The Athens Heritage Project preview

May 3rd Reading at the Morton Theatre

Rose of Athens Theatre presents the Athens Heritage Project
May 3rd, 7:30pm at the Morton Theatre in downtown Athens

Rose Of Athens Theatre “Gets Historical” at Hot Corner Celebration! Join us at the beginning!! This world premiere staged reading with music, dance and media is a “sneak peak” into what will be an ongoing series of theatrical productions, featuring the stories collected from citizens all over Athens, GA and surrounding areas for years to come.

In keeping with the mission of Athens’ flourishing non-profit 501(c)(3) professional theatre, Rose of Athens Theatre, The Athens Heritage Project celebrates the voices of our diverse community by way of a dynamic, original piece, creating an enduring living history for our city and its region. The stories come from hours of personal interviews conducted by the Rose of Athens Theatre ensemble, representing stories from many communities: African-American, Faith, Immigrant, Music, Old Town Athens, the University of Georgia and more. This performance is partly funded by an Ideas for Creative Exploration Grant from UGA and the Mayor’s CIP Fund.

The May 3rd performance of The Athens Heritage Project will be presented in “reader’s theater style” (head writers, Shannon Rood and Lisa Mende) with music from local musician Sean Arington, dance (Lisa Yaconelli), multi-media elements (Joelle Re Arp Dunham) and, of course, all of the wonderful performances for which Rose of Athens Theatre is known.

This presentation is the culmination of all of the building blocks of this exciting program, and it is both the catalyst and the engine for many wonderful productions to come. The Athens Heritage Project is an ongoing Rose of Athens Theatre program, saving our oral histories for future generations and harvesting great stories to spurn on-going stage productions. This performance will provides a “sneak-peak” into the nuts and bolts of this exciting program.

Hosting The Athens Heritage Project 2008 at the Morton Theater, Hot Corner Celebration is a family event including theater, music from spiritual singing groups, choirs, bands, rap artists, speeches and food.

Sarasvati Named First Jane Willson Professor in the Arts

Bala Sarasvati, a professor of dance in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has been named to the first Jane Willson Professorship in Arts.

The new professorship was endowed by Willson, of Albany, Ga., who with her late husband Harry developed strong ties with the University of Georgia. The Willsons have been among UGA’s most generous benefactors, and they also have supported educational and civic activities across the state. The Willson Center for the Humanities and Arts at UGA received major support from them and bears their name.

The new professorship is funded through a grant to the Willson Center. As Willson Professor in Arts, Sarasvati will receive a support account that she may use to support her scholarship. The appointment is pending approval of the University System of Georgia Board of Regents.

Sarasvati has been a faculty member at UGA since 1991, is artistic director of the CORE Concert Dance Company and was director of the department of dance’s Concert Dance Company from 1992 to 2000. She has choreographed more than 30 full-length pieces, and her work has been selected and performed at venues across the United States and internationally.

“I am very grateful and honored to be appointed the first Jane Willson Professor in Arts,” said Sarasvati. “This award provides me the ability to continue developing and pursuing new possibilities in performance training, interdisciplinary collaboration and multimedia dance production and to serve the creative inquiry that our young dance artists are currently investigating.”

Sarasvati has presented her work as a teacher, performer and choreographer throughout major cities across the country. She holds a bachelor of fine arts dance degree from the University of Utah and a master of fine arts dance degree from The Ohio State University.

“We’re so pleased that Bala Sarasvati is the first recipient of this professorship,” said Garnett S. Stokes, dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “She is an outstanding faculty member and a superb choice for this honor.”

A certified movement analyst since 1982, Sarasvati specializes in Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals and their application to dance training. She has taught LMA/BF for 25 years including seven years at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in New York City and is currently a member of the LIMS board of directors.

“Bala Sarasvati, an innovative modern dancer, choreographer and teacher, is a stellar artist in many media, including computer technology, which she uses to create visual and audio effects for her dances,” said Betty Jean Craige, director of the Willson Center. “Bala’s choreography, including more than 40 dance pieces, encompasses traditional modern, post-modern, experimental and interdisciplinary works, which she has presented, often with her students, throughout the United States and in Argentina, Brazil, China, Costa Rica, England, France and Taiwan.”

Sarasvati’s work was recently selected for National ACDF Conference held at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and the ACDFA Regional Gala Concerts in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast regions. She is currently preparing a performance, workshop and film presentation for Global Laban 2008, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she is a special guest artist.

Sarasvati teaches dance composition, improvisation, modern technique, Laban Movement Analysis and the science of dance training. She served as head of the department of dance from 1999 to 2006.

The Willsons have given generously to the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and to other units of the University of Georgia. While neither Jane nor Harry Willson attended UGA, their oldest son, Bill, attended the university’s law school, and two grandchildren are Georgia alumni. A third, Justin, will graduate May 2008.

Writer: Philip Lee Williams, UGA News Bureau

Engineering, Music Collaboration Models the Art of Conducting

Spring 2008
UGA Engineering magazine
link to original article (PDF)

Julie Gerhardt

Julie Gerhardt

UGA Engineering, Hodgson School of Music Collaboration Models the Art of Conducting

article excerpt:

Even when starting at a very basic tempo of ninety-two beats per minute, quantifying the line between art and craft is very tough.

David Romines, Associate Director of Bands in UGA’s Hugh Hodgson School of Music, walks this line with an array of budding conductors, exploring their role in an ensemble and searching for useful commonalities of movement that may not be easily detectable through observation. “At the beginning, it’s all very precise and measured, then the next thing you do is get rid of the metronome and start to think musically,” he states, confidently abreast of the paradox. “We know which gestures work for conductors and we’re always looking for better ways to explain it to students.”

To UGA engineering professor Tim Foutz, the search for a better way was all about the biomechanics of conducting – plus a new area for collaboration. “I don’t know much about music, but I thought we might be able to open up some new areas in conducting – and engineering,” Foutz says about what has turned into a research and teaching project between he and Romines.

2007-2008 Project Grants Announced

ICE is pleased to announce the awards from the 2007-2008 ICE Grants call for proposals. The awards reflect a range of emerging interests in the arts at UGA, including projects that involve collaboration across disciplines, experiment with new technology and address current social and environmental issues while engaging the community, service learning and undergraduate research. ICE will support the new projects through various stages of development with funding from the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR). 

Water: Drought
Mirla Criste 
Assistant Professor 
Theatre and Film Studies 

Water: Drought initiates a series of works in Contact Theatre, a performance modality that explores the intersection between theatre and contact improvisation, a movement approach primarily practiced in modern dance environments. Professor Mirla Criste, who has a background in drama and modern dance, will collaborate with UGA alumnus and Georgia professional performer John Jenkinson. They will develop a work that responds to the current water shortage in Georgia, exploring ideas of water that are both concrete and symbolic, such as thirst, growth and birth. Lori Teague, Professor of Dance at Emory University in Atlanta and Julie Rothschild, contact improvisation professional, will serve as consultants.

Water Body 
Michelle Penland Dodson 
Graduate Candidate 
Theatre and Film Studies 

Water Body is a community project that brings together artists to create an original work combining video projection, aerial performance, spoken word, and a soundscape. Michelle Penland Dodson, who has a background in visual arts as well as theatre, will feature the project in her MFA research employing the use of video media in a performance setting with live performers. Water Body involves the collaborative efforts of Dodson, Susan Murphy, Creative Director of Canopy Repertory Company, and Janisse Ray, renowned environmental author and activist. Citing art as vehicle of change, the performance will celebrate water while encountering the prevalent disregard of its precious life-giving qualities. 

Dynamic Reading 
Margot Ecke 
Assistant Professor 
Lamar Dodd School of Art 

Dynamic Reading grew out of an ICE-sponsored discussion and workshop with visiting artist Buzz Spector about the role of the narrative in contemporary culture and the dilemma of making language a visual experience. Professor Margot Ecke will be joined by Dr. Jed Rasula, Helen S. Lanier Distinguished Professor of English, and Jordan Dalton, a UGA Foundation Fellow pursuing an Honors Interdisciplinary Studies degree combining Computer Science, English, and Digital Media. The project will engage in a series of collaborative experiments at the printing press and the Web, exploring how different formats influence the reading of text. 

“Girls Talk” Program for the Tanzania Service Learning Program in Ukerewe, Mongella Initiative 
Koqunia LaTrice Forte 
Graduate Candidate 
Theatre and Film Studies 

Girls Talk will investigate the importance of identity, community and personal growth in the minds of adolescent girls through participation in the Tanzania Service Learning program, sponsored by Ambassador Gertrude Mongella, the African Studies Institute, College of Family and Consumer Sciences, the School of Social Work, and the Carl Vinson Institute of Government. Koqunia LaTrice Forte, an MFA candidate and Graduate Advisor in the African American Cultural Center, will use recorded media and transcripts to compose a solo performance piece for American audiences about the needs and passions of Ukerewe youth. 

The Biomechanics of Conducting Music 
Tim Foutz 
Professor 
The Faculty of Engineering and Biological and Agricultural Engineering 

The Biomechanics of Conducting Music will develop new methodologies to quantify skills in the mechanics of conducting music. Dr. Tim Foutz, working in collaboration with Dr. F. David Romines, Associate Director of Bands and Assistant Professor of Music, will employ motion capture camera systems to model accelerated gestures that are difficult or impossible to observe with the naked eye, enabling music faculty and students at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music to evaluate conducting with greater scrutiny. 

Race and Children’s Literature of the Gilded Age 
Amanda Gailey 
Assistant Professor 
English 

Race and Children’s Literature of the Gilded Age will create a digital archive of illustrated American children’s literature published between the end of the Civil War (1865) and the foundation of the NAACP (1913), beginning with Joel Chandler Harris, author of Uncle Remus tales, who lived in Eatonton, Georgia. Professor Amanda Gailey, working in collaboration with Dr. Gerald Early, Merle King Professor of Modern Letters at Washington University, will use the project to help students and scholars examine how adults wanted children to think about racial difference during this pivotal period in American history. The project brings together methods in humanities computing, literary criticism, art history, illustration and printing technology to form an interactive database for cross-disciplinary study. 

Our New Silence 
Jean Kidula 
Associate Professor 
Hugh Hodgson School of Music 

Our New Silence is an ambitious project that will provide Athens musicians with the opportunity to work with a new palette of sounds from Indonesia and let them rework, reinterpret, and personalize this music culminating in a public performance. Dr. Jean Kidula, a professor of Ethnomusicology, will work in collaboration with Kai Riedl, an instructor in the department of Religion and accomplished musician with firsthand expertise in the music of Indonesia through multiple visits to Java. The project will pair students in music, religious studies and the community with individualized tracks, loops and samples from Indonesia to create new compositions that will be available on the Web along with original source material. 

A New Dissonance: Translating Ben Johnston’s 10th String Quartet 
Jon Roy 
Graduate Candidate 
Lamar Dodd School of Art 

A New Dissonance will document the preparation, rehearsal and performance of Ben Johnston’s 10th String Quartet, providing insight to the creative process of Johnston and his unique notation methods. Ben Johnston was born in Macon, Georgia in 1926 and studied with music legends Harry Partch, John Cage and Darius Milhaud. Johnston is currently Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Illinois, where he taught composition and theory from 1951-1983. Jon Roy, an MFA candidate in Art, will combine his background in visual art, film and music to enable a historic staging of the composition by the Kepler Quartet in Madison, Wisconsin. Performed only once before, the 10th String Quartet has been developed further by Johnston using computer-generated MIDI realizations. Roy will translate the composition’s microtonal acoustical principals to other disciplines, such as film and color theory, making the the results available via the Web and DVD. 

Sound Source: Jason Freeman 
Rick Silva 
Visiting Assistant Professor 
Lamar Dodd School of Art 

ICE will host artist and composer Jason Freeman during Sound Source, a two-day workshop, public presentation and collaborative community performance organized by Professor Rick Silva. Freeman is an Assistant Professor of Music in the College of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology whose work employs cutting-edge technology and unconventional notation to transform audiences and musicians into compositional collaborators. 

The Athens Heritage Project 
Paul Sutter 
Associate Professor 
History 

The Athens Heritage Project will share the uniquely varied history of Athens and its neighboring communities through a series of oral history-based theatrical productions. Professor Paul Sutter will work in collaboration with the Rose of Athens Theatre to conduct interviews with Athens residents representing many communities: African-American, Faith, Immigrant, Music, Old Town Athens, the University of Georgia and more. Their stories will be crafted into dramatic compositions using text, music, media and movement, creating an enduring living history for the city and its region.

Descending: Part Three of “Mechanical and Metaphysical Phenomena” 
Martijn van Wagtendonk 
Assistant Professor 
Lamar Dodd School of Art 

Professor Martijn van Wagtendonk’s studio research combines his background in animation and sculpture to create installations with kinetic elements, interactive video, music, electric motors and audience-triggered mechanical events.Descending proposes to extend this research to the realm of engineering, referencing what engineering does and how it influences lives and society as a form of problem solving that describe a tale. The project is a continuation of Mechanical and Metaphysical Phenomena, previously funded by a UGA Research Foundation Junior Faculty Research Grant. 

Satellite Dishes, Moveable Walls, and a Snowscape 
Jonathan Vance 
Undergraduate Candidate 
Computer Science 

Satellite Dishes, Moveable Walls, and a Snowscape will explore the potential of multi-point interactive whiteboards using the Nintendo Wiimote, used in conjunction with live performance. The project will bring together a group of dancers, musicians, set builders, costume designers and lighting technicians, organized by Jonathan (BS candidate, Computer Science) and Maryn Vance (BFA Dance). 

2012, the Instruction Manual for Living in Post-Apocolypsus 
Edward Whelan 
Undergraduate Candidate 
Lamar Dodd School of Art 

Spearheaded by Edward Whelan (BFA candidate, Digital Media), Margaret Allgood (BA candidate, Art History), and Mariquita Davis (BFA Digital Media and 2006 ICE Fellow), 2012 will examine public fascination with apocalyptic themes through the production of a video “field guide” for post-apocalytic living. Using a documentary approach, the team will travel the United States conducting interviews with experts in a vast range of disciplines including communications, horticulture, technology, political science, religion, survival skills, sociology, astronomy, Scientology, weather and climate and Mayan history. 

Georgia 
Andrew Zawacki 
Assistant Professor 
English 

Georgia is a collaboration of Creative Writing Professor Andrew Zawacki, visiting Dance faculty member Denise Posnak, acclaimed percussionist Seth Hendershot and Digital Media BFA candidate Jocelyn Negron. The quartet will conduct a formal exploration of the parallels and interferences between ear and eye, proceeding from the short lyric poem “Georgia” by Surrealist writer Philippe Soupault and culminating in a series of short performances in locations throughout the state.

Report from AUX 2

February 25, 2008
Optical Atlas music blog

Report from AUX 2

Although Black Swan Network were on the bill at last weekend’s AUX 2 event in Athens, what audiences got was something unexpected. Here’s a report from Chris Yetter:

They didn’t play as BSN instead they played as “The Flash Card Orchestra.” Bill Doss conducted a group of 15-20 people including Andrew Rieger, Pete Erchick, BP Helium, Eric Harris, John Fernandes, Heather McIntosh, Davey Wrathgaber, David Specht, and a bunch of Dark Meat folks. Other people in the room at the time who might have been on stage include Derek Almstead, Scott Spillane, Dottie Alexander, and Jamey Huggins. Four people who were in the room but were definitely not on stage were Jeff Mangum, Jimmy Hughes, JoeJustJoe and myself.

The idea was Bill would show a flashcard to the band and they would act out whatever the flashcard said. There were different sections of the band, so they would start and stop at different times. For example, one of the flashcards said something along the lines of insects buzzing in the springtime and everyone would act that out for 30 seconds or so.

AUX 2

AUX2 Experimental Arts Festival
Saturday, February 23
4:30 PM – 1:30 AM
Downtown Athens, GA

Venues
Ciné
Little Kings Shuffle Club
Flicker Theatre and Bar

Schedule
430 – lk – Julie Rothschild + Laura Hoffman
5 – lk – Paul Thomas
5:30 – lk – Chris Herron + friends
6 – flicker – A horse is a Sphere
630 – lk – Howling Jelly
7 – flicker – Hidden Noise Ensemble
730 – lk – Black Swan Network
815 – cine – dance I – Andrea Trombetta, Laura Glenn
845 – cine – video
915 – cine – dance II Kate Schoenke, Maryn Vance
945 – lk – Dark Meat / Pterodactyl Wingspan
1030 – flick – Maps and Transit
11 – lk – Dream Circle
1145 – flick – Lorkakar
12:15 – lk – Kid Pork
1230 – lk – Eyes and Arms of Smoke
1 – lk – Auk Theatre

Sponsors
ICE
Ciné
Little Kings Shuffle Club
Flicker Theatre and Bar
Flagpole Magazine