint patients, especially those in treatment, with their bodies. and human wellness. The arts' ability to make them confront the honesty in their condition, to feel normal The physical components to having cancer and again, works wonders for people who feel diminished by going through treatment make it clear how this the disease, both physically and spiritually. It provides disconnect occurs. For one, a cancer patient has been a needed departure for the dominant ways in which taxed physically. Their general wellness is patients with cancer, or those who have lived through it, compromised and they might be weak from are described. treatment. They are sometimes scared, or How we define cancer, what language we put to angry, or confused, or sad, or all of the above. it, and how we represent having it, on a mediated level And there is a baseline requirement of what and on a societal level, is anything but crystalline. one needs to do, says Lee, to heal on a physical Sometimes, we simply don’t know what to say or do level—and that is to move. when we have the disease, or when someone is telling “There is a need to move all parts of one’s body that have been damaged,” she says. “First us they have it. The outlet provided to those who have had cancer and those who still have it through dance and foremost, when you look at dance, beyond is one of the most important components to radically it being special, it helps people move more and changing the way we look at treatment. Simply put, we move with expressions that help release a voice rarely see overwhelming joy in a cancer ward. that is inside. And that is the bottom line of “Step Into Life” is changing that, as are numerous what you’re trying to do when you’re healing.” other programs and alternative treatment platforms at The guiding principle of “Step Into Life,” is how the Huntsman Cancer Institute. As professed by Lee patients not only reconceptualize the trauma of cancer, but the inherent battle of how one defines his or herself and others that work there, “there has to be a reminder that you are alive.” ≠ when afflicted with it. As Lee puts it, “you are not defined by cancer—you are defined by the joy of life.”

“Step Into Life,” then, is a class about celebration. It is about, as Lee states, telling yourself and discovering that you’re beautiful, that you are capable of getting back onto your feet and into your body.

How Treating Cancer With Dance Is Changing the Way We Look at Healing

“You are not defined by cancer—you are defined by the joy of life.”

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Photo: Alex Lee

To Move Is To Know

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What’s the difference exactly? It’s neither subtle nor just semantics.

by Marina Gomberg

C R E AT I V I T Y C O N N E C T E D 8

W

HEN BROOKE HOREJSI invited the New Yorkbased theatre group, Universes, to come to the University of Utah, she wasn’t just booking entertainers for the stage, she was crafting a unique set of impactful creative experiences for our community.

the last decade and particularly

renaissance on the U’s campus in

The arts have seen a vibrant

the last five years.

Photo: Courtesy of UtahPresents

Photo: Courtesy of University Marketing & Communications

HOREJSI is the Executive Director of UtahPresents, the U’s newly reshaped presenting program on campus. The entity used to be known as Kingsbury Hall Presents, but has expanded its mission recently to offer something new, both for the public at large and the university community.

Historically, Kingsbury Hall Presents brought to campus an annual season of commercially popular artists like Blue Man Group, Joan Rivers, and Chris Isaak. These shows were peppered in among (and oftentimes not easily distinguishable from) the myriad acts playing at Kingsbury Hall through its theatre rental program, like Odyssey Dance Theatre’s annual performance of Thriller.

But the arts have seen a vibrant renaissance on the U’s campus in the last decade and particularly the last five years. The thirst from students for new arts experiences and the hunger from faculty campus wide to integrate artistic practices into their research have both exploded. In the last three years alone, student attendance at arts events on campus has increased an incredible 157 percent.

As such, when transitioning leadership of Kingsbury Hall in 2014, Raymond Tymas-Jones, whose dual appointments as Associate Vice President for the Arts and Dean of the College of Fine Arts both came into play, expanded the Executive Director position to also include an academic component in the College of Fine Arts. So, in addition to her leadership role for UtahPresents, Horejsi is the Assistant Dean for Art & Creative Engagement.

Her dual role allowed her to guide the former Kingsbury Hall team through a process of transformation in mission and vision – one that now better satisfies the overwhelming appetite for more artistic experiences on campus, both curricular and co-curricular. As it says on utahpresents.org, “For the curious who want to experience artistic creativity pushed beyond the stage, UtahPresents ignites dialogue, explores issues and ideas, catalyzes innovation, and connects us.”

This model that newly named UtahPresents adopted is one that exists at other prestigious universities across the country, like the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University High school students from the Mestizo Arts & Activism Collective connect with the cast of Universes during a workshop in the days leading up to the group’s main performance at Kingsbury Hall. (opposite) Brooke Horejsi on the steps of the iconic Kingsbury Hall.

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“If you are passive about how you consume your education and how you exist here in your student role at the University, then you’re not taking responsibility for creating a place that is truly reflective of you.” ~ Brooke Horejsi

Cast members from Universes meet up with students from the U’s Department of Theatre in Kingsbury Hall’s rehearsal studio to talk about the creative process.

Photo: Courtesy of UtahPresents

of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, among others.

Although non-profits presenters, and particularly campus-based arts presenters, have been servicing communities for many years, they often do this work without mainstream recognition. A critical thinker in the presenting field, and an inspiring guide for Horejsi, Kenneth Foster, the Director for the Graduate Arts Leadership Program at the University of Southern California, published a seminal book called “Performing Arts Presenting: From Theory to Practice.” In it, Foster examines presenters’ roles in connecting art, artists, audiences, and community.

In Horejsi’s words, “he raises the question: what kind of community do we want to be? Do we want our cultural offerings to feel more like Las Vegas, or more like San Francisco? Do we want to solely focus on commercial entertainment because it sells tickets and makes people money? Or do we want to provide an accurate representation of all the cultural forms, all of the stories, voices, and creative output of a diverse group of people who truly represent our citizenry?

“If it’s only about the bottom line, then far fewer of us will see ourselves reflected on the stages and in that creative output. With this approach to programming, particularly on a university campus,

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Photo: Courtesy of UtahPresents

it’s important to invest in a variety of artists and projects to help advance our world and our thinking — in the same way that a university invests in a variety of learning and research to fuel innovation — not just the kind of commercially driven creativity that is focused solely on revenue generation.”

And for UtahPresents, revenue generation isn’t the key measure of success. That’s why when Universes came to campus, in addition to their live performance in the Nancy Peery Marriott Auditorium of Kingsbury Hall, they engaged with the campus and broader community in several ways. Their art form is one that is described as a fusion of poetry, jazz, hip-hop, Spanish bolero, and Southern blues, and their message is one of inclusion, celebration of diversity, empowerment, and social change.

Bringing them to campus was a joint endeavor between UtahPresents and the Department of Theatre, particularly Assistant Professor Martine Kei Green-Rogers and Raymond C. Morales Post-Doctoral Fellow Julie Rada, who were awarded University Teaching and Dee Council grants to help fund Universes’ visit filled with coordinated gatherings all across campus and the city. The company spent a good portion of their time with students in Theatre’s Actor Training Program, and spoke at a Lunch and Learn hosted by the U’s Office of Equity & Diversity

and the College’s award-winning ArtsForce program.

Company members also made their way into the community and visited Mestizo Arts & Activism Collective, a local art and coffee house on the west side of Salt Lake City, to connect with local high school students. They stopped at Horizonte Alternative High School and Salt Lake Community College, as well, to deliver their “Life As You Know It” workshop, which focuses on finding value in everyone’s unique stories. They even swung by the College’s after party event to meet and mingle with the audience following their main performance.

“I was so inspired by their message about how art affects people and what we can do to infuse it into every aspect of our lives,” said Tori Sicklick, a junior in the Musical Theatre Program. “Art, in every way, is extremely important because it is what fuels and allows for freedom of expression.”

She is right. And as Horejsi notes, “If you are passive about how you consume your education and how you exist here in your student role at the University, then you’re not taking responsibility for creating a place that is truly reflective of you. That’s why UtahPresents demands that students show up and take a risk with us. Sometimes it might fizzle.

Other times it will change their lives.” ≠

High School students from the Mestizo Arts & Activism Collective with the Universes cast after their workshop.

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Rebekah Blackburn (Chloe) and Josh Wood (Connor) in the U's production of Good Kids.

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Photo: Spencer Sandstrom

R

A P E . Even reading the word is a jolt to the

system. It is painful to think about, let alone talk about. And, quite frankly, sometimes words alone can’t fully encapsulate the idea.

The problem. The reality.

Fortunately, we have the arts — that limitless and freeing outlet to express feelings and address issues that we can’t (or don’t) without it.

Enter stage left: a play about sexual assault.

by Marina Gomberg

13 STUDIO / 2016

Written by Naomi Iizuka, Good Kids is based on the 2012 Steubenville rape case.

It is set in a Midwestern town at a high school party where a girl becomes incapacitated from alcohol and is raped by several football players who then foolishly brag about their antics on social media.

—

“Good Kids is not an ‘easy’ play,” director Julie Rada wrote about the production she directed and mounted for the University of Utah Department of Theatre. She was brought to the U 2014 as one of the College of Fine Arts Raymond C. Morales Fellows, specifically chosen for the diversity she could add to the curriculum of the Department of Theatre during her two-year tenure. “But,” she went on to say “theatre does not function at its best when it reaffirms everything we think we know.”

Sure, theatre has for centuries provided us spectacular enjoyment, but it has also had the power do much more than just entertain. Think of Raisin in the Sun, Angels in America, and The Vagina Monologues. These plays humanize the plights of historically marginalized people — a tactic among the most successful at cultivating understanding and advancing social justice movements.

In fact, Good Kids was written specifically for university audiences and aimed at addressing the long-standing rape cultures that exist on college campuses across the country. It problematizes our perception of what good kids are capable, and examines the gender polarities that incubate this culture of sexual violence.

“You don’t solve a problem like sexual assault with anything other than a deep shift in attitude,” playwright Iizuka said in a 2014 interview with American Theatre. “And a deep shift in attitude happens conversation by conversation, in dorm rooms, parties and rehearsal halls.”

That fundamental attitude shift requires thoughtful facilitation, and Rada was certainly up for the challenge last fall. In producing a play 14 STUDIO / 2016

Rebekah Blackburn (Chloe), Josh Wood (Connor) and Haley Pulsipher (Deirdre) rehearse a scene in Good Kids.

about consent, or lack thereof, she made certain to repeatedly get acknowledgements of understanding and permission throughout the entire process — from the auditions to the post-performance talkbacks.

Her process, she was adamant, would not mimic or reinforce the systemic problem the play portrays.

Rada began by devising a hand-signal code that allowed people in the production to step away and communicate if they were experiencing triggered emotions due to the content. One signal meant the person was simply leaving for a pragmatic reason, to use the restroom, for example, and was emotionally fine. The second, however, communicated a need to step away briefly to do some self-care. And the third, the red alert, was meant to communicate an overwhelming emotional experience where the person was deeply disturbed and needed support.

“You just never know what people walk in with,” she said. “Some in our industry get very concerned with the product. For me, if we’re not trying to be better human beings along the way, I think we’ve missed the point.”

The same sensitivity shown to the actors and crew was granted for the audiences as well. Rada, along with brilliant dramaturg, former Morales Fellow, and now Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre,

Photo: Spencer Sandstrom

“Theatre does not function at its best when it reaffirms everything we think we know.”

Photo: Spencer Sandstrom

Julia Rada, Director

Martine Kei Green-Rogers, facilitated a diverse and plentiful amalgam of partnerships across campus for this production in support of the audiences and the dialogue the play could catalyze. She engaged the U’s Women’s Resource Center, the Greek community on campus, the Women’s Enrollment Initiative, the Office of Equal Opportunity, the Center for Disability Services, and the Center for Student Wellness.

Each production had trained victim advocates at the ready to support affected audience members if and when needed. And Katie Stiel, Program Manager for the Center for Student Wellness, dedicated an incredible amount of time to working with the student actors, providing victim advocacy, and facilitating talkbacks after some of the shows.

“The training I conducted with the student actors leading up to the show was, and I’m not exaggerating, one of the most rewarding outreach experiences of my career,” Stiel said. “They were so invested in understanding and having a dialogue. What was meant to be an hour-long meeting turned into three — I just couldn’t prematurely end that dialogue.”

She described a vulnerability the students showed, as well as a sincerity that was so indicative of their increasing personal depth and their deep respect for this issue.

Rebekah Blackburn plays Chloe in Good Kids, which was staged in the U's Studio 115.

“They knew it was precious and also volatile, and they wanted to do this well. It was extraordinarily powerful.”

One of the talkbacks was facilitated by Green-Rogers, but actually featured the cast instead of the trained facilitators as burgeoning experts in discussing the issues and themes in the play.

Seeing the students’ maturity in that experience solidified to Rada the depth of the students’ new understanding.

“They’re a pretty conscientious group of students anyway, but seeing how gracefully they navigated the audience’s questions was a testament to how they had internalized the training and understood the nuances of this epidemic our universities are facing,” Rada said.

“And for me, that right there was success. Yes, ticket sales were great, but it was that moment — when the audience was asking good questions, and our students had good answers — that I knew that my goal of creating ambassadors for cultures of consent was a mission we had accomplished. And we created beautiful theatre while we were at it.” ≠

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Clark Sturdevant and Wright in W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance.

Photo: Matt Dilyard/The College of Wooster

Company: The Ohio Light Opera

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Wright, Sarah Best, and Ted Christopher, in Cole Porter's Jubilee.

Photo: Matt Dilyard/The College of Wooster Company: The Ohio Light Opera

T'S a question that Wright considers, but like any good academic, is hesitant to answer without careful consideration.

Literally defined as, “a short opera, usually on a light or humorous theme and typically having spoken dialogue,” operetta has been called “light opera.” However, Wright, also the Voice Area Head for the U’s School of Music, is adamant that OLO and operetta is anything but light, saying that the term somewhat disparages the genre of operetta as a whole.

“The term is too ambiguous, too broad, and is a bit derogatory,” she says. “People don’t realize that operetta has a history all its own.”

OLO, it could be said, is what sustains that rich history.

Currently in its 38th season, OLO comes every year to Wooster, Ohio, a town with a population of just more than 25,000 residents. Comparable to the prestige and humorous dichotomization that occurs during the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon (who doesn’t love a massive subculture attraction in a small, rural town), every summer more than 20,000 patrons and operetta fanatics descend on Wooster. It’s easy to imagine OLO as California’s Coachella Music Festival of operetta.

In talking about the efficacy and eminence of OLO, Wright describes the company as the only one of its kind in the United States. And she’s right. Traditional opera, which doesn’t incorporate both singing and dancing, is usually based around a dramatic/tragic theme. Operetta is about entertainment, incorporating an amalgam of theatrical and musical attributes (singing, dancing, acting, etc.). And OLO, Wright says, is built around that idea.

“The company was founded on the premise of the ensemble,” she says. “Artists don’t just sing. They 18 STUDIO / 2016

perform roles. In that context, the genre and overall character of Ohio Light Opera is unique. In the end, it’s about entertainment.”

Wright’s history with OLO has morphed over the years. Wright arrived at OLO as a graduate student at Michigan University. While mastering vocal performance there, Wright realized her passion and knack for being what she calls a “cross-over artist.”

“I love to dance,” she says. “I love being able to physically communicate. I love to act, and perform spoken word.”

Operetta seemed the perfect fit. The disparate contexts of performing an operetta, made her understand the complex nature of operetta itself, and how multitalented actors and artists had to be to engage the genre. She says this made OLO a premier testing ground for prospective students who wanted a multifaceted approach to performing, which allowed them to understand operetta and its interdisciplinarity. It became to students a bit “risqué” and revealing, she says.

“There’s a perception that when people are auditioning for OLO, they somewhat come unprepared.

For one, they don’t recognize a lot of the titles due to the unfamiliarity of the genre. And two, they don’t understand that operetta requires different modes of training that focus on the eclectic nature of performance beyond just singing (speaking, movement, engagement, breathing, etc.).”

It was her students’ lack of understanding operetta that made Wright realize where tensions surfaced between the genres of operetta and opera. Operetta, she professes, is somewhat of a subculture. This is what classifies operetta as a slightly misunderstood genre, insofar as no one can agree on what it is, or how it should be defined. However, Wright is adamant that a definition can be given to describe what precisely operetta is all about.

Wright recently finished performing in the wildly successful production of Hello, Dolly! staged by the U’s Department of Theatre, and is a devoted fan of Richard Traubner, who she says is one of the most well known experts on the history of operetta. In breaking down the history of the genre, she says Traubner relies on a distinction that clearly articulates how operetta should be defined if we’re to understand what truly makes it unique and special to the arts.

In his book “Operetta: A Theatrical History,” Traubner defines an operetta simply as, “a little opera.” He goes further to make it clear to his readers that “light opera” should not

(left) Ohio Light Opera founder, Dr. James Stuart, and Wright in Countess Maritza.

Wright, Damian Savarino, Suzanne Woods in The Cousin from Catavia.

Photos: Matt Dilyard/The College of Wooster Company: The Ohio Light Opera

“Artists don’t just sing. They perform roles. In that context, the genre and overall character of Ohio Light Opera is unique. In the end, it’s about entertainment.” ~ Julie Wright Costa carry the connotation of being a lesser form of opera, but rather should be thought of as “an opera that literally takes itself lightly.” This definition, Wright says, is important to understanding the appeal of OLO, both to audience members and to students. It is also central to the spirit of OLO, their belief in the power of the arts, and the importance of preserving artistic traditions, she says.

“All singers of OLO work together to create an ensemble that is devoted to promoting, preserving, and presenting living breathing works that continue to uplift, entertain, and perform.”

In talking about why opera and operetta appealed to her as an artist, Wright says that the universality of music and the spirit of what the festival represents inspired her, and still does to this day. She says it is music that is a testimonial to the appeal of the arts and their ability to speak an international language.

“We can listen to music from various countries and understand what artists are trying to convey.”

And that, she claims, is one of the most important features of what OLO and the arts bring to the world, adding, “Music is what brings people together.” π

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Crisol attendees (including Orrego’s little sister) work together on the public collaborative mural featured at the event's receptions.

The project, the brainchild of Keith Beard, acted as a way of representing the melting pot of diversity, and was led by Crisol’s Art Team Leaders Cheryl Sandoval and Jamie Kyle.

Photo: Julia Alcala

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MORE THAN ONE: Why the Crisol Film Initiative matters

T

hinking back to her first class at the University of Utah, Karem Orrego remembers being scared. More clearly, she remembers the daunting size of the campus, the beautiful yet intimidating layout of the buildings, quads, and disparate colleges. She recounts being “shy,� nervously sitting outside the Film & Media Arts Building before her first class. by JIMMY KENDALL

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culture instead of stereotypes.”

Orrego greets the audience at Crisol and introduces the evening’s film.

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~ Karem Orrego

But that first class, she said, “changed everything.”

“There was just such a welcoming atmosphere to the artistic community here,” she said. “Where first I thought that I was going to be an outsider, I was welcomed with open arms. That kind of warmth was inspiring.”

Cut to four years later. Orrego is a now a senior Film & Media Arts student who has more than just a few accolades on her resume. An emerging leaders intern for ArtsForce 2013, film editor intern, film assistant, freelance filmmaker, film production intern at KUED 7, and current member of the creative team for TEDxSaltLakeCity 2016, “shy” would seem the most unlikely description of Orrego’s ambition, artistry, and personality. And if her myriad accomplishments aren’t convincing enough, the success of her emboldened and powerful film initiative Crisol is sure to do the trick!

A Spanish word that translates to “melting pot,” Crisol was a Latin American Film Initiative that Orrego orchestrated throughout March and April of 2015. It was inspired by her Peruvian heritage and desire to bring Latin American cinema to the U. The project entailed screening six independent films and a few short films by local filmmakers, along with several side events that featured other eclectic art forms (visual art, music, ballet, and modern dance). Of the utmost importance, however, was the opportunity for Orrego to share with the Salt Lake community new perspectives rarely seen or heard without the arts.

“I wanted to share something that brought culture instead of stereotypes,” she said. “That is what

the aim of Crisol was all about.”

Given that Orrego was born and raised in Lima, Peru, she worried about the scarcity of Latin American films in Salt Lake City. This, she warned, created a problem of “western” audiences that were too often given narrow cinematic representations of what life and culture is like there. Crisol is what Orrego hoped would “break the notion that we are in this old stage in Latin American countries.”

“If you only have a Mexican film festival, it becomes so easy to stereotype a culture without meaning to do so,” she said. “I wanted to bring pieces of Latin American film. Thus, it became a passion project centered around equity and universality. I wanted to show people that the subjects they see in the film are just like every other human being in the world.”

At first, Orrego wanted to use ten films for the project. She soon realized that she had to narrow it down to six. The process of choosing the right films was intense. She had to choose films that were both contemporary and mainstream, and artistic yet not alienating. Ultimately, it came down to six films, each from different countries (Peru, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Puerto Rico). The films also featured three male and three female directors, which Orrego said was intentional.

“It was important to have a balance for the films I chose,” she said. “I wanted an equal number of male and female directors to be shown to both inspire minority filmmakers and female filmmakers. But just as important was how I structured the films.

I had to choose films that were both mainstream

Photo: Julia Alcala

“I wanted to share something that brought

Photo: Sydney Goodwill

and experimental. There had to be something for everyone.”

The initiative’s appeal of universality was a central concern for Orrego, and it put an immense stress on her while simultaneously making her aware of her burgeoning skills as a producer. She would watch comedies, dramas, and action films she adored, but ultimately had to reject due to those films not being right for the mission and purpose of Crisol.

Part of Orrego’s process to screen the right films revolved around how those films would help “people overcome feelings of disconnection.” In expanding on what she meant by this, she added, “People don’t see much of a connection to other cultures because of barriers in language and identity. But in these films, audiences had to confront issues with illiteracy, sexuality, communication, depression, and a range of other struggles.”

It was through these confrontations, Orrego hoped, that people would see the shared experiences between their cultures and the ones on screen.

“A big part of this initiative was its power to inform,” she said. “There are a host of unknowns about lifestyles and film culture in Latin America.

If I helped shed light and knowledge on even one of

those unknowns, then I feel Crisol accomplished what I wanted it to.”

After having produced an initiative of this scale, Orrego is now somewhat of a household name in the College of Fine Arts. As she should be! Not only has Crisol allowed her to contribute to Salt Lake City’s ever-growing ethnic community and push for continued diversity, it has instilled in her a passion for reimagining the artistry involved in what occurs at the administrative level of filmmaking. This, she said, will not only change the magnitude and scope of the Crisol Film Initiative for the future, but how films and film festivals are packaged and distributed to audiences.

At the end of the day, however, Orrego wants to make one thing clear: “The community of artists at the U made this a collaborative project,” she said. “One of the main things I wanted to share with Crisol is that any student is capable of doing this. If you want to share an idea with the world, you have to make it big.” ≠

Karem Orrego

As a way of connecting with the audience, Orrego provided white boards for audience members to write about their experiences and what the film festival meant to them.

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Photo: UNION Industrial Coworking, Inc.

A group of local and national artists, entrepreneurs, and arts advocates discuss the vision of both UNION and Ogden.

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T H E H I D D E N A R T I S T R Y of C I T Y P L A N N I N G

By Jimmy Kendall

J

AKE McINTIRE is 25, a partnered recipient of an Our Town Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a CEO, University of Utah College of Fine Arts alumnus, and likely more accomplished than most nearing retirement. He also believes art can change the world. And unlike most, he is audacious enough to test that theory.

The founder of UNION Industrial Coworking in Ogden, Utah, McIntire began his path to CEO and radical changemaker as a sculpture intermedia major in the Art and Art History Department at the U. It was there, he said, that he began to harness an interdisciplinary approach to what he termed “creative problem solving,” not to mention his view that art, as he puts it, “is the most powerful tool to challenge the status quo.”

While also minoring in Business Administration, McIntyre went on to become the founder and president of the Sculpture Club (which is still going strong), dually founded and created Project Ground Floor, and was also part of the Marva and John Warnock Artist in Residency Program.

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McIntyre in a wood shop.

It is safe to say that McIntire has a prodigious history of standing out among his peers.

Having now returned back home to Ogden to jump start his brainchild and first opus, UNION Industrial Coworking, McIntire has taken his skill sets as an artist, entrepreneur, businessman, and social justice advocate to create an initiative aimed at fundamentally changing the ways we look at city planning, ownership, and space.

And art, McIntire claims, is at the center of catalyzing this movement.

The question of space and to whom it belongs, McIntire says, has long been at the heart of city planning and urban development. Like many proponents of smart growth, McIntire believes that few understand or come to see their city as problematically organized and developed due to not understanding how their city was developed in the first place. In short, they don’t view the process as politicized. Much of this, he added, is because few get involved at the local level concerning how policy makers and city officials contemplate how to grow a city, and as a result, their interests go unrecognized.

This, McIntire says, can have dramatic consequences regarding who is at the helm of city planning, and what interests they’re invested in serving. This is where UNION comes into play.

The foundation of UNION Industrial Coworking, an organization that aims to empower artists, designers, entrepreneurs, and change makers, is to create a vision for Ogden that, he says, “looks different than gentrification.” He goes on to say, “It’s very difficult to move past gentrification, insofar as that we have a problem getting past who’s in control.

It all comes down to interests, and in the context of most city planning, the interests are about financial capital, with profit always being the bottom line.

In this regard, development begins to incentivize displacement over diversity.”

Photo: Kailey Fry

As an artist, McIntire believes that art can fundamentally change the ways cities grow and expand. It is art, he says, that can systematically challenge existing social systems and routine ways of thinking about growth and development that values diversity over displacement, which is the one of the founding principles of UNION. 26 STUDIO / 2016

To combat gentrification, UNION has aimed to cultivate an urban landscape inspired by the unification between art and equitable city planning, where art serves as the catalyst for what urban theorists have termed “smart growth.” That is defined as “planned economic and community development that attempts to curb urban sprawl and worsening environmental conditions.” McIntire’s intent with UNION is to both enact these policies and broaden them to encapsulate the more important social, cultural, economic, and political issues involved in the process of urban expansion. In this respect, UNION is as much about smart growth as it is about social justice.

McIntire’s commitment and advocacy for social justice and equitable urban policy continued during his studies in Portland, Oregon. After graduating from the U's Department of Art & Art History with honors, he received his Master’s from the Pacific Northwest College of Art. It was there, he said, that he began to notice how issues of inequality, discrimination, and poverty were related to the development that, in time, will have us look at Ogden ways city planning aimed to serve particular sets of interests. Routinely, he added, changes in Portland— as a microcosm for smart growth.

If we’re critical enough and listen to McIntire’s dubbed one of the most gentrified cities in the message, we can begin to recognize a fundamental country—were not positive for diverse communities. flaw in the way we’re socialized to think about city But two central questions remain: Why art, and spaces. We demarcate them. We believe that cities why Ogden? are composed of boundaries, almost as if we’re As an artist, McIntire believes that art can reenacting the scene in the “The Lion King” where fundamentally change the ways cities grow and Simba learns about the Pridelands: we know where expand. It is art, he says, that can systematically challenge existing social systems and routine ways of to go, where not to, and what land belongs to who.

In that respect, we lose sight that cities, and most thinking about growth and development that values importantly space, is first fundamentally democratic. diversity over displacement, which is one of the It should belong to everyone. Neglecting that concept, founding principles of UNION. In talking about art, McIntire becomes bright-eyed McIntire attests, has rendered most cities as spaces of conflict rather than spaces of inclusion. and emboldened. He claims that, “art is something Ogden, oddly enough, may be leading the way that could transform a city and build stronger towards a vision where cities reclaim their communities.” He notes that from the perspective democratic impulse, and it’s thanks to a 25-year-old of inclusive city planning, art is everything. And as art student who believes that art can transform UNION has already partnered with various other the way cities are built. organizations and individuals in receiving an Our And he may not be wrong about this. ≠ Town Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, it would appear he’s not alone in this conviction.

From the standpoint of development, he says, there has to be a cultural element to city planning that’s associated with art. Once you have this, then the cultural ethos of a city is going to revolve around diversity and community ownership as the bottom line—not profit. In the realm of city planning, this is Downtown Ogden, Utah. somewhat of a radical idea, and Ogden, McIntire says, is the perfect testing ground.

Because Ogden is a mid-sized American city, its potential for rapid growth places it in the unique position of being somewhat of a prime canvas for progressive and equitable city planning. At 25, McIntire is pioneering a movement of radical urban

Photo: UNION Industrial Coworking, Inc.

Art is something that could transform a city and build stronger communities.

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28 STUDIO / 2016

the

Experiencing

The University of Utah College of Fine Arts is known around the country for the excellence of its faculty, staff, and students, but also for the caliber and frequency of esteemed guest artists who grace our studios, our classrooms, and our stages. One such program adding to this experiential richness is the Marva and John Warnock Artist in Residence program in the Department of Art & Art History.

This biennial event exists to expose students to new, innovative, and diverse contemporary art practices, while providing an opportunity for broader exchange amongst students, faculty, and the public.

“One of the most important factors for the selection committee is orchestrating an experience that is deeply transformative for our students,” says Professor Brian Snapp, who chairs the committee that includes Professors Ed Bateman, Justin Diggle, and the UMFA’s Whitney Tassie, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. “So in addition to thinking about the artist’s own work, we imagine how their practice can be woven into the fabric of a semesterlong Master Class in which they’ll be working directly with students.”

This is the fourth Warnock residency, and the pool of nominees was larger and more competitive than ever before. But internationally recognized environmental artist and U Art & Art History alumnus Mark Brest van Kempen rose to the top.

His unique process and perspective, coupled with the ability to translate that into meaningful student experiences, was the winning combination. Plus, his desire to impact a program that was so influential to him didn’t hurt either.

“It was here at the U where I got two of the most important things,” he remembers. “I got the encouragement to branch out, and I got the solid foundation of fundamental art-making from which everything else can grow.”

That inspiration to branch out led Brest van Kempen to a professional career creating work outside of that which is made for traditional gallery or museum environments. Instead, he finds ways to use places and situations in the real world as the material with which he works. Some of his most wellknown works are the “Free Speech Monument” on the UC Berkeley campus, and “Land Exchange” at the National Academy of Art in China.

Photo: Karalee Kuchar

Warnock Artist in Residence

Art

“People keep saying to me

that they’re interested in a particular idea. ‘But it’s kind of scary,’ they say.”

Mark Brest van Kempen, Alumnus

Brest van Kempen works with students in downtown SLC on exercises working with everyday situations to create art.

While in residence, Warnock artists not only work with our students, they concurrently create their own art. To witness new processes is an invaluable experience for students, and this year Brest van Kempen is creating several works. He’s capturing natural processes on film: decay, erosion, and growth. For example, he’ll grind up a large fallen tree branch into nothing, and then put it back where it came from, filming this assisted process of decay.

By speeding up this decay that would naturally take many years, he’s making the process itself the material of his art.

At this point, the final results of his creations are yet to be seen, but what he does know now is that our students are exciting and inspiring him. He has assigned them to use place as their material, starting with the Art building, then the campus, and their final project will be to create work in a public space in the community.

“Students keep saying to me that they’re interested in a particular idea,” Brest van Kempen says as he starts to get quiet. “‘But it’s kind of scary,’ they say.”

He laughed, knowing that signals success. Taking artistic risks is a practiced discipline in and of itself, and can yield some of the richest results.

So, whether or not the student’s self-portrait created from the bacteria cultured from her own body and grown in petri dishes in the biology lab actually looks exactly like her is not the point. She’s engaged.

She’s exploring. And she’s learning.

Mission accomplished. ≠

Photo: Liz Shattler

by Marina Gomberg

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Screendance Festival

Still from Cayetana Vidal's piece called "Tao."

Moving Away from the Margins: The 10th Anniversary of the Screendance Festival

Ellen Bromberg, Distinguished Professor of Modern Dance at the University of Utah, has been instrumental in introducing students, academics, and the general population to the genre of “screendance,” defined as “dance on screen rather than onstage.” A celebrated choreographer, filmmaker, media designer, curator, and educator, as well as a former dancer and choreographer with Utah’s Repertory Dance Theatre, Bromberg has had a clear vision for what she feels the festival has promoted: “work that, at the time (1999), hadn’t been seen here before.”

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As the U hosted its 10th international Screendance Festival, Bromberg said the event represented a welcomed paradigm shift in the way departments and disciplines collaborate to understand the changing cultural, academic, and social characteristics of the arts in the 21st century. In 2010, the Departments of Modern Dance and Film & Media Arts worked seamlessly together to create a certificate that allows graduate students from both disciplines to access coursework previously unavailable to each other, bringing interdisciplinarity front and center.

Photo: Marina Gomberg

“The way bodies are expressed and often oppressed across cultural contexts... will inform about what possibilities might be in store for the next Screendance Festival.”

Bromberg with Silvina Szperling during the 2015 Screendance Festival.

Photo: Courtesy of Cayetana Vidal

Screendance, long excluded from the canon of dance itself, is a style of dance that is almost exactly as the name suggests: dancing for the camera. Though still considered a marginal art form, screendance has been extolled for its diversity, continual evolution, hybridity, universality, and multimodality. Recently, scholars and practitioners of screendance have called the practice “a new visual language.”

For this last festival, Bromberg said she was most concerned with changing the perception of screendance from a “private practice” to a recognized “cultural practice and form.” This is why, Bromberg said, bringing in Silvina Szperling, an Argentinian director, choreographer, and dancer, was essential.

Szperling, an internationally renowned videographer and dance critic, is best known for her pioneering work in creating “Videodanza” in Buenos Aires, the first screendance festival in the southern hemisphere. Currently a filmmaker and teacher at the Arts Criticism Department at UNA (Universidad Nacional de las Artes), Szperling’s works look at the various ways bodies across cultures establish new relationships between the camera and the human form. She was instrumental in bringing Latin American and South American screendance films and shorts to the 10th anniversary of the Screendance Festival.

Along with Szperling, the festival also included distinguished guest of honor Douglas Rosenberg, a pioneer as both a screendance artist and activist in screendance scholarship. Rosenberg, said to be responsible for the formalization of screendance as a discourse, has long been admired for his advocacy for the genre, which includes his founding of the American Dance Festival’s International Screendance Festival at Duke University, as well as the first international journal dedicated to screendance, and his book “Screendance: Inscribing the Ephemeral Image”.

In looking towards what the future of the festival holds, Bromberg was keen to note the growing appreciation for the art of screendance, due to its ready availability online, and the surge of screendance festivals worldwide in recent years. She was excited to witness, she said, a growing appreciation for an art form that seeks to heighten the sensation of kinesthesia and corporeality through the screen, rather than creating the sense of disembodiment that often results from sitting in front of computers.

As Bromberg prepares for a symposium in Havana, Cuba, in April to present screendance works by her students, she hopes the experience will enlighten her as to “the ways bodies are expressed and often oppressed across cultural contexts.” This, she says, will inform her about what possibilities might be in store for the next Screendance Festival. ≠

by Jimmy Kendall

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Photo: Spencer Sandstrom

The Making of Distinguished Alumni

There are numerous ways to measure the strength and prestige of a college or university. One of the most telling, however, is the success of its alumni. After soaking up knowledge from brilliant faculty, logging hundreds (thousands?) of meaningful hours practicing their crafts, mastering creative problem solving, and connecting with industry professionals, where and how do graduates leave and impact the world?

In Spring 2009, the University of Utah College of Fine Arts created a way to answer that very question with its annual Distinguished Alumni Awards celebrations honoring alumni from each of the six academic units in the College. Since its inception, the College has honored the work and contributions of 49 unique and talented alumni who have gone on to perform, exhibit, and screen all over the world.

The events have evolved over the years, yet they remain some of the College’s largest and most highly anticipated annual events. The celebrations begin with an evening banquet and awards ceremony, including recognition of the honored alumni, and the four College of Fine Arts Faculty (2) and Staff (2) Excellence Award recipients.

That is followed the next morning by a massive production on the stage of Kingsbury Hall, juxtaposing short documentary films on each of the alumni with performances or presentations by the current students in their corresponding academic 32 STUDIO / 2016

units. The amalgam is a rich display of creative excellence both past and present.

One of the more robust features of the week’s events is the connection between the alumni and the current students. From master classes to intimate luncheons hosted by the award-winning ArtsForce program, the College facilitates opportunities for the alumni to shed light on their successes, their failures, their inspirations, and their lives.

“It is incredible to annually celebrate the achievements of our distinguished alumni,” said Liz Leckie, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Student Affairs. “And perhaps the most powerful part of this celebration is the impact on our current students.

The unity felt by showing work in the same place and time, coupled with seeing the possibilities for their future lived by these celebrated alumni, have proven to have resoundingly positive impacts on our students. They all know it might be them on that stage in the years to come.” ≠

by Marina Gomberg

Distinguished Alumni

The 2015 Distinguished Alumni award recipients take the stage of Kingsbury Hall (left to right: Gregory Brown, Genéa Gaudet, Randy Reyes, Phyillis Haskell Tims, Michael Mabry, and Bené Arnold).

Fall 2015–16

Fall 2012–13

Spring 2009–10

Michael Mabry, Art & Art History Bené Arnold, Ballet Genéa Gaudet, Film & Media Arts Phyllis Haskell Tims, Modern Dance Gregory Brown, Music Randy Reyes, Theatre

Bruce Lindsey, Art & Art History Sandra Allen, Ballet Trent Harris, Film & Media Arts Keith Johnson, Modern Dance Raymond Chobaz, Music Timothy McCuen Piggee, Theatre

Mario Naves, Art & Art History Douglas C. Sontaag, Ballet Max Adams, Film & Media Arts Stephen Koplowitz, Modern Dance Heath Wolf, Music Klea Blackhurst, Theatre

Fall 2014–15

Fall 2011–12

Spring 2008–09

Christine Panushka, Art & Art History Julia Gleich, Ballet Jan Andrews, Film & Media Arts Tamara Riewe, Modern Dance Barbara Scowcroft, Music Marilyn Caskey, Theatre

Charles R. Loving, Art & Art History Jiang Qi, Ballet Alex Beckstead, Film & Media Arts Della Davidson, Modern Dance Christoph Luty, Music Anne Cullimore Decker, Theatre

Ken Little, Art & Art History Victoria Morgan, Ballet Isaac Chung, Film & Media Arts Gesel Mason, Modern Dance Stanford Olsen, Music Michael Ensign Evans, Theatre

Fall 2013–14

Spring 2010–11

Tom Antista & Thomas Fairclough, Art & Art History Derryl Yeager, Ballet Paul Battista, Film & Media Arts Ann Carlson, Modern Dance Brian Hulse, Music Leo Geter, Theatre

Richard Taylor, Art & Art History Bart Cook, Ballet Christine K. Walker, Film & Media Arts Bill Evans, Modern Dance Celena Shafer, Music Kenneth Washington, Theatre

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Guest Artists & Scholars

At the University of Utah College of Fine Arts, students learn from some of the top faculty in the country. But that is not all; each semester, each department brings to campus world-renowned artists who offer master classes, give public lectures, screen films, host discussions, and ultimately broaden the breadth and depth of exploration into all areas of study.

During the past year alone, these artists were brought to campus to share their knowledge and expertise with the University of Utah College of Fine Arts.

Theatre

Jamie Rocha Allan • Kristen Blodgette • James Bonas • Marilyn Caskey • Holly Cole Fiddler on the Roof cast (PTC) • Clayborne Elder • Gerry Mac • Lynn Maxfield Michael Pinkerton • Molly W. Schenk • Michael Staringer • Kamella Tate • Adam Thurman Universes • Jeff Whitting • Patti Wilcox — Kristen Blodgette has been associated with The Phantom of the Opera for 26 years since it first opened at The Majestic Theatre on Broadway. She is the Musical Director/Conductor for the Broadway production, and has been involved in 15 companies of Phantom including Broadway, Los Angeles and San Francisco productions, and the U.S. National tours. She was the Musical Director for the Broadway production of Evita with Ricky Martin. Other Broadway productions include; A Little Night Music, Mary Poppins, Lovemusik, The Woman in White, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Cats (Broadway, National tours, Mexico, Copenhagen), Sunset Boulevard (Broadway, Los Angeles, National tour) and Jesus Christ Superstar (Broadway, Mexico). She is a private vocal coach in New York City and conducts Master classes in Audition Preparation for Broadway Theatre.

Kristen Blodgette

Film & Media Arts

Garrett Batty • Thomas Christensen • Peter Czerny • James D'Arc Pete Docter & Jonas Rivera • Dean Duncan • Christian Vuissa —

Pete Docter & Jonas Rivera

Pete Docter (director) is the Oscar®-winning director of “Monsters, Inc.” and “Up,” and vice president, creative, at Pixar Animation Studios. Docter served as supervising animator for “Toy Story,” Pixar’s first full-length animated feature film. He has been nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Animated Feature Winner “Up” and nominee “Monster’s, Inc.,” and Best Original Screenplay for “Up” and “Wall•E.” Docter was also the director of “Inside Out,” released last summer, which he co-wrote with Josh Cooley.

Jonas Rivera (producer) joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1994 to work on “Toy Story” as the Studio's first and only intern at the time. He advanced roles in production on almost every subsequent Pixar feature film until becoming producer of the studio’s Oscar-winning film “Up.” Most recently, Rivera teamed with "Up" director, Pete Docter, for Pixar's "Inside Out."

Ballet

Bené Arnold • Eloy Barragán • Charlotte Boye-Christensen • Stacy Caddell Val Caniparoli • Eric Handman • Calvin Kitten • Lesley Telford — Val Caniparoli’s versatility has made him one of the most sought after American choreographers in the United States and abroad. He has contributed to the repertories of more than forty-five dance companies, including Scottish Ballet and Joffrey Ballet.

Caniparoli is most closely associated with San Francisco Ballet, his artistic home for more than forty years. He began his career under the artistic directorship of Lew Christensen, and in the 1980s was appointed resident choreographer there, where he continues to choreograph under Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson. He is the recipient of grants and awards across the globe, and was honored to be selected to choreograph a pas de deux for Evelyn Hart and Rex Harrington for the Royal Jubilee Gala for Queen Elizabeth in Toronto.

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Val Caniparoli

Modern Dance

Shaun Boyle • Jonathan Burrows & Matteo Fargion • Ananya Chatterjea Kathleen Hermesdorf & Albert Mathias • Paul Matteson • Holly Rothschild • Sara Shelton Mann Lesley Telford • Ruping Wang • Scott Wells • Netta Yerushalmy • Jesse Zaritt — Jonathan Burrows danced with the Royal Ballet for 13 years before leaving to pursue his own choreography. His main focus now is an ongoing series of duets with the composer Matteo Fargion, with whom he has given more than 300 performances across 31 countries.

Burrows and Fargion are contributing artists for William Forsythe’s Motionbank website project. Other high profile commissions include work for Sylvie Guillem, Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt, and the National Theatre, London. Burrows has been an Associate Artist at Kunstencentrum Vooruit in Gent, Belgium, London’s South Bank Centre and Kaaitheater Brussels. He is a visiting member of faculty at P.A.R.T.S Brussels and has also been Guest Professor at universities in London, Hamburg, Berlin, Gent, and Giessen. His book “A Choreographer's Handbook” (2010) is available from Routledge Publishing. Burrows and Mateo were brought to the University through a collaboration with UtahPresents and the Department of Modern Dance.

Jonathan Burrows

Music

Atar Arad • Gabriel Beavers • Marty Boykan • Bob Breithaupt • Martin Bresnick • Gregory Brown • Chris Carillo Casals Quartet • Emmanuel Ceysson • Yu-Hui Chang • Brandon Derfler • Steven Doane • Ingrid Fliter Julian Gargiulo • Savion Glover • Changxin Guan • Andrey Gugning • Karen Hakobyan Johannes S. Hansen • Keith Kirchoff • Boris Knovalov • Steve Jaffe • Daniel Mason Donald Maurice • Joe McQueen • Mnozil Brass • Erin Murphy • Graeme Mutchler Joe Nibley • Alex Noppe • Ernest Salem • Vadim Serebryany • Doug Smith Ignat Solzhenytsin • Augusta Read Thomas • Denise Tryon • Alexander Tselyakov USAF Band of the Golden West Brass Quintet • Gohar Vandanyan • Pieter Wispelwey • Jon Yerby —

Mnozil Brass

Mnozil Brass has established itself as one of the world's premier brass ensembles. With more than 130 performances a year, the group has sold out houses from the farthest reaches of the European continent to Russia, Israel, China, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the United States, and has captivated audiences with their blend of immense virtuosity and theatrical wit. In their time away from touring, Mnozil Brass has recorded 8 albums and 6 DVDs. They've collaborated on three operetta and opera productions, and composed and recorded the music for the 2006 film "Freundschaft." The group has been nominated for the Amadeus Austrian Music Award and won the prestigious Salzburger Stier Cabaret Prize in 2006.

Art & Art History

Mark Brest van Kempen • Octavio Campos • Binh Danh • Ellen Lupton Yoshua Okon • Nicole Pietrontoni • Dawn Stoppiello — Professor Ellen Lupton is curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City and director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore and was brought in for the Department of Art & Art History’s Carmen Morton Christensen Visiting Artist/Scholar Program. She has curated numerous exhibitions including: “Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to Office,” “Mixing Messages: Graphic Design and Contemporary Culture,” “Letters from the Avant-Garde,” and “Skin: Surface, Substance + Design.” Her book “Thinking with Type” is used by students, designers, and educators worldwide. “D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself” co-authored with her graduate students at MICA, and “D.I.Y. Kids” co-authored with Julia Lupton, is a design book for children illustrated with kids’ art. The Lupton twins’ latest book is “Design Your Life: The Pleasures and Perils of Everyday Things.” She is a public-minded critic, frequent lecturer, and an AIGA Medalist, one of the highest honors given to a graphic designer or design educator in the U.S.

Ellen Lupton

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Kem & Carolyn Gardner

The vibrance and excellence of the College of Fine Arts is fueled by the generosity of foundations, individual donors, and corporations. This is the story of one such benefactor.

GIVING LIKE

GARDNERS

the

by Marina Gomberg

K

Professor Barlow Bradford, Ellen Neilson Barnes Presidential Endowed Chair in Choral Studies, conducts the University of Utah Chamber Choir in Libby Gardner Hall.

Photo: Drew Engebretson

36 STUDIO / 2016

EM GARDNER laughs a bit as he thinks about the fact that if it weren’t for the University of Utah, he and his wife of 47 years, Carolyn, might never have met.

“Well, the U and Jesselie Anderson,” he says.

“She was Carolyn’s Chi Omega roommate who set us up on a blind date in 1966 to see the Cosby show at the Fieldhouse on campus.”

Carolyn came to Salt Lake City from Washington, D.C., where she grew up.

She came west to attend the University of Utah, and studied liberal arts and political science while getting her minor in music and singing in the U’s A Cappella Choir, a great love of hers.

Kem’s upbringing was a bit more humble.

He grew up in Wyoming and on a small farm in Davis County, just north of Salt Lake City. Out-ofstate schools weren’t an option for him. In fact, going to college was only made possible for him by the benevolent contributions of scholarship donors.

“It was their kindness that allowed me to attend the University of Utah,” he recalls. “I mean, I was very hardworking, but I truly could not have made it work without them.”

That was true of his undergraduate studies in liberal arts and political science as well as his subsequent efforts in law school. So, it’s really no surprise that among their many gifts, Kem and Carolyn dedicate a portion of their philanthropy to

create scholarships for students in need.

Of course, their philanthropy is famous across the U campus (and beyond, for that matter). Scholarships, endowed chair positions, and institutes bear their name from the arts to athletics. What drives their generosity, however, is perhaps a story less told.

What some might not know is that Carolyn’s mother is Ellen Neilson Barnes. If that name rings a bell, perhaps it is because she was a virtuoso in piano and taught at the U’s School of Music starting when she was only 20 years old. She had left her hometown, Logan, at 18 and completed college at the New England Conservatory of Music, a rigorous four-year program, in just two years. And was valedictorian. She went on to lead giant choruses at the World’s Fair in New York City and major conferences, and she was the director of her church’s Relief Society Singing Mothers.

Or perhaps her name rings a bell because Kem and Carolyn created a new faculty position in her honor, the Ellen Neilson Barnes Presidential Endowed Chair in Choral Studies — a position now occupied by the internationally acclaimed Professor Barlow Bradford.

“Because Barlow was conducting the choir, we decided to add additional monies to provide scholarships to all students in the Chamber Choir as well,” Kem said. “So what started as a deeply meaningful way for us to honor Carolyn’s talented mother turned into support for a world-class choir. We really couldn’t be more pleased — especially given Carolyn’s lifelong love for choral music.”

Photo: Courtesy of Kem and Carolyn Gardner

“We had the great fortune to be able to help each of our six children reach their academic goals at the University of Utah, and now we’re extending that aid beyond just our own family."

And while watching the choir win international competition after international competition is a remarkably rewarding experience for the Gardners, their favorite part of the philanthropic experience is hearing from the students they support. Whether at the College of Fine Arts Scholarship Luncheon or via handwritten letters, Kem and Carolyn are profoundly touched to hear the stories of the students their generosity empowers.

“We had the great fortune to be able to help each of our six children reach their academic goals at the University of Utah, and now we’re extending that aid beyond just our own family. We couldn’t imagine being more fulfilled or grateful for this opportunity. All of this makes us feel like it’s our University.”

And, as alumni, parents of alumni, and major University benefactors, it is safe to say that the U (including the College of Fine Arts) is, very much, their University. ≠

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Annual Report

T

HE faculty, staff, and especially the students in the College of Fine Arts thank our generous donors for their contributions of $1,000 or more to the College and its six academic units from July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2015. Their incredible generosity has enhanced education, empowered many, and inspired us all.

INDIVIDUALS

Connoisseur ($25,000 +) Kem C. and Carolyn B. Gardner Diana B. and Robert H. Hinckley John M. and Martha M. Veranth

Aficianado ($10,000–$24,999) If you’re interested in supporting the work of the College of Fine Arts and its academic units, visit finearts.utah.edu and click on the “Donate Now” button.

Anonymous Brent and Bonnie Jean Beesley Robert D. Belnap Andres J. Cardenes and Monique Mead Gordon and Connie Hanks Lennox Larson Nancy P. and Richard E. Marriott James R. and Nanette S. Michie Joyce T. Rice Dorothy Jo Wilson Sheppard Daniel M. and Nicky M. Soulier Larry B. and Liane Stillman Julia Simmons Watkins

Benefactor ($5,000–$9,999) Daniel C. and Anna Benton Lowell C. and Sonja E. Brown Marian A. Connelly Dawn Delvie Lisa E. Eccles Katharine B. and Robert H. Garff Lee A. and Audrey M. Hollaar Kathie K. and Charles H. Horman Thomas M. and Jamie N. Love Debra and David E. Neff Anne G. Osborn

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Michael L. and Micki N. Sobieski Roger H. and Colleen K. Thompson Art and Connie Jo Hepworth-Woolston

Patron ($2,500–$4,999)

Anonymous Rodney H. and Carolyn H. Brady Bruce W. Bastian and Clint Ford Reed W. Brinton Anne and Dan L. Buchanan Paulette and Dan Cary Howard S. and Betty B. Clark Daniel and Amanda Conner Sarah and Matthew DeVoll Martha and Kent DiFiore Charlene Fetos Marilyn R. and John W. Holt Jonathan H. and Colleen Horne Pat and Boyer Jarvis Craig V. and Linda M. Lee James P. Macken Peter and Catherine Meldrum Davis and Marcy Mullholand Rhonda L. and William Nicoloff Jim L. and Bonita Robertson Sara V. and Bruce G. Robinson Catherine W. and W. Edward Stringham W. Gary and Darcy E. Sandberg Bertram H. (Bert) and Janet M. Schaap Geoffrey S. and Adria Swindle Stephen L. Swisher and Lisa Dove-Swisher J. Spencer Thompson and Brian Becker Raymond Tymas-Jones Anothony R. Wallin and Jennifer Price-Wallin

Ballet and Modern Dance students collaborate on a piece choreographed by guest artist Lesley Telford.

Photo: Daniel Clifton

Advocate ($1,000–$2,499) ​ nonymous A ​Linda H. and Thomas R.M. Alder Thomas and Pamela Antista ​Bene C. Arnold ​Mary F. and Dee R. Bangerter ​Randy and Jeni Bathemess ​Sandi Jo Behnken ​John W. and Elizabeth Bennion ​Mary Anne and Martin Berzins ​H. Roger and Sara S. Boyer ​Don F. and Jean W. Bradshaw ​Eveline Bruenger ​Kenneth J. and Kristina F. Burton ​Andrej and Elena Cherkaev ​Thomas D. and Joanne A. Coppin ​Mark K. and Lafaunda L. Curtis ​Ashby S. and Anne Cullimore Decker ​Anne M. and David S. Dolowitz ​David and Mary Driggs ​F. Douglas and Susan H. Duehlmeier ​E. R. (Zeke) Dumke ​Jenifer G. Ewoniuk ​Thomas M. and Mylene Fairclough ​Abby L. and Jerome C. Fiat ​John H. and Carol Firmage ​Susan F. Fleming ​Cecelia H. Foxley ​Ralph and Rosie Gochnour ​Raymond B. and Julie R. Greer ​Tim and Stephanie Harpst Elizabeth S. Hunter ​Linda and David Johannesen ​Michael A. Kalm and Janet C. Mann ​Larry and Janine Krystkowiak

​ arl E. and Susan Lind K ​Mary O. and Donald B. Lloyd ​Loa B. Mangelson-Clawson ​Paul G. and Alison R. Mayfield ​Paul H. and Denise W. McMurray ​Jeff T. Miller ​Karen L. Miller and John W. Ballard ​Prescott M. and Sharon D. Muir ​Anne Palmer ​Mary Lou P. and Ralph F. Peak ​Diana J. and Joel C. Peterson ​Zelie D. and Carl A. Pforzheimer ​Douglas K. and Wyn Pottratz ​John and Marcia Price ​Sarah Projansky and Kent A. Ono ​Victoria J. Ream-Baker and Merlin Baker ​Jaryl L. and Julie W. Rencher ​Scott L. and Lesli P. Rice ​Greg Rogler and Brent Godfrey ​Margot L. Shott ​Maria and Evgeny Shustorovich ​Harris H. and Amanda P. Simmons ​Sam and Diane Stewart ​Barbara L. Tanner ​Candace J. and Jack Taylor ​Kathlyn and Thomas F. Thatcher ​Janet C. and M. Donald Thomas ​Scott W. and Betsy D. Thornton ​Susan R. Warshaw ​Von H. and Virgina M. Whitby ​Marilyn and Paul L. Whitehead ​Robert and Jenny Wilson ​David B. and Jeralynn T. Winder ​Lauryn Wingate

“Connie and I have a deep love of the University of Utah; all four of our daughters graduated from this institution. Our passions include the arts and athletics where we’ve been honored to provide scholarships for many years. Helping deserving students with some financial aid has been of great value to our entire family. We love the relationships we've developed with our scholarship recipients and we like to maintain those relationships even when they graduate.

These students have become an extension of our family and we’re so proud of their successes.”

Connie & Gordon Hanks 39 STUDIO / 2016

“I was so impressed with the first play I saw in Babcock that I handed Gage Williams, the Theatre Chair, a check after seeing something equally wonderful in Studio 115! Production values, among other qualities, are top notch, and the students are completely involved in the process and committed to their craft. I happily contribute to this process, in addition to providing an annual Theatre scholarship. I want to help make dreams come true.�

Sandi Behnken

Department of Theatre's Musical Theatre Program presented American Idiot in the Hayes Christensen Theatre in the Marriott Center for Dance in Fall 2015 to sold-out audiences.

Photo: Spencer Sandstrom

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tha

ORGANIZATIONS AND FOUNDATIONS

Connoisseur ($25,000 +)

Kenneth P. and Sally R. Burbidge Foundation Kem C. Gardner Family Partnership, LTD Jewish Family Services McCarthey Family Foundation Wheeler Foundation Zions First National Bank

Advocate ($1,000–$2,499)

Antista Fairclough Art Works for Kids Dee R. Bangerter Support Foundation Rodney H. and Carolyn Hansen Brady Foundation C & L Investments, Inc. CENGAGE Learning The Children's Hour Arthur J. Gallagher Foundation Elizabeth S. Hunter Trust J. T. Miller Enterprises Inc. Microsoft Matching Gifts Program Montgomery Lee Inc. Prescott Muir Architects, P.C. John and Marcia Price Family Foundation Harris H. and Amanda P. Simmons Foundation Terramerica Corporation & Affiliates Verizon Foundation Wells Fargo Foundation

ank you Aficianado ($10,000–$24,999) Brent and Bonnie Jean Beesley Foundation Dick and Timmy Burton Foundation Chevron Matching Employee Funds Lawrence T. and Janet T. Dee Foundation The Denver Foundation George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation Nancy Peery Marriott Foundation, Inc. James R. and Nanette S. Michie Foundation S.J. & Jessie E. Quinney Foundation W. Mack and Julia S. Watkins Foundation Trust YourCause, LLC

Benefactor ($5,000–$9,999)

E. J. Bird Foundation Edward L. Burton Foundation Marian A. Connelly Qualified Marital Trust Jiffy Lube - Utah Lubricants LLC Myriad Genetics, Inc. O. C. Tanner Company Salt Lake Acting Company Roger H. and Colleen K. Thompson Foundation

Patron ($2,500–$4,999)

The Bruce W. Bastian Foundation M. Lynn Bennion Foundation The Benevity Community Impact Fund CCI Mechanical Inc. Kent C. and Martha H. DiFiore Family Foundation Emma Eccles Jones Foundation Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund Love Communications/Studio Love New York Life Foundation Robert and Barbara Patterson Memorial Foundation The Presser Foundation Princeton Area Community Foundation Bertram H. & Janet M. Schaap Trust Sentinel Systems United Jewish Endowment Trust Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program Veritas Funding

“My mother, Grace Durkee Meldrum, BS'42, loved art and shared her passion with me while I was growing up. While at the U, renowned Utah artist and Chair of the Art Department, LeConte Stewart, became her mentor and encouraged her throughout her education. It has been a privilege for Cathie and me to honor my mother’s talent and legacy through a scholarship endowment over the past fifteen years in the Department of Art & Art History that helps to support and encourage the next generation of visual artists.”

Pete & Cathie Meldrum

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STUDIO / 2016

Non Profit Org U.S. Postage University of Utah College of Fine Arts 375 S. 1530 E. Room 250 Salt Lake City, UT 84112 — finearts.utah.edu

PAID

Salt Lake City, UT Permit #1529

THE PLACE WHERE DILIGENCE AND E XC ELL ENC E B ECOM E INFLUENC E

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