arts

Alumna Novelist Nominated for Award

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Novelist Morowa YejidéKalamazoo College alumna Morowa Yejidé ’92 is a nominee for a 2015 NAACP Image Award to be awarded Friday, February 6, in Los Angeles. She is nominated in the category of Outstanding Literary Debut Work for her first novel Time of the Locust, described as a deeply imaginative journey into the heart and mind of an extraordinary boy that explores the themes of a mother’s devotion, a father’s punishment, and the power of love.

Time of the Locust (hardcover, 256 pages, Atria Books) is also included in Simon & Schuster’s Freshman Year Reading Catalog for 2014-2015, and was a finalist for the 2012 PEN/Bellwether Prize for socially engaged fiction.

The story revolves around Sephiri, a 7-year-old autistic boy who can draw scientifically accurate renderings of prehistoric locusts but never speaks, smiles, or makes eye contact.

Dara Morowa Yejide Madzimoyo is an accomplished writer whose short stories have appeared in the Istanbul Review, Ascent Aspirations Magazine, Underground Voices, Adirondack Review, and other publications. Her story “Tokyo Chocolate” was nominated in 2009 for a Pushcart Prize and was anthologized in the Best of the Willesden Herald Stories.

Book cover for 'Time of the Locust'Morowa earned her B.A. degree from K in international area studies and her M.F.A. degree in creative writing from Wilkes University, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where she received the Norris Church Mailer Scholarship.

She is a research faculty member at Georgia Institute of Technology and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland. Now based in Washington, D.C., Morowa and her husband have three sons.

Recently, she was selected as “Independent Alum of the Day” by the Michigan College’s Alliance, a collective of 15 independent colleges and universities located throughout Michigan.

Directors Debut

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Emma Franzel and Haroon Chaudhury play Emma Franzel and Haroon Chaudhury in "Wooed and Viewed"
WOOED AND VIEWED characters Emma and Hector are played by Emma Franzel and Haroon Chaudhury.

Liberal arts in theatre arts means a chance for multiple roles—as in actor, crew member, and director. Kalamazoo College’s Senior Performance Series provides senior students a chance to do the latter. This winter’s SPS features The Gas Heart, directed by Joseph Westerfield ’15, and Wooed and Viewed, directed by Arik Mendelevitz ’15. The performances will occur Thursday through Sunday, February 12-15, in Kalamazoo College’s Dungeon Theatre (Light Fine Arts Building). Tickets are $5. Thursday’s performance begins at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday shows begin at 8 p.m. Sunday’s matinee begins at 2 p.m.

The Gas Heart was written by Tristan Tzara, who, according to director Westerfield, described his piece as “the only and greatest three act hoax of the century; it will satisfy only industrialized imbeciles who believe in the existence of men of genius.” Westerfield explained that his production of the play “questions the conventions of normative theatre and invites the audience to participate in their emancipation as a spectator.”

Wooed and Viewed is a French farce (by playwright Georges Feydau) that, like The Gas Heart, defies societal expectations. The character of Emma (played by sophomore Emma Franzel) defies the traditional role of passivity when she orders a stranger to make love to her in order to provoke her husband’s jealousy. Emma has “made herself an other but not the other she is told to be,” says director Mendelevitz. “Women, especially when it comes to sex, exist in a marginalized place in our society where they are told that their role is to put themselves on display for men to come by and window shop,” he added. Mendelevitz has chosen to present the play using a deconstructionist approach in order “to explore new possibilities that would be impossible…on the firm, familiar ground, Art exists in relation to our world, yet simultaneously steps outside of it.” Mendelevitz has written a philosophy treatise about the play which he will present at the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters at Andrews University (Berrien Springs, Mich.) in March.

For more information about SPS, which is part of the 51st season of Festival Playhouse visit the website or call 269.337.7333

K on the Art Hop this Friday, Nov. 7

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The Birds of Great Britain
“Nyctea Nivea.” Plate from John Gould’s “The Birds of Great Britain, London, 1862-1873.

Even if you don’t know much about art, there will be plenty to like this Friday, Nov. 7, 5-8 p.m., when K students, faculty, and the campus itself participate in the monthly Art Hop in downtown Kalamazoo.

“John Gould’s Glories” features beautiful images from the College’s permanent collection by this renowned 19th English ornithologist and artist. Aided by his wife, Elizabeth, Gould published numerous monographs and illustrations of birds from around the world. His famous “Darwin’s finches” played a key role in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.
5-8 p.m. – A.M. Todd Rare Book Room, Upjohn Library (third floor), 150 Thompson St., Kalamazoo College

The Miller-Johnson Art Scholarship and Exhibition for K students concludes in the Park Trades Center. Earlier this year, a jury of K art faculty selected artwork by K students Donna Aguilar ’15, Zoe Beaudry ’14, Lauren Gaunt ’15, and Gabe Montesanti ’15 to be displayed in the lobby of Miller-Johnson Attorneys and Counselors in downtown Kalamazoo. Each student also received $150 from Miller-Johnson. This Friday, the public may vote on their favorite among the four, with the top vote-getter receiving an additional $400! THANK YOU, MILLER-JOHNSON, for supporting Kalamazoo College student artists!
5-8 p.m. – K Community Art Studio, Room 312 (third floor), Park Trades Center, 326 W. Kalamazoo Ave.

More K faculty and student art will be on display from 5-8 p.m. in the Park Trades Center (326 W. Kalamazoo Ave.), including:

  • An exhibit of artwork from the current K Advanced Studio class: Room 312
  • An installation by studio art major Cheyenne Harvey ’15 that explores the individual and social demarcations of “in/out” through use of video and mixed media sculpture: Room 411B
  • An exhibition of K student artwork of all levels organized by the College’s “Arts in the Community Living Learning House”: Room 209L
  • Artwork by Department of Art faculty Tom Rice and Sarah Lindley in the K Faculty Studio: Room 405A.

“Wherefore art thou …?”

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Jenna Wood, Madison Donoho and Benvolio rehearsing
The clash of love and the world manifests in passion and violence in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. One fight scene beguiles (l-r) Tybalt (Jenna Wood ’16), Mercutio (Madison Donoho ’17), and Benvolio (Emma Franzel ’17). Costumes by Elaine Kauffman. Photo by Lanford Potts

Things are not always what they seem–and names (“What’s in a name?”) do not fully define identity. Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College opens its 51st season with a classic, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and with more, or less, historical accuracy than some would expect.

Originally, Shakespeare’s plays were performed exclusively by male actors playing both male and female roles. “Shakespeare’s male actors were not trying to lampoon women or comment on them. Rather, those actors were trying to behave truthfully in imaginary circumstances–they just happened to be playing women,” explains Todd Espeland, guest director.

Today, there are almost always more female actresses than male actors, so Espeland has decided to reverse the genders of the actors. Juliet is being played by a young man–as would have been the case in Elizabethan times–but Romeo will be played by a young woman. The experiment will deepen the experience of the play, Shakespeare’s first foray into the genre of tragedy.

“One of my jobs as a director in educational theatre is to provide the best experiences possible to grow and educate my students as well as our audiences,” says Espeland. “What we hope to do is look at the various ways power is a function of gender.”

“Now that I’m suddenly in many extremely powerless positions as Juliet, I’ve had to change my physicality,” says Thaddeus Buttrey ’17. “This is an extremely challenging role that puts me far out of my comfort zone, but it will make me a better performer, a better thinker.”

In the play, unclear thinking and rash decisions result in a variety of clashes, including sword fights. “I have learned a lot about how gender roles can sometimes influence action and the language that we use,” says Lindsay Worthington’17. “This has made me reflect on its role in my life outside the theatre.”

Because of its notoriety, the play challenges designers as well. “As a scenic and lighting designer, it has been fun to work on one of the most well-known plays in the English language and still make it original,” says Katelyn Anderson ’15. Others on the design team include Elaine Kauffman (costumes) and Arik Mendelevitz ’15 (sound). The fight scenes were choreographed by Jon Reeves.

The show opens on Thursday, November 6 at 7:30 p.m. and runs Friday and Saturday, November 7-8 at 8 p.m. The show’s final performance is Sunday, November 9, at 2 p.m. For ticket reservations, please call 269.337.7333. Tickets are $5 for students, $10 for seniors and $15 for other adults; they may also be purchased at the door. For more information about the 51st season at Festival Playhouse, call 269.337.7333 or visit online.

Breaking down and crossing borders at “Art & Borders” performance

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For a moment, it was hard to distinguish reality from performance.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Michèle Ceballos Michot walk through a door in a wall of windows and onto a concrete porch at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Gómez-Peña lights a cigarette. Michot lifts a pickaxe and places the handle behind her neck, begins a series of stretches, then eases the pick down her neck, the point of it pressing a line into her skin.

It turns out it was just a pre-performance warm-up. But with an international reputation for performance art that precedes them both by miles, it’s easy to believe otherwise – or at least want to. A short while later, the plenary “Art and Borders,” began, one of several sessions on the first full day of the “With/Out Borders” conference hosted by the Arcus Center.

Michot begins a dance routine, a stand of tall trees glowing in afternoon sunlight framed in the glass wall behind her. She powders herself, then grabs a handful of powder and lets it sift through her fingers and into her mouth. After tip-toeing around the stage area, and sprawling out on her stomach, gasping, she enters the crowd, climbing over chairs and falling into the arms of a man whose face turns pink with blushing, places her behind in another man’s lap, reaching down to pick up his Starbucks drink, and takes a sip.

Actors perform during Arts and Borders at Arcus Center
Art & Borders became the first theatrical performance at K’s new Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.

No one is off limits. All of the 100 or so in attendance are living props, it seems, characters in this improvised dance. There are no borders.

Meanwhile, Gómez-Peña, dressed in all black, eyes behind sunglasses, a black line drawn across his face, reads from a poem, the moving prose deriding the treatment of immigrants (“We shape your desire while we contract our services to postpone the real expulsion”) recognize the borders we put around ourselves (“We are equally scared of one another”) and realize the healing, paradigm shifting, immense power of art to break down those borders (“You just can’t take our art away).”

Later, Gómez-Peña and Adriana Garriga-Lopez, K’s Arcus Center chair and assistant professor of anthropology, participate in a question and answer session, the format of which, again, breaks through the borders of what is considered normal.

Gómez-Peña wears a dog collar attached to a chain that Garriga-Lopez is holding. She queries him on his motivations for performance art and what he hopes it achieves.

“How do you view the body?” Garriga-Lopez asks.

“The performance artist sees the body as a landscape, a map, an architectural artifact, mythological creature, text,” Gómez-Peña says.

“Do you see yourself as a poet, or a dancer, or a performance artist, or an activist? Or are all those things the same thing?” Garriga-Lopez asks.

She tugs at the chain.

“Are you choking me?” Gómez-Peña says. “I am this and that and everything in between.”

“What are you like in your personal life?” Garriga-Lopez asks.

“When I’m on stage, I’m more warrior-like, more Indian shaman, a little more queer, more deliberate and outrageous. And off-stage, I am just another perplexed mediocre human being.”

Perhaps. But like the start of his performance, it’s hard to tell.

Learn more about Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Michèle Ceballos Michot at www.pochanostra.com.

 

Common Devisers

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Sonia Camereno-Morales and Cheyenne Harvey
Exploring art in Varanasi, India. Ankita (not pictured) takes a photo of Anuska (foreground) experimenting with content, perspective, and background as she creates photos of her friends Sonia Camereno-Morales ’15 (left) and Cheyenne Harvey ’15.

Senior Cheyenne Harvey is one of eight students in the United States selected as a Joy of Giving Something (JGS) Fellow by the organization Imagining America. As a JGS Fellow, Cheyenne receives a tuition scholarship and joins a national working group of engaged media makers. She will join the other Fellows in October at Imagining America’s national conference in Atlanta. Criteria for the Fellowship included financial need, artistic merit, and community engaged practice. Imagining America is a national network of campus-community collaborators in humanities, arts, and design hosted on the campus of Syracuse University. Joy of Giving Something is a scholarship provided through Imagining America dedicated to the photographic and media arts.

Cheyenne included three of the seven documentaries that she has produced as a K student in her application. Those three are titled Bronson Park Site Intervention; Finding Peace in a Burning World; and Social Landing. An art major at K, Cheyenne has worked in various media. Her primary interests are photography and, more recently, film making. One of her strongest influences (both personal as well as artistic) has been videographer and teacher Dhera Strauss, who works in the College’s information services and art departments.

Cheyenne is very active in the College’s Center for Civic Engagement. As a sophomore and a senior she has worked as a Civic Engagement Scholar for the program Partners in Art. In that position, she works with groups and organizations in Kalamazoo to build relationships through conversation and artistic expression. The groups with which she has worked include Community Advocates for Parents and Students, Ministry with Community, the Bureau of Services for Blind Persons, the Southwest Michigan Heritage Society, and the Boys and Girls Club of Kalamazoo. In her work, the making of art becomes a language shared by people who differ from each other. The impulse to create, common to all, is a way to experience the diversity of all, which is a great source of vitality. This sharing across difference can inspire more making of art–a deepening of a conversation with ourselves and the world.

Cheyenne wrote about this phenomenon in her application essay when she described her study abroad experience in Varanasi, India. “Many local children and teens would ask foreigners to take their picture or a video of them, and then they would run up and want to see the images,” wrote Cheyenne. But they were much more than subjects. “They were directors, devisers, and artists. They were not often content with the images, and many of the kids would plead with us to take the picture again in a new way. I could see that it meant a lot to them to have their own artistic agency in the process.

“Two of the local students would visit me often, and we became good friends through taking photos together. Sharing my phone and camera, we would take turns showing each other the images we carefully devised. One, named Anuska, who was four years old, would stand with her legs spread out holding my phone straight out in front of her to take photographs. Watching Anuska and the other kids further inspired me in the pursuance of photography and film. They showed me the power that media has to unlock the artist in everyone, and I love being a part of this. We differ as devisers of art, but share the impulse to make it.”

Add a camera phone (or paintbrush, or clay, or pen and ink) to that impulse and a native speaker of Hindi can communicate–and become a fellow artist and friend–with a native speaker of English.

Wild Ride

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Looping roller coasterIf you reach Information Services Help Desk Administrator Russell Cooper ’89, you can expect a calm, soothing, and professional presence to assist you with your computer needs. But don’t let his grey-suit-and-conservative-sounding voice fool you, there’s some wild rides in that personality. Rides as in roller coasters! And that’s only one of Russell’s passions. Another is photography, and he’s combined the two in his 2014 ArtPrize submission, For Your Amusement. “I love photography, and I love roller coasters (riding and photographing),” said Russell. “And I’ve been looking for a way to put them together.” The “marriage” is a collage of photos seamlessly melded together to create the ultimate roller coaster experience. Russell is a pretty good writer as well. Here’s a sample from his artist statement: “Arms down, head back, and hold on. Slowly climbing your way to the top of the never-ending lift hill. Click. Click. Click. Click. Excitement and fear awaits. Heart in your throat, stomach-churning, cannot breathe. Prepare for the thrill ride of your life. Cresting the peak, you suddenly drop down the hill, wind in your hair, hands in the air, screams of pure joy, air-time lifting you out of your seat. The 3 minutes feel like an eternity, yet over in a flash. Let’s go again!” You gotta love that liberal arts versatility. Russell majored in music and studied abroad in Muenster, Germany.

ArtPrize opens to the public on Sept 24th and runs until the 12th of October. It’s a democratic art exhibition involving several hundred thousand visitors and over 1500 artists and everyone gets to vote for their favorites…like Russell. We’d love to know about other alumni who have submitted entries for ArtPrize 2014. Let us know, and we’ll let our readers know.

Working Together to End Violence

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Advertisement for Working Together to End Violence eventKalamazoo College’s Ethnic Studies program is collaborating with the student organization, Sexual Safety and Support Alliance, and the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) to present “Working Together to End Violence.” The event will occur on Friday, September 26, at 2:35 p.m. in the ACSJL building on K’s campus, and it will feature a viewing and discussion of the film Hearing Radmilla. The film was produced and edited by Angela Webb and documents the turbulent reign of Radmilla Cody, Miss Navajo Nation 1997-98, and the first biracial person to hold that title. The film chronicles her development as the goodwill and cultural ambassador of the Navajo Nation and her success as an award-winning vocal artist. Later Cody was sentenced to 21 months in a federal corrections facility for misprision of a felony, essentially concealing knowledge of a crime. The extenuating circumstances included an abusive boyfriend involved in marijuana trafficking. When Cody was released in 2004 she became a passionate activist against domestic violence. Both Webb and Cody will attend and participate in the discussion, which is part of the social justice leadership center’s With/Out ¿Borders? Conference.

The film offers an unparalleled treatment of race and gender in the U.S., according to Reid Gomez, who directs the College’s Ethnic Studies program and will serve as the moderator of the event. “No other film crosses the firm racial boundaries that police the categories of Black and Indian. Significantly, the film also addresses the epidemic of domestic violence and the singular position of women in prison.”

The issue of domestic violence has been prominent recently as a result of developments in the case of former Baltimore Raven Ray Rice and his wife Janay Palmer Rice. But the issue is longstanding and particularly acute for indigenous women. “According to a U.N. report, indigenous women are eight times more likely to be murdered that non-indigenous women,” said Gomez. “The violence against Black and Indian/indigenous women has largely been ignored, disavowed, and rendered invisible.”

Gomez has high praise for the film. “Webb was able to tell Cody’s complex story (of colonialism, racism, and domestic violence) without resorting to any grotesque display or to the erotics of terror.”

K Art Professor Sarah Lindley Exhibits in “Of Consequences: Industry and Surrounds” in Lansing

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Advertisement for arts eventAssociate Professor of Art Sarah Lindley exhibits her artwork in a two-person show with Norwood Viviano titled “Of Consequences: Industry and Surrounds” at the Lansing (Mich.) Art Gallery, from Sept. 5 through Oct. 30. A community reception will be held Sept. 5, 7-9 p.m. The Gallery is located at 119 N. Washington Square in Lansing. For more information: (517) 374-6400 or www.lansingartgallery.org.

By the Way: The new creative director of the Lansing Art Gallery is Barb Whitney ’98.

Kalamazoo College Conference Gathers Experts on Immigrant and Undocumented Youth

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2014 logo for Without Borders ConferenceAmidst the controversy surrounding the nearly 60,000 undocumented and unaccompanied youth who have migrated to the United States in recent months, primarily from Central America, international experts on immigrant and undocumented youth will convene at Kalamazoo College. Their gathering is part of the With/Out – ¿Borders? conference hosted by the Kalamazoo College Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (September 25 through 28). Conference events related to this timely topic include:

* Roundtables exploring migration and identity on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, as well as the nature and impact of relations at that border both locally and globally.

* A daylong Think Tank on networks and support for undocumented youth and those working with them, held in collaboration with Kalamazoo’s Hispanic American Council. And,

* A workshop and performance by acclaimed performance artist and MacArthur “Genius” Guillermo Gómez-Peña, whose eclectic “Chicano cyberpunk” pieces often focus on the intercultural experience of Mexicans in the US.

Participants also will include James Roberts (University of Maryland School of Social Work and Johns Hopkins), Rudy Lozano (Chicago immigrant rights activist), and Lulú Martínez (undocumented student at the University of Illinois at Chicago and one of the Dream Nine). Local participants include Lucy Guevara-Vélez of Western Michigan University, Jill Hermann-Wilmarth and Simona Moti of Kalamazoo College, and Lori Mercedes and Adam Poole of the Hispanic American Council.

All activists, artists, students, researchers, and others interested in immigration and social justice are invited to attend the With/Out – ¿Borders? conference. Registration is on a sliding scale from $35 – $125, and group rates are available. Space is limited, and interested persons are urged to register as soon as possible. The four-day conference features discussion, workshops, a film festival and performances on important hot-button issues, including immigration and migration, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, activism and art, and urban revolt and renewal.

The mission of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership is to support the pursuit of human rights and social justice by developing emerging leaders and sustaining existing leaders in the field of human rights and social justice, creating a pivotal role for liberal arts education in engendering a more just world.

Kalamazoo College (www.kzoo.edu), founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts and sciences college and the creator of the K-Plan that emphasizes rigorous scholarship, experiential learning, leadership development, and international and intercultural engagement. Kalamazoo College does more in four years so students can do more in a lifetime.