Engaging Students

INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTS RESIDENCY PROGRAM CARRIE HANSON FALL 2019

Funded through the Office of the Provost, the Division of the Arts’ Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program (IARP) brings innovative, world-class artists to campus for semester-long residencies. Artists teach an interdisciplinary course, present public events, and participate in community outreach. The program gives students exposure to working artists, provides course credit, and strengthens programmatic ties across disciplines.

go.wisc.edu/artsresidency

Carrie Hanson is a choreographer, educator, and the artistic director of the acclaimed dance company The Seldoms. Named Chicagoan of the Year in Dance by the Chicago Tribune in 2015, Hanson frequently collaborates with other creatives—including musicians, architects, and fashion designers—to produce interdisciplinary dances that challenge audiences to reflect on complex contemporary issues. The Seldoms tour internationally and are known for performing their vibrant dances in unlikely locations, such as an outdoor Olympic pool and an abandoned truck depot.

Hanson’s residency was presented by the Division of the Arts and hosted by the Dance Department, with Professor Kate Corby as lead

faculty. Co-sponsors included the Chazen Museum of Art, the Wisconsin Union Theater, and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

Guest Artists

f Faheem Majeed

f Alex Rose

f The Seldoms

f and other contributing artists

Residency Highlights

During the fall residency, Hanson taught From Topic to Topography: The Body, The Environment, and Social Action. The studio course offered students the opportunity to create original choreography and installations that addressed climate change and equity, among other issues, and present their works before a live audience at the end of the semester.

During her residency, Hanson developed and participated in eight public events, including talks at the Wisconsin Science Festival, workshops at the Wisconsin Union, a shared dance concert featuring Kate Corby & Dancers with The Seldoms, and a culminating site-specific performance held at the Chazen on November 21. An earlier participatory event, Quilting Memory, led by guest artist Faheem Majeed, yielded a gigantic textile work that was integrated in the performance by dancers at the final event.

On campus, Hanson connected with scientists and scholars working on environmental conservation and climate change. Conversations she had with Professor Daniel Vimont, director of the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research, particularly informed her thinking while she was developing FLOE, a new performance piece addressing climate change that premiered at the Wisconsin Union Theater in January 2020.

go.wisc.edu/hanson Photos Video

INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTS RESIDENCY PROGRAM BEN BARSON AND GIZELXANATH RODRIGUEZ SPRING 2020

Artivists (artists and activists) Ben Barson and Gizelxanath Rodriguez co-founded the Afro Yaqui Music Collective, an ensemble that combines Afro-Asian musical and political affinities with inspiration from the struggles of the Yaqui people of northern Mexico. They work to incorporate voices of regional and Indigenous communities in the creation of their boundary-pushing interdisciplinary works.

The Barson and Rodriguez residency was presented by the Division of the Arts and hosted by the Asian American Studies Program, with Associate Professor Peggy Choy as lead faculty. Co-sponsors included the Dance Department, the Mead Witter School of Music, and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

Guest Artists and Activists

f Charlotte Hill O’Neal aka Mama C

f Nejma Nefertiti

f Anahí Ochoa

f Mario Luna Romero

f and other contributing artists

Residency Highlights

During the spring residency, Barson and Rodriguez taught Artivism: Intercultural Solidarity & Decolonizing Performance. The course taught students to envision new ways that art can bring marginalized communities together to create change.

Barson also co-taught the UW Contemporary Jazz Ensemble lab course with Associate Professor Johannes Wallmann. Students in the course contributed original compositions to the final residency project.

During their residency, Rodriguez and Barson developed and participated in nine public events, including a cypher, or freestyle jam session, held at the Bayview Community Center; performances at Tandem Press and Café CODA; an open-mic night at August boutique; workshops with First Wave and the City of Madison’s Neighborhood Intervention Project; classroom visits; and a presentation at a conference organized by the Nelson Institute’s Center for Culture, History, and Environment. LACIS (Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies Program) was a frequent campus collaborator.

Interrupted mid-March by the COVID-19 pandemic, the artists quickly redesigned their residency course and final event to work in an online format. Guest artists, including the renowned Tanzania-based multimedia artist and activist Mama C, visited the class online and collaborated with students virtually. A multimedia video work blending students’ writing, choreography, music, poetry, and imagery replaced the previously planned live performance. The students’ video, Contested Homes: Migrant Liberation Movement Suite, exploring themes of police violence, migrant justice, systemic racism, and climate change while proposing visions of positive change, premiered online before a large live audience.

go.wisc.edu/barsonrodriguez Photos Video

THE STUDIO: CREATIVE ARTS COMMUNITY

The Studio is a residential learning community located in Sellery Hall that hosts academic and cocurricular programming for 64 first-year students with an expressed interest in the arts. It is cosponsored by the Division of University Housing; the Division of Diversity, Equity & Educational Achievement; and the Division of the Arts.

The Studio offers residents access to art and performance spaces and provides numerous opportunities for them to attend cultural events. Residents participate in seminar courses and use their artistic skills and talents to serve the greater UW–Madison community through projects, performances, collaborations, and exhibitions.

In the fall, students enrolled in the interdisciplinary, hands-on Mapping Your Creative Practice course worked with Studio faculty director Associate Professor Faisal Abdu’Allah to explore a wide range of studio spaces, tools, and resources for making and viewing art on campus.

In the spring, students participating in The Studio Presents…, another seminar course taught by Associate Professor Abdu’Allah, collaborated on a collective artistic project. Initially the students planned to produce a work addressing climate change that would be exhibited at the Nelson Institute’s April 2020 Earth Day Conference. However, after COVID-19 caused classes to move online, the students changed their plans and created an online zine, QuaranZine, showcasing visual art and poetry they developed throughout the semester.

The Division also sponsored two Creative Arts Awards for arts research and service to current residents.

The Studio Creative Arts Awards

Research Award

Siena Laws Education Studies, in support of creating wearable sculpture.

Service Award

Malcolm McCanles Theatre and Drama and Asher Bernick-Roehr Undeclared, in support of creating a theater production.

Key Highlights

40+ arts and cultural events

f Themed Welcome Week events f Regular Showcase multi-media events f Collective artistic product QuaranZine f Professional development workshop featuring

Studio alumni and local professional artists f 20+ artistic workshops f Monthly student-led events f Project Thrift fashion event f Attending a performance of The Color Purple musical at the Overture Center for the Arts in

Madison f Brockhampton, Big Thief, Wisconsin Singers, and Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra performances in Madison and Milwaukee

thestudiouw.arts.wisc.edu 2019 Photos | 2020 Photos Videos

INTERNATIONAL VISITING ARTIST PROGRAM

The International Visiting Artist Program (IVAP) is a three-year collaboration between the Division of the Arts and the International Division. This partnership, launched in the fall of 2019, supports short-term residences for international artists on campus. Through IVAP, the Division is able to bring visiting artists and their expertise into existing Division programs. Visiting artists expand students’ horizons and facilitate opportunities for future collaborations and careers abroad. Funding is provided by the International Division.

The first residency brought Belgian dancer, choreographer, and teacher Sandra Vincent to campus September 16-22, 2019. Vincent maintains her studio in Brussels, where she conducts research in dance, voice, and performance. She is also the founder and director of Playsure Company and of ALMA, a program of artistic development that cultivates body and voice practices. Vincent collaborates with multidisciplinary artists and creates staged works with amateurs and professionals. She has also taught workshops about her research and creative process for over 20 years. Vincent’s experimental work in the lineage of Anna Halprin, a revolutionary postmodern dancer and influential alumna of UW–Madison’s Dance Department, contributed a contemporary European perspective to the creative practice taking place on campus.

With musician and guest artist Benjamin Francart, Vincent taught and met with over 100 students in the Dance Department and the Studio. The two also collaboratively taught and participated in improvisational dance workshops cosponsored by IVAP in Madison and Mazomanie for local community members.

In its first semester, IVAP successfully met its goals of fostering international exchange,

promoting artistic collaborations that benefit current students in a variety of settings, and pooling resources to strengthen the arts on campus. Reflecting on her residency, Vincent wrote, “As an artist and dance pedagogue, the entire program has been truly inspiring, and I’m very grateful for the experience. I believe exchanges like this do broaden the field of research, while creating more connections.”

In addition to hosting the fall residency, IVAP had planned to bring two female filmmakers, Fernanda Valadez from Mexico and Chiara Malta from France, to campus to participate in the April 2020 Wisconsin Film Festival. While those plans were canceled when the film festival moved online due to COVID-19, IVAP looks forward to future opportunities to collaborate with the Wisconsin Film Festival and other Division programs.