Studio '14

STUDIO '14

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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Morales Fellows add new diversity to the College

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Global outreach program sends ballerinas to Korea

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The revival of Musical Theatre

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Arts on campus, not just entertainment

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Annual Report highlights generous donors

Michael Schoenfeld Back Cover: photo by Amelia Walchli

Cover: dancers Laja Field and Scotty Hardwig / photo by Chelsea Rowe

RT is many things. It is a way we record our history, it is how we express ourselves and our perspectives, it is the creation of beauty, and it is a reflection of the complex human experience.

Now, some are born with innate abilities to envision beauty and manifest it, whether it be by song, sculpture, dance, or otherwise.

But, even they, along with the rest of us, are profoundly changed for the better by the time spent in the studio.

Here at University of Utah College of Fine Arts, our studios provide our faculty and students an environment rich with opportunity, inspiration, and expectations of excellence. It is in these spaces where exploration and practice become mastery.

Within the walls of our classrooms and stages, important works are studied and new works are created. We learn of the great artists who came before us on whose shoulders we stand, and we study how art not only imitates life, but how it also powerfully shapes it.

The pages of this publication are meant to be a window into the creation of scholars

and artists in our College – a glimpse into the chaos from which greatness is realized.

Our work does not only impact those who walk through our doors. To the contrary, our influence reaches the far corners of the world.

Our programs nurture and produce world citizens who better our communities with their ideas and their creations. Our students’ work is seen and felt by those in the epicenters of art and culture across the country and around the world. And it is all because of their experiences here at the University of Utah College of Fine Arts with their peers and our faculty that they go on to pursue advanced degrees, secure fulfilling jobs, and ultimately better themselves and their surroundings.

These stories span the breadth of the College from Art & Art History to Ballet, Film & Media Arts, Modern Dance, Music and Theatre. You will read of prestigious awards, international travels, programs that expand the diversity of our studies, and benefactors whose generosity has provided access to art and experiences few will ever know. And in its entirety, this piece reflects the global reach of our work. I hope you enjoy.

DEAN RAYMOND TYMAS-JONES University of Utah College of Fine Arts

LETTER from the DEAN STUDIO / 2014

THE PLACE WHERE DILIGENCE AND EXCELLENCE BECOME INFLUENCE

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CONTRIBUTORS /

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FACULTY FELLOWS / See how the Raymond C. Morales Fellows are bringing new diversity to the College of Fine Arts.

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LAUREN GALLASPY / She is a recent recipient of the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Award; meet this ceramics prodigy.

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WITH WIND IN HIS SAILS / Henry Caceres and his clarinet quartet are taking the world by storm. This is his story.

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DANCERS WITHOUT BORDERS / Juan Carlos Claudio takes Modern Dancers to Panamanian orphanages for a life-changing experience (for the children and the students).

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SOBRINO SISTERS / These Spanish sisters look alike and sound alike, but make films unlike anyone else.

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DANCING WITH SEOUL / A 10-day trip to South Korea with Professor Jay Kim changes these ballerinas for life.

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WE WILL BE BONES / Modern Dance professor Ellen Bromberg’s Glyph performed in the Utah Museum of Natural History reflects the power of the traces we leave behind.

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CURTAIN UP, LIGHT THE LIGHTS! / Denny Berry joins the faculty of the Department of Theatre for the revival of the Musical Theatre program.

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THE ARTS ON CAMPUS / At the University of Utah, the arts go far beyond just entertainment; see how they impact the entire University.

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GUEST ARTISTS / See whom the departments brought to campus this last year to broaden and enrich the exploration into the arts.

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JOHN AND MARVA WARNOCK / This donor duo explains what compels their incredibly generous contributions to the College of Fine Arts.

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ANNUAL REPORT / With the utmost gratitude, we list those who have generously contributed to the success and progress of College of Fine Arts.

TABLE of CONTENTS STUDIO / 2014

Contributors

Patty Henetz

A journalist for more than 25 years in Utah, Colorado, California, and Maryland, Patty has been a staff writer and editor for newspapers, including the Deseret News and The Salt Lake Tribune and was a writer-editor with The Associated Press in Salt Lake City. She has written for College Park at the University of Maryland, Continuum at the University of Utah, and Salt Lake Magazine. Prior to her journalism career, she earned her Master’s Degree in U.S. History from the University of California, with emphasis on the American West. As a reporter, she regularly has written about government, the environment, lawmakers, attorneys, advocates, scientific researchers, physicians, artists, teachers, and other newsmakers. Henetz lives in the Avenues district of Salt Lake City.

Rob Tennant

Rob has been a freelance writer on the arts since 2006, and an appreciator of the arts for a lot longer than that. He has written locally and nationally on dance, theatre, film, music, literature, and the visual arts for The Salt Shaker, The Salt Lake City Weekly, and TheFanzine.com. He is an active participant in the arts as a writer of fiction and drama, as well. When not writing, Tennant enjoys hiking, camping, and white-water rafting in Utah’s wild backcountry with his wife, dogs, and soon his baby son. A native and life-long resident of Salt Lake City, Tennant is proud to work on the communications team for the University of Utah College of Fine Arts.

Ian Anderson

Ian is a junior at the University of Utah, studying English and Art History. He began his time at the U working as copy editor and arts journalist for the campus newspaper, The Daily Utah Chronicle. During his sophomore year, he began to tutor undergraduate students through the University’s Writing Center. He soon after was offered the opportunity to work with graduate students, editing the work of the University’s master and PhD graduate students. He continues to work with students in writing, and this project writing for STUDIO has solidified Anderson’s interest in art journalism. He looks forward to graduating from the U within the year.

Chelsea graduated from the University of Utah with degrees in Modern Dance and Design (2010) and has since been traveling the country working film and music festivals — from Sundance Film Festival in Park City to the San Francisco International Film Festival in the Bay area, where she also served as Managing Director of non-profit dance company, KUNST-STOFF. Her passion for movement and visceral design takes her into the studio as CPRowe Photography, capturing the uncensored moments of dancers. You can find Rowe’s work featured in promotional material for the University’s Department of Modern Dance, NBA Sacramento Kings Dancers, KUNST-STOFF Dance Company, FOX’s So You Think You Can Dance: Experience, Dance Spirit Magazine, and Creative Quarterly: A Journal for Art & Design. Follow CPRowe Photography on Facebook, Instagram, and through her website: www.cprowe.com.

Marina Gomberg

Marina is a Utah native and the PR/Communications Manager 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 better part of 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 and cats, and is a contributor to The Huffington Post.

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Amelia Walchli

Chelsea Rowe

contri

Students in the Studio Art program discuss

an inflatable work at an outdoor critique

Editorial Board

Dean Raymond Tymas-Jones

Amy Oakeson

Wendy Wischer

Dan Evans

Sarah Projansky

Design by modern8

Satu Hummasti

Russel Schmidt

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STUDIO / 2014

Faculty Fellows Ian Anderson

T

he College of Fine Ar ts created the Raymond C. Morales Fellowships in 2012 to bring Post-doctorate and Post

MFA educators into the College for t wo-year residencies. Raymond C. Morales is a professor in the Depar tment of Ar t & Ar t Histor y and ser ved as coordinator of the Graphic Design Program for many years. A body of his work is recently exhibited at the David Eccles School of Business to enhance the learning and working environment for students and faculty.

The College of Fine Ar ts honors Morales with this fellowship program in his name in appreciation of his 40 years of dedicated and continued ser vice to the College, and to honor the diverse perspective he brings to the Depar tment of Ar t and Ar t Histor y.

The Raymond C. Morales Fellowships are dedicated to funding, suppor ting and facilitating the success of candidates who specialize in diverse areas of the ar ts, and who will bring those underrepresented perspectives to the College.

The following three features highlight the first Raymond C. Morales Fellows: María del Mar González-González (Ar t & Ar t Histor y), Jessica Pearson (Modern Dance), and Mar tine Kei GreenRogers (Depar tment of Theatre). The three reflect on their experiences and share what they have learned during their time as Fellows.

Raymond C. Morales Fellows

by Ian Anderson and Rob Tennant

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Michael Schoenfeld

Jessica T. Pearson Modern Dance Growing up in the suburbs of Connecticut and attending a private school with a mostly-white student body, Jessica Pearson’s mother sent her to Dee Dee’s Dance Center in New Haven, a predominantly black dance studio where she was able to gain more access to a community that reflected her racial identity. “There was a certain aesthetic at that studio—to dance hard, to be powerful and to have performance,” Pearson said. When asked how these early experiences have manifested into her professional career as a dancer, she said laughing, “I think it’s how I get noticed.”

Pearson was noticed and was selected as a Raymond C. Morales Fellow for the Department of Modern Dance at the University of Utah in 2012. Pearson was chosen not only for her excellent pedagogy and teaching philosophy but to bring a technique not regularly offered to the department, The Horton Technique.

“It is a very linear technique—has to do with various exercises to strengthen or gain flexibility in certain body parts,” said Pearson. Founded by Lester Horton, The Horton Technique was established on the West Coast while the majority of the modern dance movement was happening in either New York or Europe. This technique, she explains, offers another approach to more established modern dance practices, further widening a dancer’s approach and vocabulary to their craft.

While the Department of Modern Dance offers a variety of dance styles to the students, The Horton Technique brings a kind of attention to line and precision that will effectively deepen the education and training of dance majors at the U. After her undergraduate studies at Maryland’s Towson University, Pearson began dancing professionally with the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble in Denver. Her first solo for the company was in acclaimed choreographer Carlos dos Santos’ Divinities. Having a successful run and response in the troupe’s home base in Denver, the piece was taken to New York City to be performed at the Joyce Theater.

“My picture and review of the show was in the New York Times on Aug 20, 2003 — my birthday. It’s a memorable

experience from many angles,” laughed Pearson.

After five years with the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Pearson decided to earn her MFA in Dance from the University of Colorado Boulder. She was interested in gaining a theoretical understanding of dance to add to her physical application. “It challenged me in a new way—I knew dance as only a practitioner and was ready to dive into theory,” she said.

She says a seminar class on race and gender was particularly challenging initially, because she didn’t understand its relationship to modern dance. “I didn’t get the relevance of it at first,” she said, “but after a while, I saw how it really started to transform the way I looked at dance.” This change was the spark that made Pearson pursue a career in education.

Now at the U, Pearson says her students are extremely positive and inspiring. “They are driven, they want to perform, they want to collaborate,” she said, admiring their dedication. “They are always in the building!”

In January of 2013, Pearson presented at the 2013 International Association of Blacks in Dance Conference and in the Fall of 2013 she taught “African American Experience Through the Lens of Dance and Entertainment” through the University’s Department of Ethnic Studies. She initially found the prospect of teaching a semester-long lecture intimidating, but ultimately found the challenge rewarding. “It gave me the freedom to go deeper into the material than I could have with a typical dance history series,” Pearson says.

Pearson’s experience as a Morales Fellow has given her the opportunity to grow as a choreographer and a scholar, as well. Her piece for the Fall Performing Dance Company concert, It Continues, marked an important developmental step for her as a choreographer. According to Pearson, “I made a piece that was about something. It had meaning and substance and research behind it. It was a piece about social justice. A next-level piece for the next level in my career.” ≠

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Michael Schoenfeld

María del Mar González-González Art & Art History When it comes to art history, María del Mar GonzálezGonzález is on a mission to bring recognition to Latin American work, which she says is an essential, but missing part of most students’ education of art history.

“I remember thinking I could re-educate people with art history. This is me being a super idealistic 21 year-old,” González-González laughed, recalling her initial interest in studying art history. Bringing attention to the complicated history of Latin American art in the Western art canon has been a challenge, but one that González-González says is crucial to the complete and true detailing of art history.

The Raymond C. Morales Fellow for the Department of Art & Art History brings this idealism to the classroom and the “re-education” she refers to plays out as she encourages her students to question and challenge the prepackaged version of art history she received as a student.

Growing up in Puerto Rico, González-González said her schooling included little on Latin American history, and, ironically, virtually no mention of Puerto Rican history. “Instead, we focused on the history of America, which was paired with art instruction based only on Western-European models,” she said.

González-González initially studied Studio Arts as an undergraduate student, until she noticed a strange lack of material and literature on Latin American art.

It was while in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that she “began to see things differently,” she said. “I realized there wasn’t a lot written on [Latin America], especially anything critical. I started questioning the way I had been raised.”

It was this void that inspired her to investigate how various cultures are represented in art theory, criticism and history. “During my transition from college to graduate school in a predominantly Anglo-American setting, I encountered a general unfamiliarity, and lack of respect and recognition of the social and cultural contributions of Spanish-speaking peoples,” GonzálezGonzález said. “These experiences prompted me to become engaged in the juxtaposition of race, ethnicity, class and gender in representations of Latin American 6 STUDIO / 2014

and Latina/Latino culture within my education.”

And while González-González has chosen to anchor her work in art related to Latin American and Latina/Latino subjects, this emphasis has more broadly impacted the ways in which she views the entirety of the art history discipline. “This sudden realization about the importance of studying Latina/Latino art has given me insight into the biases of art history’s disciplinary frame, which I now seek to expand and push the limits of in both my research and teaching,” she said.

González-González often takes notes while teaching, attempting to capture different perspectives that result in her students’ engagement with the material. “I like teaching because it’s not just me imposing what I think on the students, but I can also hear what they think.”

Speaking specifically of U of U students, González-González praises their ability to be “very open” with unfamiliar or controversial subject matter.

She was initially struck by the emphasis on diversity in the Department of Art & Art History at the U. It was this emphasis, combined with the Fellowship’s creative freedom, that González-González says has enabled her to teach the things she is most passionate about, and to work as a bridge bringing Modern and Latin art together.

“They are actually going to allow me to do what I want — to teach the classes I want to teach,” she said.

Her course load at the U has included an introduction to history centered on Chicana/Chicano art, and “Art and Conflict”, a seminar course on the ways in which art and politics intersect. She has plans for a course on Caribbean art for the Spring 2014 semester, as well.

González-González has expanded access to Latin American art education beyond the classroom, as well.

With the help of a Dee Grant through the College of Fine Arts, she was able to bring the renowned artists Harry Gamboa Jr., and Miguel Luciano to campus as part of a lecture series open to the entire student body.

She is grateful for the opportunities afforded her by the Morales Fellowship to increase awareness of the art and artists so close to her heart. ≠

Michael Schoenfeld

Martine Kei Green-Rogers’ love affair with theater began at a very young age. Of course then, she says, theater was just an outlet for her boundless energy.

“I have been doing it since the age of four—it boiled down to my grandmother thinking I had too much energy and not a constructive place to put it.”

Theater eventually turned into the lifelong passion that has led Green-Rogers to the University of Utah Department of Theatre as a Raymond C. Morales Fellow.

Specializing in themes of violence in African American theatre, Green-Rogers’ distinctive areas of interest help U of U students explore sensitive subject matter through discussions about theatre.

She points to the play Mulatto by Langston Hughes and the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Topdog/Underdog

by Suzan-Lori Parks as powerful works that include violence within their stories.

“The threat of racially motivated violence [in Mulatto] hangs over all of the characters in the world of this play because of the historic racial tensions of the time,” Green-Rogers said. “In contrast, African American violence is internalized within Topdog/ Underdog, as the African American characters inflict violence upon each other.”

“Theater is a really interesting look into the soul of human beings,” said Green-Rogers. “Whether you believe a scenario happening on stage is real, or not, what is presented on stage says a lot about the person who wrote it, the person who staged it, and the people

Martine Kei Green-Rogers Theatre

who are in it. How that comes together fascinates me. I love and appreciate my race and culture's documentation of its history and legacy through the theatre, which sometimes includes violence,” Green-Rogers said, “but I am also interested in theatrical ways of addressing the injustices in the world and hopefully alleviating some of that violence through constructive activities.”

Green-Rogers says her work is centered on what she describes as “social justice theater” — theater that actively engages with the social and cultural issues that surround us today. It was this unique perspective that led Green-Rogers to the U as a Morales Fellow. She says the fellowship allows her the freedom to explore and develop the classes she has always wanted to teach.

“I attempt to illustrate how being able to intellectually wrestle with the work we do as artists is just as important as the work itself,” Green-Rogers said.

“I think it is important to be ‘responsible’ artists since what we do affects people, hopefully, if we are doing it right. We have to take that responsibility seriously.”

And while studying violence, race, gender, politics and society are the foci of some of the classes GreenRogers teaches, she says the end goal is to have a deeper understanding of the theory and history of theatrical presentations.

When asked about her experience at the U, GreenRogers says students are embracing the material and asking similar, potentially controversial questions.

“Students here are open to a lot of different ideas” she said. “I could deflect and turn volatile questions back to the student to avoid being controversial but, in the end, if the idea of an education is the exchange of ideas, I have to be willing to share my ideas just as I expect them to share theirs.”

In her tenure as a Fellow, Green-Rogers has made the most of her time at the U, working on various publications, contributing to Department of Theatre performances, and finding her professorial voice.

“They’ve said they aren’t putting any pressure on [us] — they just want to see what will happen with this opportunity and this time. So I thought, ‘If I can do whatever I want, I am doing everything,” GreenRogers laughed.

She has been able to design multiple courses, including Representing Race and Gender: African American Theatre, and Devising Social Justice Theatre.

Green-Rogers has used her experiences and time at the U to present at several conferences, a highlight of which includes creating multiple discussion panels for the acclaimed Association for Theater in Higher Education conference in Orlando, Fl. in August of 2013. She also serves on the Presidential Commission for the Status of Women and the Bias Incident Response Team. She was also particularly excited for the chance to flex her performing muscles as Gary Coleman in the critically acclaimed sold-out run of Avenue Q at the University of Utah’s Babcock Theatre in November of 2013. ≠ 7 STUDIO / 2014

Teratoma, 2012 / photo by Walker Montgomery

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AUREN Gallaspy’s ceramic work invests quotidian life with an intentionally

unsettling inner purpose.

By roughing up and distorting commonplace paint-your-own ceramic figurines, she transforms them into uncomfortable, even ugly, iterations meant to disguise objects we may in our domestic pasts have been told were too delicate to touch. Gallaspy intends to evoke the idea of danger and fragility inherent in even the most benign and familiar ceramic objects.

“Like wolves disguised as poodles,” she says.

The College of Fine Arts is pleased to showcase Gallaspy, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art & Art History. She has received recognition from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts as an Emerging Artist, and in 2012, received a prestigious Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors grant recognizing her unique ceramic creations.

Gallaspy says she sees the awards essentially as an encouragement to enter her studio with a certain purpose: keep creating.

She received her BFA in ceramics at the University of Georgia in Athens, and her MFA from Alfred University in Alfred, New York. Her studio practice includes sculptural and functional ceramics as well as painting and drawing. She has exhibited widely in galleries, museums and at conferences nationally and internationally since 2004. From 2009 to 2012, Gallaspy served as co-director and owner of Trace Gallery in Athens, Georgia.

Gallaspy says her first affinity was painting, but she was drawn to clay. She started out clumsy, she says, yet intrigued with the material’s challenges

and possibilities. As a three-year-old, she drew weird creatures interacting in their weird ways.

“I pretty much do the same thing today,” she says, only with clay. “I love the material,” she says.

“I love what it offers.”

One of the sculptures submitted to the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Tar Baby, is a 15-inch-tall hand-built piece that looks as if it were melting. In a reversal of the classic and alienating children’s story, Gallaspy found joy in getting so stuck in the material she couldn’t tell where she ended and the material began, an intrinsic connection rather than a trap.

Using coil, pinching, and slab-building techniques, Gallaspy embeds the objects in clay along with bits and shards of other material. She uses wet slip to hold it all together, then applies wet, dry, fired and unfired pieces to make abstract and representational images on the surface of a piece.

This unconventional, even subversive technique, “is exactly what we’re told not to do,” she says.

In her artist’s statement, she states that her work “is about that imbalance: the vulnerability of living things and the sometimes violent, sometimes pleasurable, almost always complex consequences that occur when bodies and objects in the world come into contact with one another.”

Decoration in the work “acts as a bridge between language and form, supporting paths between the brain and the body,” she says, “but also as a way to entwine cultural meaning with personal stories.”

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PATTY HENETZ 9 STUDIO / 2014

Footprint, 2009 / photo by Walker Montgomery

A sculpture stretches a grandmother’s frail china teacup almost beyond recognition. A clay bird hitting a tree trunk becomes a squalid mess like a tossed wedding bouquet disintegrating as it falls through the air. The bird figurine incorporated into that piece, Gallaspy says, tells what it means to have a body when that body erupts.

An airy filigree crowns a piece called How to Catch a Rabbit with tiny clay coils dried stiff before Gallaspy made them part of the sculpture. She says she is open to any interpretations of her work. Is it a cage or a trap coming out of the figurine’s head? Maybe.

Some of her work, she says, is small enough to 10 STUDIO / 2014

hold in her hands. She imagines the size of a work she could tuck into her torso, to feel or sense the size of her own heart. She asks, what is the space of a vessel? How is its inside different from its outside?

How can she explain what she does in earthbound language?

Gallaspy’s awards compliment the College of Fine Arts, and offer a tribute to the University of Utah. For her, they confirm her belief in the value of enduring objects no matter where they may be on the artistic spectrum. “I’ve had experiences with objects, with art, that have changed me,” she says.

She sees teaching as collaboration with her students, and encourages them to approach their work as a personal investment through

Glossolalia, 2012 / photo by Walker Montgomery

Her work “is about that imbalance: the vulnerability of living things and the sometimes violent, sometimes pleasurable, almost always complex consequences that occur when bodies and objects in the world come into contact with one another.”

experimentation and curiosity, to work hard and have fun.

Brian Snapp, Art & Art History chair, says Gallaspy’s work is “downright disruptive,” like a tchotchke whose amiable familiarity draws us in, then shocks us. From 30 feet away, the works seem fragile, or maybe like an animal running past.

Examination up close allows the observer to enter an imaginative space. Intimacy grows.

Yes, it is difficult to describe. The problem is matching images to words. Artists’ descriptive vocabularies are not meant to be evasive, but can fail to meet the strength of their work. “We speak in metaphor all the time,” Snapp says.

Making her art is a pleasurable way to approach

life’s mysteries yet allow escape from existential terror. “I believe in permanence,” Gallaspy says.

“Ceramics is a permanent material. It has endured thousands and thousands and thousands of years.”

Gallaspy reads poetry by Emily Dickinson and Kay Ryan to ramp up her studio work which is like visible poetry. As with poetry, she says, her attempts to describe art aims to protect its meaning, not obfuscate.

When she speaks of her work, she calls it “esoteric brain-pushing” whose mystery she would rather not violate. All people wonder at the mystery of art, but she doesn’t want to think of an audience when she’s in the studio. “There’s something at the core of this,” she says. “We have different ways of addressing it.” π 11 STUDIO / 2014

Michael Schoenfeld

WO 12 STUDIO // 2014 2014

With Wind in His Sails

by Patty Henetz

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H The Forward Four (left to right): Katty Marin, Samuel Noyce, Jairo Velazquez, and Henry Caceres / photo by Nick Steffans

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ENRY Caceres played his first wind instrument when he was eight years old. His father, an officer in the Chilean Marine Corps who played with the military band for fun, had to hold the trombone to his boy’s lips because Henry’s arms were too short to work the slide.

That’s all it took for Caceres to decide he would always study music and play wind instruments. His first was a pan flute. When he first started attending a Chilean high school he says was like the school in the movie Fame, he picked up a clarinet and played it by ear. He was 11, and he’s been playing the clarinet ever since.He likes the instrument for its four-octave range, almost as wide as a piano’s. “It’s the closest woodwind instrument to the human voice,” Caceres says. “We can grunt. We can sound like a bird, sometimes like an elephant.

Or like a big ship.” Using just the mouthpiece, he says, “can sound like a baby crying.”

His odyssey to the U began in 2003, when School of Music Associate Professor of Clarinet Kathy Pope organized the International Clarinet Festival on campus. Pope, who chairs the woodwinds area of the department, was the principal clarinetist for Ballet West from 1989–2012, and substituted with the Utah Symphony from 1978-2012. She has played with the Opus Chamber Orchestra, Utah Chamber Artists, and has been a soloist with the Salt Lake Symphony. She is the National Clarinet Repertoire Consultant for the Music Teachers National Association. She has recorded three solo CDs to international acclaim.

Pope also serves as a U.S. Artist/Clinician for Buffet Crampon, a French woodwinds manufacturer famous for its clarinets favored by professionals; served on the International Clarinet Association Board of Directors from 2010 to 2012; and is the Utah chair of the International Clarinet Association.

Caceres’ aunt and uncle who live in Salt Lake City happen to know Pope. Just before the festival commenced, they introduced him to the professor who would become his champion and taskmaster.

“He is absolutely the most talented and finest student I’ve ever had,” Pope says. “Henry has been a wonderful mentor to the other students.”

Caceres applied to the School of Music for his Master of Music in Clarinet Performance degree, which he received in 2006 with scholarship assistance. When his visa and scholarship expired, and because the U School of Music wasn’t yet offering a DMA, he returned to Chile as associate principal clarinetist with La Orquesta Sinfónica de la Universidad de Concepción. In 2009, Caceres returned to the U for his doctoral studies. While he

The Forward Four perform to a sold out crowd at the Semanas Musicales de Frutilla, Chili 2014

is here, the Chilean orchestra is holding the position open for him. It’s a post that demands virtuosity, requiring him to play at least three different types of clarinet. He may have to substitute for the clarinet soloist, which would mean on-the-spot sight reading during a performance.

Caceres’ doctoral work examines Venezuelan composer Jorge Montilla’s clarinet adaptations of joropo and Venezuelan Merengue, the waltz-like national dance since 1882. There are many versions of where and how the folk music originated and its European and African influences. (It’s thought that 18th century llaneros (herders) of Venezuela and eastern Colombia adapted joropo from fandango, meaning “party.”)

At the U, Caceres leads the group Forward Four Clarinet Quartet, whose name sometimes can be confounding, as in three of their pieces the group includes six musicians. Caceres explains: In concert, the main programs are for four clarinets. Plus, he says, “almost every piece we play lasts four minutes.”

Forward Four came together in 2010. Caceres, his wife, Katty Marin, Jairo Velzquez and Samuel Noyce

“A musician who can project emotions, touch your heart, make you cry, he’s Carolina Angulo

doing a good job.”

are its current members. The group includes graduate and undergraduate students, and accepts the extra members as needed. They play across many genres, including baroque, chamber, contemporary, folk dance, salsa, tango, merengue, Bach, Mozart, blues and jazz. The musicians usually play E-flat soprano, B-flat soprano, and B-flat bass clarinets.

At first, the group called itself the Utah Clarinet Quartet. Under that name, they have been invited to many noted festivals, including multiple appearances at International Clarinet Conventions here and abroad. To audition, they must submit live, unedited recordings, and compete with professional musicians.

Their invitation to the Texas Tech University Clarinet Festival was unprecedented. “They never had invited a student group,” Caceres says.

For their performance at the July 2013 International Clarinet Convention in Assisi, Italy, the Quartet commissioned Igor Iachimciuc, Associate Instructor at the U School of Music, to compose Ca la Breaza, a dance with Romanian folk-dance components that Caceres wanted to be accessible enough for anyone to enjoy it. As a complement,

Caceres arranged traditional klezmer folk dance music, a challenge to play on clarinet.

The quartet had only a month to rehearse the difficult program. Caceres says he likes to practice a piece 100 times at very slow tempo, periodically adjusting the metronome until the musicians can play the fast tempo faultlessly.

Ca la Breaza is thrilling. Other pieces they play lend themselves to soul-searching and even meditative states. Caceres says a hundred musicians might play the same piece, but only a few can reach the soul. “A lot of emotions are written in the music,” he says. “A musician who can project emotions, touch your heart, make you cry, he’s doing a good job.”

Pope’s standards are demanding, so her reactions are Caceres’ barometer. “One time we were rehearsing a sonata, and she said, ‘You made me cry.’”

Caceres planned to finish his DMA in Spring 2014. Because he is here on a student visa, he says, he could stay an additional year if he could find employment as a professional musician. Beyond that, he can only guess. Meanwhile, the Chilean orchestra beckons. π 15 STUDIO / 2014

Benjamin Mielke

Dan Witho Bor by Patty Henetz

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J

uan Carlos Claudio’s ambitious efforts to expand the Modern Dance department’s influence beyond Utah had a rocky start when he could not lure students to his inaugural Dance and Community and Service Learning– Modern Dance class. It was a new idea, and busy students with professional aspirations did not yet understand Claudio’s notion of dance activism.

An Assistant Professor of Modern Dance, Claudio wanted to take U dancers to the orphanages in Arraijan, near Panama City, Panama, where many people live in poverty. Claudio was new to the faculty, and no one could see how he could make the program happen, he says. And yet, he managed to recruit eight

ncers out rders students for the 2012 Panama trip.

Once in Panama, a nation with one of the worst records for economic disparity in the world, and where public funding for the arts education is minimal, the student volunteers found a deeper meaning of their art through service learning in a Third World country. Using dance as both a cultural and an educational medium, they promoted cultural awareness, support for the arts and creative development in Panama’s disadvantaged communities. In turn, the students learned about Central American geography, politics, and education issues and built artistic and community relationships between the two nations.

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Benjamin Mielke

University of Utah Modern Dance students with orphans from Aldea SOS, Panama 2013

The language barrier did not last for long, says The following year, after a transformative recent MFA graduate Lynn Bobzin. With assistance, presentation by the first volunteers to the entire dance and by learning rudimentary Spanish, the obstacle faculty, Claudio had 20 applicants. He selected 12. That group of accomplished undergrad and graduate dancers disappeared. “If you can count in Spanish up to eight,” she says, “you’re golden.” with teaching skills traveled to Arraijan and Portobello Claudio completed his MFA in 2009 and joined in Colon province in Spring 2013 with the full support the University’s Modern Dance faculty. During his 10 of the department.

“Even though I encountered some hesitation to make years with Utah’s Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, he absorbed the company’s philosophy that dance is for the exchange happen the first time around,” Claudio everybody. “I already knew the pleasure and gratitude of says, “it was worth every trial I encountered.” working in disadvantaged communities,” he says.

Having researched the nation’s social troubles, the While looking for ways to get his students involved U volunteers prepared themselves for the realities of with artistic community engagement, he saw an the extreme poverty that forces many families to place their children in orphanages, a difficult decision for any ad for Movement Exchange, founded by dancer parent. The students were understandably anxious. But Anna Pasternak. The group works with several U.S. when they joined in the orphans’ lives, they encountered universities, the U.S. Embassy in Panama, the National University of Panama and orphanages to develop the universal and natural joy of kids learning to dance, even if accompaniment was sometimes little more than cross-cultural understanding and community-building through dance. Claudio connected with Pasternak hand-clapping and drumming on available surfaces. and with a foundation run by jazz musician and “Creativity lives in everybody,” Claudio says. “We were immersed in the lives of these orphans. Every class philanthropist Danilo Perez.

The hectic Panama schedule started as soon as the was a celebration. Every class was magical.”

Utah entourage stepped off the plane. They got going The U dancers brought to Panama their “unique every morning at 7:30 to offer classes to University of perspectives on dance, performance and artistic Panama dancers, then headed for their own lessons creation,” Claudio says. The first year, the volunteers from a Panamanian teacher. After lunch and well into taught 18 community classes, working with more than 500 students. The second year taught 25 classes, the night, they traveled between five orphanages, all different – some for only the very young, some without and worked with more than 600 students. During the two trips, they collectively contributed nearly 900 age limits, some for boys and some for girls.

The dancers paired off to lead the children in hours of teaching.

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Juan Carlos Claudio taking class with the students from the Danilo Perez Foundation, Panama 2013

contemporary technique, movement, improvisation, balance and how to understand the space in which they dance with others. When their days wrapped up around 9:30 at night, the students talked about the way the children pressed around them, and which of the kids escaped their shells of private trauma to join in. Some of the children asked the students to take them along when they left. Some nights, the U students cried.

Girls in the orphanages generally must leave when they turn 18. Few of the orphanages let boys stay when they are past puberty. After that, they are on their own.

“I think we were all touched by the boys,” Bobzin says.

Claudio likes to tell a story how one of the volunteers, attuned to the rigors of formal dance training, hung back at first from the freewheeling children. She eventually told her U peers that she had worried she would learn more from the kids than she could teach them. By surrendering to the children’s natural exuberance, she realized dance does not belong only to the stage.

One of Pasternak’s guidelines instructs the dancers to get together each night and talk about their “apples” and “onions” of the day. “A lot of the apples were so beautiful,” Bobzin says. “One of mine was, I sat in the corner and played hand-clapping with the kids.” But even onions that grew from classes spinning out of control, she says, were as meaningful as successes.

“When you walk out, you are totally changed,” Bobzin says. “I was hooked. It nourished me as a human being.

I feel like all dancers can be activists every day.” π

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Benjamin Mielke

“She had worried she would learn more from the kids than she could teach them.”

by Patty Henetz

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F

still from The Executioner’s Vacation

ROM an early age, Miriam and Sonia Sobrino wanted to be filmmakers, but in their native Spain, film schools looked to Hollywood movies for inspiration. That is not the kind of work they wanted to do, nor did they want to attend prestigious film schools on the East or West Coasts of the United States...

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still from The Story of a Satellite, Rafael and the Mother who Gave Birth to Him

Rafael played by Alfonso Míguez, Bárbara played by Bárbara

Sisters Miriam (left) and Sonia

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They found just what they were looking for at the University of Utah Department of Film & Media Arts – freedom, openness and faculty support for unique artistic approaches.

“Coming to the U was probably the best decision we ever made,” Miriam says. Or was it Sonia? No matter – the sisters are identical twins who talk alike, finish each other’s sentences, and have a shared vision when they create the imaginary worlds where they set their stories. As they like to say, “Thinking as one is not hard, what is hard is to know who thought what.”

Their MFA thesis project, The Story of a Satellite, Rafael and the Mother Who Gave Birth to Him, is their first featurelength effort after establishing their creative reputation with extraordinary short films.

The Sobrinos write, direct and produce their films. They first played with filmmaking as children with a borrowed camera, but when it came time to enter the adult world, they trained as nurses. For a few years, they worked in Spain, Portugal and Scotland, learning to watch over people from all over the world. They

translated those observational skills to filmmaking when they decided to follow their creative hearts.

People laughed when they told them what they were up to. The Sobrinos laughed back.

They are close, but they can be honest with each other. “We share a brain,” says Sonia Sobrino. “But we still have so many differences about life.”

The Sobrinos call themselves the Also Sisters, and have screened their films at festivals including the Raindance Film Festival in London, the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Galician Academy Awards in Spain. “Everything we do, we make sure people know we are from the University of Utah,” says Miriam Sobrino.

“Everyone knows in Spain that we are here,” Sonia Sobrino says.

When they complete The Story of a Satellite, Rafael and the Mother Who Gave Birth to Him, which they say is a black comedy about a man whose father is hit by a falling satellite, they hope to teach film in the United States and continue their artistic work.

Their films are non-linear, moody, eerie, usually with minimal dialogue. The sound and art direction are not plainly illustrative but rather suggestive, not just of what is on the screen, but what might be in the characters’ hearts and minds. Films ought to be visceral, the pair says. If you could close your eyes but still know what was happening, as with so many commercial movies, you

“Thinking as one is not hard, what is hard is to know who thought what.” will not be viewing a Sobrino Sisters film.

If you want edgy, experimental and dreamlike films exploring rituals, death and human inscrutability, however, they will provide. Take The Executioner’s Vacation, nominated for Best Short at the Galician Academy Awards in Spain, accepted for the 15th International Film Festival of Bratislava, an official selection for the 2013 Salt Lake City Film Festival and screened at the 2013 Brigade des images Exhibition in Paris and the 2013 Cannes Short Film Market.

The 12-minute film follows an executioner in a timeless dream-Spain. Capital punishment there ended in 1975, yet posters hanging on building walls advertise the 2072 Olympics. The executioner, whom Spaniards would know inherited the family trade, tries to get away from his job but cannot. He is using a wrench to repair the garrotte, a horrific device dating to Roman times and used in Spain to strangle the condemned with an iron collar that drives a spike into the back of his neck. The wrench, a recurring motif, is stuck shut.

The executioner buys a new wrench, dreams of running through a forest, hears birdsong and lovemaking.

A radio airs a scratchy speech from King Alfonso XIII, whose abdication in the 1930s set in motion the Spanish Civil War and the fascist regime that lasted four decades. He meets a woman who sings him a Jewish lullaby and tells him he could pass for a normal man, or a bullfighter. He goes fishing using maggots

as bait (a maggot gets a disquieting close-up), envisions a bullfight, sees it again in a subliminal flash. The end credits show the open wrench lying on the ground.

As with all of the Sobrinos’ films, the troubling epiphanies in The Executioner’s Vacation are inconclusive and open to interpretation. "Our films try to challenge the viewer, demanding an active role from them,” Miriam Sobrino says, “which is key to deciphering the meanings or ideas behind our works."

Actor Alfonso Míguez, the protagonist of The Executioner’s Vacation, is invaluable to their success, they say. "He is somehow our muse,” she says. “We wrote the feature script with him in mind.”

They say they have friends who probably will be good at learning how to make mainstream films. But will people long remember the characters or overused storylines? “We don’t want to make the same films as anyone else,” Sonia Sobrino says.

The sisters reject the idea that artists tend to create work and characters in their own image. “Most of the time, we try to run away from ourselves,” Sonia Sobrino says. At the same time, they hold onto their Spanish heritage. "Our culture is key to our style, and as long as we can, we will always try to incorporate it in our films,” she says. “We are Europeans, we are Spanish, and as artists we embrace that when making our films." π

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It was the kind of trip most professional dancers would love to go on, let alone college students. by Patty Henetz

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NDREA Gossels had never traveled overseas until she flew to Seoul, South Korea, with 19 other fellow ballet students for a cultural exchange that involved a bit of ballet-culture shock. Though the Korean dancers’ styles and techniques were similar to those the U students practiced, their semi-professionalism, strict formality and deference to audience expectations were different for the Utah dancers trained in a variety of dance methods and techniques for broad appeal.

But that is what global outreach is all about, says rituals thousands of years ago. Many of the dances were Jong-Hoon “Jay” Kim, Assistant Professor of Ballet. The suppressed, however, when Korea was under Japanese whole point of such exchanges is to expand students’ rule from the early 20th century until the end of World minds to professional opportunities beyond Utah and War II. Re-creation of the traditional followed, leading to the United States, and to show them how art grows from today’s appreciation of folk dance taught at many Korean life experience. universities. With their participation, especially in the In May of 2013, Kim, a Seoul native, traveled to the traditional Lantern Dance, the U dancers contributed to South Korean capital with 20 Department of Ballet the revival, part of their global eye-opening, Kim says. students for a ten-day exchange. They joined with the “I was really proud of our students,” Kim says. In Korean Ballet Theatre at the 900-seat Nowon Cultural turn, the Koreans “were really impressed by the energy Arts Theatre, where they presented two performances of the American dancers,” he says. “Our artistry is our for the people of Seoul. They danced Kim’s original strength.” choreographic work Binari and Dr. Jung Shik Roh’s As is usual with international exchanges, the work Transcendence alongside classical works presented language barrier required different approaches to by the Korean Ballet. The Utah dancers also joined cooperation. At first, the Korean dancers were shy, but it their Korean counterparts in classes hosted by the didn’t take long for the young women of both nations to leading professors and ballet masters of Korea at Sejong University, Kim’s undergraduate alma mater, which he U of U Ballet dancers pose with Professor Jay Kim outside the Gyeong considers the best dance college in Asia.

Bok Gung Palace in Seoul after participating in a 10-day international The Korean Ballet Theatre’s presentations of classical exchange including master classes at the Sejong University and performing Professor Kim's original choreographic work Binari in a works highlighted small and large differences between joint performance with the Korean Ballet Theatre, May 2013 the two artistic cultures, Gossels says. For one, the Utah dancers all do their own hair and makeup, while professional stylists make sure the Korean dancers look alike. The Koreans train uniformly, and dance the classics medley-style before highly critical audiences who know how to gauge quality. The Utah dancers are taught multiple styles and techniques to appeal to many distinct audiences.

The differences melted away during their performance, however. The theatre is a universal place, Gossels says. “Once you’re in the theatre,” she says, “you could be anywhere.”

All of the U dancers in the group were women, most of them top students in the Ballet department, Kim says. Their classes and workshops included Korean folk dance, modern dance and ballet. Korean art culture is formal, with heavy pressure to have perfect technique, Kim says. His approach is to be more forgiving, to let students make mistakes from which they can learn.

“I learned so much about communication, how to take risks,” Gossels says. “In order to live, you have to take risks.”

Korean traditional dance originated in ancient 26 STUDIO / 2014

start laughing and figuring out ways to communicate in the studio, Kim says.

The music provided cues, as did facial expressions and body language. “I was amazed,” Gossels says, “at how much conversation we could have.”

The cultural differences, however, weren’t all about language and stage presentation. “There was a level of respect for elders that isn’t emphasized here,” Gossels says. “Eastern culture is about respecting wisdom.”

The Utah dancers were quick to recognize this, and adjusted their comportment accordingly. Kim credits their general well-roundedness for serving them well abroad. “They didn’t have any trouble,” he says. “It wasn’t just their dancing, it was how they presented themselves, which the Koreans appreciated.”

The students practiced a Korean folk dance and a ballet piece at Sejong University at the end of their trip.

Students also attended performances of Shim Chung (The Blindman’s Daughter), presented by the Universal Ballet Company at the National Theater of Korea.

Kim started thinking of the exchange in 2012, when he accepted his position as Artistic Director of the Utah Ballet, the Ballet Department’s premiere performance company. That summer, he served as coordinator while the Korean Ballet Theatre of Seoul toured and performed throughout the United States. His duties included making hotel reservations and ballet class arrangements for the company. For the 2013 exchange, he worked

for months with both universities to arrange logistics, including booking performances five months in advance. “It wasn’t easy,” he says.

Just as the Utah dance group were preparing for the trip, they heard that the North Korean administration under Kim Jong Un was making repeated threats against the United States, South Korea, and the military forces in the Pacific. The threats included declarations that the North could carry out pre-emptive nuclear strikes against the United States.

But once in South Korea, the students let go their apprehensions. “I felt completely safe in Korea,” Gossels says. “The biggest threat was getting hit by a bus.”

She believes she is now better able to think globally, but that she did not really know what that meant until she left the United States. “Just finding a meal in Korea was an adventure for us,” she says.

Gossels says living in a different culture, even just for 10 days, has changed her forever. “It becomes part of you. You don’t forget it,” she says. “It’s a feeling that sticks with you.” ≠

“I learned so much about communication, how to take risks.

In order to live, you have to take risks.” ~ Andrea Gossels

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We Will Be Bones

As Modern Dance Professor Ellen Bromberg absorbed what she saw on a trip to Egypt – tombs and temples filled with hieroglyphs, she thought of glyphs more broadly: the nonverbal residue or artifacts that pass on important information while we live and after we die, like signposts with arrows pointing the way.

Upon entering the Canyon at the Utah Museum of Natural History, Bromberg was led to the bold idea for her students to dance within the magnificent space and amidst the life-size dinosaur skeletons and replicas.

The museum is a spectacular repository telling of Utah’s ancient glaciated mountains hovering over a vast inland sea, the gaseous swamplands where giant reptiles once thrived and died, and the arid high desert that we inhabit today. The exhibits are all about residue.

With death as the backdrop, Bromberg’s plans for the performance, Glyph, would embody presence.

College of Architecture and Planning Professor Jim Agutter created a 45-minute interactive multimedia 28 STUDIO / 2014

component for the dance in the layered space and soaring walls of the museum. At the invitation of the U’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, student Amanda Newman applied for and received a grant to fund her participation as collaborator, logistics manager and performer.

During late-night rehearsals at the empty museum, the students practiced Bromberg’s choreography that moved them through all the glyphs on display, the dinosaur bones, the bridge over the canyon, even the map kiosks and administrative countertops. On the night of the performance, the museum filled with patrons, some unaware ahead of time that fourteen dancers in red would be there, too. The students had planned their solos but also had to improvise in the moment to meld with their fellow dancers and the visitors surrounding them.

A quiet, intimate sound score by New York composer Ryan Ross Smith, commissioned for the performance,

Wenting Sun and dancers in the Canyon

Grace Cheney (left) and Amanda Newman in Past Worlds performed at the Utah Museum of Natural History

floated from speakers set up around the museum space.

The students danced one-by-one in front of a blackand-white projected image of words from obituaries of their family members. As each dancer moved past this ephemeral digital artifact, their bodily forms appeared in highlighted text on the screen, with some of the black words turning red. In one instance, when Newman passed in front of the screen, the word “changed” lit up.

The images of their bodies were there, then gone.

To Newman, the dance represented two interpretations of a wake: a celebration of the dead, and a trail for others to follow. As a dancer, she says, “you know there have been ten people in front of you,” she says, “pulling you while you leave a wake behind you.”

As the last dancer left the museum “stage,” she performed an arabesque to indicate the end. But the audience members spontaneously followed her up the stairs into the next space. Somehow, they knew they were supposed to follow.

“Improvising on life and death in the unusual museum venue had great impact on the young students,” Bromberg says. Our culture shuns talk of death even though we know life is going to end. The event “opened up a nonverbal community dialogue,” she says. “We were all speaking the same language about time. We were looking at our own mortality and our own presence. We are dead much longer than we are alive. We will be bones.” ≠

“We were all speaking the same language about time.

We were looking at our own mortality and our own presence.

We are dead much longer than we are alive. We will be bones.”

by Patty Henetz photos by Paulmichael Maxfield

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Curtain Up, Light the Lights!

“There’s nobody else in the state that would do the productions we do. They wouldn’t touch them.” ~ Gage Williams

Sara Child and Jaron Barney in The Wild Party

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After a hiatus of more than 25 years, U students in 2014 will graduate with BFA degrees in Musical Theatre, thanks to renewed, widespread interest in shows that combine singing, dancing, acting and profound storylines.

It is a tough program to get into, says Department of Theatre Chair Gage Williams, as admission is based only on auditions, preferably live at the U or in cities visited as part of the National Unified Auditions for undergraduate BFA candidates. The department auditions about 200 potentials to then accept 40, all of whom have been singing and dancing since they were quite young. Once in the U program, students aim not for graduate school, but for a professional theatre career. The program does not even offer MFA degrees. “It’s all about getting the talented ones,” Williams says. “Ideally, you would be prepared after a BFA to go into the market.”

The Musical Theatre program, shut down in 1986, was reestablished in 2010. Its success can be measured in sell-out crowds for the kind of sophisticated fare produced on Broadway. Since Williams has been chair, the lineup has included She Loves Me and Romeo and Juliet. From 2011 to 2014, the department has presented some distinctly mature fare, including Avenue Q, Wild Party, Spring Awakening, ‘Tis a Pity She’s a Whore, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), and Hair. The shows have been ninety-eight percent sold out, he says. Musicals Avenue Q and Hair sold out in mere hours. Scalpers showed up to peddle coveted tickets for Hair.

“That just feels good,” Williams says. “There’s nobody else in the state that would do the productions we do. They wouldn’t touch them.”

The department declined, however, to include the infamous group nude scene in Hair. “I try to create a balance. We try to be conscious of where we are,” Williams says.

“We are a state university. You do want to respect the community. At the same time, you want them to respect you.”

Assistant Professor Denny Berry, an internationally respected director, choreographer, educator and writer, heads the revitalized Musical Theatre Program. She is the Associate Choreographer and Production Dance Supervisor, and was the original Broadway Dance Captain of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/

Its success can be measured in sell-out crowds for the kind of sophisticated fare produced on Broadway.

Guest Artist and puppeteer, Jennifer Barnhart (right), works with student Keeley McCormick and Bad Idea Bear from Avenue Q

Hal Prince work The Phantom of the Opera. Most recently, she has been responsible for casting, coaching and setting 12 worldwide productions of Phantom. She still lives in New York state when not in Utah.

The idea to seek university work stems from Berry’s undergraduate years at the University of Texas, where legendary ballet star Igor Youskevitch educated students about real-world theatre life. But she did not have a terminal degree. Neither, she says, did Igor. Again and again, she says, universities rejected her as unqualified for faculty positions despite her decades of theatre work – until Williams called her about a job opening at the U that would consider her experience equivalent to a degree.

“I was totally shocked,” Berry says. "What a gig!

The idea that I would have a hand in a program, giving

young people what they need was exhilarating!”

Williams says the musical program offers tremendous benefits to the Department of Theatre and the University. Besides the larger audiences, the number of performances has grown 68 percent, brought 80 new students as majors, created jobs and increased the number of students cast in Pioneer Theatre Company productions. ≠

by Patty Henetz photos by Spencer Sandstrom

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The Arts on Campus Not Just Enhancing the Student Experience There is a growing body of research showing the positive impacts of the arts on education. The findings are significant, unveiling that exposure to the arts is linked with better critical thinking skills, greater social tolerance, a greater likelihood of seeking out art and culture in the future, and better workforce opportunities.

We see this even on our own campus.

Between the College of Fine Arts’ six academic units (Art & Art History, Ballet, Film & Media Arts, Modern Dance, Music, and Theatre) and the professional affiliates on campus including the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Kingsbury Hall, and Pioneer Theatre Company, the arts are plentiful at the University of Utah.

To provide access to the breadth of arts on campus, from plays to gallery exhibitions to concerts and dance performances, the College of Fine Arts introduced U & the Arts (Arts Pass), a program that grants access to the more than 200 arts events on campus. The Arts Pass allows the University’s entire student body to attend almost all student performances and exhibitions for free, and provides easier access to the professional arts on campus as well.

And, while performances and exhibitions certainly enhance the student experience, their impact for students goes far beyond entertainment.

For example, a group of students from the School of Medicine plan regular visits to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Led by Gretchen A. Case, PhD, these students visit the museum for an art-viewing session, in which the museum staff employ a questioning strategy called Visual Thinking Strategies.

These questions focus on making careful observations and unpacking the thoughts and evidence behind inferences. They then look at medical images and employ the same strategy of careful observation. The results are stunningly positive.

Although not all arts experiences on campus 32 STUDIO / 2014

Department of Theatre students perform on the main stage at Arts Bash

are guided scholastic endeavors, the impact of viewing and experiencing art is very positive. So, to raise the visibility of the arts and Arts Pass among the broader student body, the College of Fine Arts kicks off each academic year with a massive event called Arts Bash, an afternoon celebration that takes place on Marriott Library Plaza and is replete with diverse performances, informational booths from all arts organizations on campus, free food and games. It has grown to become one of the University’s largest campus events.

At Arts Bash, students can learn not just about performances and exhibitions, but majors, graduate programs, and interdisciplinary programs like the Entertainment Arts & Engineering program.

“While performances and exhibitions certainly enhance the student experience, their impact for students goes far beyond entertainment.”

And for those students studying outside of the College of Fine Arts but who want to round out their education with a deeper exploration into the arts, they can also learn about the nearly 100 College of Fine Arts courses available to all University students including everything from History of Rock & Roll from the School of Music to Afro-Caribbean Dance from the Department of Modern Dance and Introduction to Visual Arts and Language of Color from the Department of Art & Art History.

Like many prestigious and progressive campuses across the nation, the University of Utah continues to foster and expand the presence of art on campus. And not just for the benefit of our students, but for the benefit of all students. ≠

by Marina Gomberg

photos by Amelia Walchli

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Guest Artists

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 worldrenowned 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.

Art & Art History

Anna Lindemann • Dawn Odell • Phil Hamlett • Miranda Wright • Elizabeth Bennett Deborah Schwartzkopf • John Sproul • J.P. Park • Harry Gamboa Jr. Tom Antista and Tom Fairclough • Miguel Luciano • Nancy Berliner • Alfredo Jaar — In November 2013, the Department of Art & Art History brought renowned artist, Alfredo Jaar, to campus as part of the Carmen Morton Christensen Endowment ART 158 Lecture Series. Jaar is an artist, architect, and filmmaker who lives and works in New York. His work has been shown extensively around the world. He has participated in the Biennales of Venice as well as Documenta in Kassel, Germany.

Some individual exhibitions include The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, Whitechapel, London, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. A major retrospective of his work took place in 2012 at three institutions in Berlin.

It Is Difficult, by Alfredo Jaar

Music

Trio Solisti with Amy Burton • La Taifas • Tesla String Quartet • Larry Aberman Kurt Rohde • Emanuele Arciuli • Bennewitz Quartet • Al-Andalus Ensemble Brian Hulse • Trio Con Brio • Modigliani Quartet • Art Kreiger —

Kurt Rohde

The Abravanel Distinguished Visiting Composer Series welcomed violinist and composer Kurt Rohde. A graduate of the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the Curtis Institute of Music, Rohde teaches music composition and theory at the University of California at Davis, where he is co-director of the Empyrean Ensemble. Among his many awards and prizes, he was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study for 2012-2013. He received the Rome-Prize, the Berlin Prize Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Charles Ives Fellowship, and the Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as many other honors.

Ballet

Gerard Cuesta • Kelly Boal • Adam Sklute • Tong Wang • Zippora Karz • Cheng Si (Lyn) — The Department of Ballet welcomed the distinguished Zippora Karz in September 2013 to teach George Balanchine’s Serenade to the Department’s Utah Ballet. Karz is a former soloist with the New York City Ballet where she performed for 16 years on stage. She was featured in a variety of roles choreographed by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, as well as works choreographed for her by such artists as Peter Martins and Lynne Taylor Corbett. Karz danced with the New York City Ballet from 1983 through 1999. She now serves as a teacher and repetiteur for the George Balanchine Trust, rehearsing and staging Balanchine’s choreography for a host of national and international dance companies.

Zippora Karz

Zippora Karz teaching her masters class

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Theatre

Larry West • Andra Harbold • Lue M. Douthit • Manny Azenberg • Jason Bowcutt Alex Marshall • Liza Gennaro and Robbie Roby • Jerry Rapier • Michael McCulloch Wendy Webber • Jennifer Barnhart • Stephen Boxer • Jamie Rocha Allan • Leo Geter Dr. Lynn Maxfield • Michael Rohd • Patrick Sims • Eric Samuelsen • April Fossen Deborah Salem Smith • Dan Knechtges • Joe Mediros • Jeff Whiting — Jennifer Barnhart, Puppeteer Coach, originated the role of Mrs. T/Bear (Outer Critics Circle Award) for Avenue Q and remained with the company for its entire six-year Broadway run. As a puppeteer, she has been seen on such shows as Sesame Street, Between the Lions (Cleo), and Johnny and the Sprites. As a human, she was most recently seen as Lady Macbeth, Veronica in God of Carnage, and Mistress Quickly in The Merry Wives of Windsor at Alabama Shakespeare Festival. She has also appeared on Law & Order: SVU several times.

Jennifer Barnhart rehearses Avenue Q with students in the Department of Theatre

Modern Dance

John Beasant III • Elena Demyaneko • Yannis Adoniou • Daniel Squire • Sidra Bell —

From left to right: Arielle Hassett, Robert Goodman, and Laura Brick perform Merce Cunningham’s Cross Currents, restaged by Daniel Squire

The Department of Modern Dance brought the famous Daniel Squire to campus for a two-week residency to teach Merce Cunningham dance technique and training, and to restage one of Cunningham’s dance works, Cross Currents. Merce Cunningham (1919-2009) is recognized as one of the most important pioneers and shapers of modern dance in the last century. His contributions to the cultural life both in dance and the nation are monumental. Squire is himself an accomplished artist, as well. In addition to dancing with Cunningham, he worked as a dancer with Michael Clark and Matthew Hawkins, as well as appearing as Tadzio in Britten’s Death In Venice at Glyndebourne. He has been a core member (actor, videographer, musician) of Marisela La Grave's inter-media group, Magnetic Laboratorium, since 2003. He continues to lives in NYC and works as a dance teacher for internationally acclaimed dance companies, including Rambert & Random; and at top schools including Brown University, Columbia College, Chapman University, London Contemporary, Northern Contemporary, and at the Merce Cunningham Studio in NYC.

Film & Media Arts

James Benning • Raul Fuentes • Sebastian Hofmann • Mira Nair Davy Giorgi and Samantha Pineda — The Department of Film & Media Arts welcomed world-renowned Indian film director, Mira Nair, in March of 2013 as part of the David P. Gardner Graduate Lecture in the Humanities and Fine Arts program. Nair, a producer, actor, film director, and founder of New York-based Mirabai Films, made a stunning entry on to the world stage with her first feature, Salaam Bombay! (1988), now hailed as a classic. The film received more than 25 international awards. She continued directing films, and in 2001, her film, Monsoon Wedding, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA, becoming one of the highest grossing foreign films of all time. In 2002, Nair directed Hysterical Blindness for HBO which gave the channel its highest original film ratings ever. In 2005, Nair’s adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s bestselling novel, The Namesake, became another critical and commercial success.

Mira Nair joined Department of Film & Media Arts graduate students and faculty for a breakfast and discussion about the filmmaking landscape

35 STUDIO / 2014

John & Marva Warnock

Spreading When asked about their decision to create the John and Marva Warnock

Endowed Art Residency program at the University of Utah College of

Fine Arts’ Department of Art & Art History, John Warnock, co-founder of

Adobe Systems Inc. and software industry pioneer, was straight-forward:

“We wanted to spread the love.”

the Love.

36 STUDIO / 2014

by

ROB TENNANT

John and Marva were both born and raised in Utah and are University of Utah alumni. John earned BS (’61), MS (’64), and PhD (’69) degrees, while Marva earned a BS (’66). The University of Utah has also bestowed both John and Marva with Honorary Degrees on separate occasions.

Having already generously contributed to the University of Utah with a donation toward the construction of the John E. and Marva M. Warnock Engineering Building, completed in 2007, as well as endowing chairs in the departments of Computer Science and Mathematics, the Warnocks set out in 2008 to create the Warnock Endowed Art Residency Program for the Department of Art & Art History.

According to Marva it is their goal for the program to: “Bring diverse artistic voices to the U.” Beyond funding the endowment, John and Marva are proud to take an active role in the selection of artists for the residency. Marva said, “Helping to select the artists has been fun for us … It has been exciting to see the diversity of backgrounds (of the artists).”

The biennial residency has so far brought artists Ernesto Pujol (2010) and Andrea Bowers (2012) to the University. The 2014 Warnock Artist in Residence is J. Morgan Puett, a contemporary artist who works with the experience of being and coexisting, rather than creating physical art objects.

Her art manifests as she creates environments in which people thoughtfully and intentionally participate in daily activities that could easily be dismissed as mundane in their typical contexts. She calls these activities “workstyles.”

The Warnocks have been passionate about the arts their entire lives, not just as appreciators and patrons, but also as artists themselves. John enjoys oil painting in his personal time, a hobby that he shares with his siblings going back to his youth.

Marva is a graphic designer and partner at Marsh Design in Palo Alto, California. This commitment and involvement with the arts touches their lives in many ways.

John and Marva Warnock are active collectors of art, as well. They are particularly proud of their collection of pre-reservation American Indian art, a portion of which they loaned to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in 2009 and 2010 for the Splendid Heritage exhibition. The exhibition, carrying a name suggested by the Warnocks themselves, featured 144 pieces from their collection of nearly 500 works of American Indian art. Focusing on art of the Peoples of the American Northwest and Plains, they were inspired to acquire the collection at auction as a whole, rather than see it broken up.

“The collection had been sitting in a basement, not being enjoyed by anyone,” Marva said, “We felt compelled to keep it together.” She went on to add, quoting the previous steward of the collection: “This is the real history of our country.”

That perception of the arts as important shared cultural material, as real history, is very important to the Warnocks. More than just decoration or entertainment to be enjoyed passively, the Warnocks feel that art has larger intangible impacts on our society. As John said, “Interdisciplinary study has very positive effects on education.”

Though John Warnock’s professional contributions have been technological in nature, his aim has always been to put technological tools into the hands of artists.

With software products like PostSctipt, InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop, Adobe Systems Inc, which John co-founded along with his business partner Charles Geschke, has revolutionized the fields of design, photography, and publishing. To John, whether a person is writing code or writing poetry, the same essential human creative drive is at play. It is not easily separated into “art” and “science”.

John and Marva have faithfully embodied this philosophy in their support of the University of Utah in general and the College of Fine Arts in particular.

With their help, and that of others like them, the University stands well equipped to seed another generation of creative revolutionaries. ≠ 37 STUDIO / 2014

Annual Report

Building H, Max Rosenweig

T

he faculty, staff, and especially the students in the College of Fine Arts thank our generous donors for their contributions to the College and its six academic units from July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013. Their incredible generosity has enhanced education, empowered many, and inspired us all.

Thank You.

38 STUDIO / 2014

INDIVIDUALS

$100,000+

Jack R. Wheatley

$25,000–$99,999

Gordon L. and Connie R. Hanks

$10,000–$24,999

Joyce T. Rice Estate of Marian Robertson Wilson

$5,000–$9,999

Robert D. Belnap Kristina F. and Kenneth J. Burton Marian A. Connelly Tom Gandley Carolyn B. and Kem C. Gardner Susan G. Gaskill Michael L. and Micki N. Sobieski Daniel M. and Nicky M. Soulier

$2,500–$4,999

Reed W. Brinton Sarah M. and Matthew M. DeVoll Paul Dorgan Patty Kimball James R. and Nanette S. Michie Linda Lee Tom Love Davis Mullholand Rhonda L. and William Nicoloff Anne P. and Peter W. Peterson Anne Osborn Poelman Lesli P. and Scott L. Rice Bruce G. and Sara V. Robinson Thomas F. and Susan S. Rugh Jonathan Scoville and Tandy Beal Janette Sonnenberg Larry B. Stillman Stephen Lee Swisher Raymond Tymas-Jones Mary Jane Galvin-Wagg Henry C. Wolking

$1,000–2,499

Anonymous Craig B. and Melissa G. Ballard Sandi Jo Behnken Mary Ann and Martin Berzins Sara F. and H. Roger Boyer Carolyn H. and Rodney H. Brady Kari A. and Clifton L. Butler Loa B. Mangelson-Clawson V. Brent and Francine E. Cook

Rainer M. and Patricia C. Dahl Anne C. and Ashby S. Decker David S. and Anne M. Dolowitz Geoffrey E. Ellis Abby L. and Jerome C. Fiat Susan F. Fleming Laura Garff Lewis Robert H. and Katharine B. Garff Connie Jo Hepworth-Woolston and E. Art Woolston Kathie K. and Charles H. Horman Jonathan H. Horne and Colleen Wilson-Horne Elizabeth S. Hunter Wilma S. and Herbert C. Livsey Donald B. and Mary O. Lloyd James P. Macken Paul G. and Alison R. Mayfield O. Don and Barbara B. Ostler Kristin K. Ostrander Diana J. and Joel C. Peterson Scott J. Ray Victoria Jane Ream-Baker J. Christopher Smith Linda F. Smith and Lee K. Shuster Stanford C. and Dixie S. Stoddard Betsy and Scott Thornton Margaret T. and John H. Ware David B. and Jeralynn T. Winder Lauryn Wingate

$500–$999

Lisa Arnett Bene C. Arnold Marie Y. and Jack S. Ashton Rae Barnes Kenneth W. Birrell Kathryn C. and Roger A. Carter Rebecca C. and Thomas Durham George B. and Debra G. Felt J. Sloan and Anna Marie Hales J. Paul and Julie R. Hansen Lucille R. Hesse and James E. Gebhardt Claudia F. and Jerry S. Howells Sharon and Jeffrey J. Jonas Heidi M. and Edward D. Makowski Benjamin A. Mielke Adam Overacker Thomas C. and Marsha Pratt Wendy A. and Douglas C. Preston Bruce W. Quaglia E. Kent and Anne Rasmussen Michael H. and Ruth C. Stevens Lisa C. Thompson and Christopher F. Krueger Martha M. and John M. Veranth

“Music is a constant which blesses our lives.

We give to the Piano Area at the School of Music to help heal the soul and bless the hearts of many.”

Melissa and Craig Ballard

$250-499

Anonymous William C. and Shirley Bailey Joe Brienza Carol W. and David M. Coulter Susan H. and F. Douglas Duehlmeier David P. and Sheila S. Gardner 39 STUDIO / 2014

th

David L. and Doris P. Gillette Marilyn R. and John W. Holt Kerri A. Hopkins Karineh Hovsepian Jill J. Johnson Amos and Anat Madanes Thomas G. Pike William R. and Donna H. Pizza D. Nick and Penny Rose Brent L. Schneider and Kim Blackett Mark N. Schneider Donna M. and Kenneth L. White

$100–$249 “We are delighted to create this scholarship to honor Tom's years of work on the Fine Arts Advisory Board. Both of our careers are in higher education, and we believe in its transformative power. We hope our gift will make it easier for students to devote themselves to their academic aspirations in the visual arts.”

Tom and Susan Rugh

40 STUDIO / 2014

Anonymous Patricia Jo Angood Robert L. Baldwin Bruce Karl Ballinger La Mar C. and Carol W. Barrus Jonathan C. and Chamè C. Blackburn Virginia A. and Don A. Bostrom Paul T. and Maureen K. Brinkman Cheryll Brog Julie P. and John M. Buhler Ariel Bybee and James E. Ford Priscilla J. Campbell Daniel and Julie A. Chamberlain Lisa Marie Chaufty Kay Christensen Cecile J. Christiansen Juan Carlos Claudio John P. and Barbara S. Colton Mio M. and J. Cowden Destin B. Cox Alison Denyer Harry and Sally Diavatis A. Barr Dolan John C. and Sandra D. Eberhardt Eric N. and Shellie M. Eide Melissa L. Fabbi Naomi K. Feigal Susan Margaret Gabriel Jonathan J. Gerber Donny G. Gilbert Dale W. Goddard and April Walters Goddard Seth Gordon Richard N. and Carolyn Greene Linda A. Grimm-Kovach Meloni Jane Gundersen J. Sloan and Anna Marie Hales Eric M. and Pamela G. Handman Kevin D. Hanson Catherine S. and David C. Hardy Suzanne K. and Timothy L. Hawker Kara A. and Richard L. Higginson K. L. Hill Richard L. and Darlene Hirschi Lawrence S. and Michele L. Holzman Dianne S. Howe Michael D. and Susan S. Huff John E. and Carol F. Huffman Satu Hummasti

Corinne C. and James D. Jackson George E. and Paulette C. Johnson Robin E. Johnson L. Wynn and Pamela D. Johnson Allison and Scott D. Kendell Calvin Wayne Kitten Charles P. and Sarah Klingenstein Kathleen C. and Joseph S. Knowlton Stephen Koester Eric Kruman and Susan J. Gillis-Kruman Thomas R. and Patrice Kurz Sharee Jo Lane Paul Larsen Kathryn Lindquist and James R. Moore Christopher C. Lippard Linda L. and Alan D. Magnuson Bert and Linda Margetts Rebecca L. and Craig A. Margraf Linda Faye Marion Fred R. and Suzanne B. Mason J. Michael and Mary A. Mattsson Dylan Michael McCullough Maureen McGill Lorita S. McLeod Scott and Lisa Mietchen H. Janet and Drew Millerberg Rachel Lee Nardo Betta D. and Mark W. Nash Lori and David Nuffer Julie L. and Alan C. Olsen Dorothy A. and Joseph J. Palmer Brian F. Patrick Jennifer H. and T. Jeffery Payne Steven Pecchia-Bekkum Sara and Tim Pickett Barbara A. and James M. Redden J. Kyle and JoAnn K. Robertson Jean Ann Sabatine Ruth Ann and Robert L. Schaus Judy H. Schedler Sarah A. Shippobotham Glenda H. Shrader William C. Siska and Elizabeth S. Conley Shauna W. and Brent Sloan Brian Snapp Robert G. Snyder Don L. and Colleen Sorensen Elizabeth Southwell Alice B. and Andrew V. Sullivan James T. Svendsen Nancy S. and Gregory N. Tarbet Candace J. and Jack Taylor Margaret W. and Dennis N. Tesch Wendy J. Thompson Rheba Vetter and Kim N. Morris Richard W.J. Wacko Julia S. and W. Mack Watkins Ardean W. and Elna B. Watts Connie J. Wilkerson Gage Williams Gwen G. Williams Geri E. and Ronald A. Wohl Regina Zarhin Luann L. and Michael N. Zundel

hank you ORGANIZATIONS AND FOUNDATIONS

$25,000–$99,999

Kenneth P. and Sally R. Burbidge Foundation #1 Kenneth P. and Sally R. Burbidge Foundation #2 Nordstrom The Sorenson Legacy Foundation

$10,000–$24,999

Daynes Music Company Dizzy Feet Foundation S. J. & Jessie E. Quinney Foundation W. Mack and Julia S. Watkins Foundation Trust Wheeler Foundation

$5,000–$9,999

E. J. Bird Foundation The Bonnemort Foundation Chevron Humankind Matching Gift Program The Lawrence T. and Janet T. Dee Foundation Kem C. Gardner Family Partnership, LTD Nancy Peery Marriott Foundation, Inc. Stillman Family Charitable Trust TM Equities Inc.

$2,500–$4,999

M. Lynn Bennion Foundation CCI Mechanical Inc. CENGAGE Learning Howard S. Clark Trust George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation Emma Eccles Jones Foundation Richard A. Kimball Properties Love Communications Montgomery Lee Inc. Robert and Barbara Patterson Memorial Foundation The Presser Foundation Bertram H. & Janet M. Schaap Trust VanCott, Bagley, Cornwall & McCarthy Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program

Kid to Kid Legacy Music Alliance Lennox A. Larson Trust Robert K. and Evelyn D. Pedersen Family Foundation, Inc. Peterson Development Company Select Equity Group Foundation

$100–$499

American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers The Boeing Company BYU College of Fine Arts and Communication Dominion Foundation Eastern Arts Society Fund Raising Counsel Inc. Intermountain Bobcat Jackman Music Corporation Beverley K. and Boyd F. Jensen Family Trust The Nature Conservancy Phillips Art Gallery Prescott Muir Architects, P.C. Rubio’s Restaurants, Inc. The Schwartz Family Revocable Living Trust Simmons Living Trust SLC Ballet Children’s Academy L3C Sony Music Entertainment, Inc. Talley Transport, Inc.

“As one of the scholarship recipients stated, ‘The faculty that lead the ATP are extraordinary teachers... bringing us the intense technique and explorations of the heart and mind that will enliven our work in both theatre and life for decades to come.’ We are pleased that we are able to recognize excellence, support the department, and assist deserving students through the Marian D. Harrison Scholarship in Theatre.”

Kristina F. and Kenneth J. Burton

$1,000–$2,499

Antista Fairclough Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund Microsoft Matching Gifts Program John and Marcia Price Family Foundation Princeton Area Community Foundation Wells Fargo

$500–$999

Arkansas Community Foundation Arthur J. Gallagher Foundation The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

41

STUDIO / 2014

University of Utah College of Fine Arts 375 S. 1530 E. Room 250 Salt Lake City, UT 84112

S

finearts.utah.edu

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