CalArts Magazine - Winter 2015

The Magazine of California Institute of the Arts | Winter 2015

� The Magazine of California Institute of the Arts | Winter 2015

joan abrahamson

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

I never cease to be amazed by the imagination, passion, drive and creative independence of CalArts students—and at their will to make a difference as citizens and artists. These are the creative thinkers who will help us to see, hear, feel and think more deeply; to imagine and help us realize a more compassionate, just and satisfying world.

Each year more of these very special young artists seek us out from virtually every state in the union and, currently, from nearly 50 different countries. When I ask what brought them to CalArts, they almost always reply that they were looking for a college that would permit and encourage them to pursue their own unique array of talents. These rarely fit into pre-existing boxes. Based upon their online searches and campus visits, CalArts appeared to be the only school that genuinely fit them.

Once they arrive at CalArts these remarkable students are thrilled to discover that the faculty share the same values they do, combined with a great deal more experience and a willingness to help students delineate the paths they want to travel.

Matching the right student with the right faculty is what CalArts is all about.

The great challenge in making this happen is the cost of providing an individually tailored education. Today less than 20 percent of the students who attend CalArts can afford the full cost of the education they receive. To enroll, the others require financial aid, most often in the form of a mix of scholarships and loans, and often part-time jobs. As the cost of education continues to rise at CalArts, as at colleges and universities generally, it becomes ever more difficult to make ends meet, and the need for increased scholarship funds becomes more urgent. Indeed, under these circumstances, I consider any day in which we do not identify and pursue new scholarship aid, to be at least partially in vain.

At the heart of this issue of CalArts are brief portraits of some of our scholarship students. In this issue, as well, you will encounter some of the faculty who give so much to help these students, while at the same time continuing to make their own unique artistic contributions to the world. And you will meet some of the volunteer leadership, including CalArts’ newly installed Board Chairman Tim Disney, who guide and support the work of this special community of artists.

As you read these inspiring stories, I hope that you’ll consider contributing to one of CalArts’ many scholarship funds. A gift of any amount will be deeply appreciated.

Thanks for your continued interest in and support of CalArts.

Steven D. Lavine President

BOARD OF TRUSTEES OFFICERS Tim Disney, Chair Thomas L. Lee, Vice Chair James B. Lovelace, Vice Chair TRUSTEES Joan Abrahamson Aileen Adams Thom Andersen, Faculty Trustee Alan Bergman Austin M. Beutner David A. Bossert Louise Bryson Don Cheadle Melissa Draper David I. Fisher Rodrigo Garcia Harriett F. Gold Richard J. Grad Charmaine Jefferson Marta Kauffman Jill Kraus Nahum Lainer Steven D. Lavine, Ex-Officio Thomas Lloyd Michelle Lund Jamie Alter Lynton Leslie McMorrow Greg McWilliams Alfredo Miranda, Staff Trustee Thomas Newman Michael Nock Nijeul X. Porter, Student Trustee Janet Dreisen Rappaport Tom Rothman Araceli Ruano David L. Schiff Malissa Feruzzi Shriver Joni Binder Shwarts Susan Steinhauser Thomas E. Unterman Roger Wacker Elliot D. Webb Luanne C. Wells TRUSTEE EMERITI V. Shannon Clyne Joseph M. Cohen Robert J. Denison Robert B. Egelston Douglas K. Freeman Jeffrey Katzenberg William S. Lund Peter Norton C. Roderick O’Neil Michael Pressman Joseph Smith

above: Alice Könitz, The Los Angeles Museum of Art, 2012-present. Mixed media, dimensions variable.

Installation view, Hammer Museum, 2014. Featuring work by Carl Andre, Monika Baer, Tony Conrad, Taft Green, Katie Grinnan, Margaret Honda, Judith Hopf, Violet Hopkins, David Hughes, Pamela Jorden, Peter Kim, Daniel Knorr, Peter Könitz, Sonia Leimer, Gunter Lorenz, Daniel Mendel-Black, John Pearson, Peter Schumann (Bread and Puppet Theater), Anna Sew-Hoy, Zachary Stadel, Stephanie Taylor, Matthew Waller and B. Wurtz.

courtesy of the artists. photo: brian forrest

Alice Könitz (Art mfa 99) won the $100,000 Mohn Award for her best-of-show contribution to the Hammer Museum’s Made in l.a. biennial last summer. Her prize-winning entry was an iteration of The Los Angeles Museum of Art—an ongoing project in which the CalArts alum’s idiosyncratic “display systems” house presentations of art and performance by fellow artists. Doubling as both functional microgallery and sculptural installation, Könitz’s effort “stands out as exemplary of an artistic practice that not only affects other artists through collaboration, but enriches the art community through questioning the purpose and role of a museum,” declared the biennial’s jury in its citation.

Co-curated by CalArts School of Art faculty member Michael Ned Holte and the Hammer’s Connie Butler, Made in l.a. also featured alums Danielle Dean (Art mfa 12), Mariah Garnett (Film/Video mfa 11), Max Maslansky (Art mfa 06), Brian O’Connell (Art mfa 02), Clarissa Tossin (Art mfa 09) and the late Tony Greene (Art mfa 87), as well as School of Art faculty Lecia Dole-Recio and Judy Fiskin.

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HEADLINERS

NANI AGBELI JOINS SIGNATURE CALARTS PROGRAM Star Ghanaian performing artist Victor Nani Agbeli arrived at The Herb Alpert School of Music last summer as the new director of the iconic African Music and Dance Program—a constant source of exuberant creative expression on campus ever since CalArts first opened its doors in 1970.

As a scion of a famous family in Anlo Ewe arts, Agbeli is one of the foremost performers of his generation—acclaimed for his precision, athleticism and stage charisma. The 39-year-old master drummer, dancer, singer and designer comes to the Institute from Boston’s Tufts University, where he directed the Music Department’s resident African drum and dance ensemble, Kiniwe.

He also has been a guest instructor and performer at schools from Harvard to the Berklee College of Music. Back in Ghana, he had served as the lead drum and dance instructor at the prestigious Dagbe Arts Centre.

The multitalented, tech-savvy Agbeli says that CalArts embodies his own longstanding vision of interdisciplinary artmaking.

“I have always had this dream of all the art forms in one place, where there is collaboration between those art forms,” he states.

Agbeli’s arrival marks a generational transition in the life of a signature program that to date has been synonymous with another Ghanaian arts dynasty: the Ladzekpo family. The brothers Alfred and Kobla Ladzekpo led the African Music and Dance Program for four decades until their retirements—first Kobla in 2007 and Alfred four years later. Beatrice Lawluvi, Kobla’s wife, continued

with the program until last spring, when she concluded her 42-year CalArts career.

As Agbeli settles into the environment at CalArts, replete with the creative resources of six different schools, he sees his mandate as easing the African Music and Dance Program into a new era, in tune with ongoing developments in the arts from around the globe. “You have to move forward, keep turning new pages,” he says. “So the question for me is, ‘What else can you add to what is already here?’”

One aim is to offer more exposure to African forms beyond the program’s Anlo Ewe core. “By introducing music and dance from other African traditions, students will have more context and get to better know and feel the connections to the larger artistic heritage of the region and the continent,” Agbeli explains.

Moreover, given his own interest in the cross-pollination of disciplines and cultures, the director plans to engage the program more intensively with other creative work being carried out at CalArts. “This could be combining traditional West African performance with jazz or hip-hop,” he says. “Or, because I love technology, collaborating with artists who work with media.”

Agbeli, who was trained first and foremost as a dancer, has already upgraded one of two current African dance classes to more advanced techniques. Another new offering is also in the pipeline: Agbeli wants the standing African Music and Dance Ensemble to spin off a blended group with non-traditional instrumentation to experiment with new intercultural directions.

moira tarmy

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LANDMARK LOUISE SANDHAUS BOOK TELLS THE STORY OF CALIFORNIA GRAPHIC DESIGN After more than a decade of research, faculty member Louise Sandhaus (Art mfa 94) has

Winter 2015

Headliners

come out with an exhilarating account of California graphic design over a span of 50 years during the last century, offering a designer’s view of its most adventurous, even esctatic, expressions. Published domestically by Metropolis Books and in Europe by Thames & Hudson, Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires & Riots: California and Graphic Design, 1936-1986, places the distinctive, often-underrated traditions developed in the Golden State, from mass-market modernism to the irrepressible outpourings of the counterculture, within the canon of 20th-century design, and asserts its role in defining visual culture as we know it today.

Sandhaus’ survey comprises four sections: “Sunbaked Modernism,” “Industry and the Indies,” “60s Alt 60s” and “California Girls.” Its many treats include samples of publications designed by Merle Armitage, Alvin Lustig, Herbert Matter and original CalArts faculty member Sheila Levrant DeBretteville—the founder of the Women’s Design Program at the Institute. The book also examines posters promoting subjects as varied as Herman Miller furniture, Disneyland, and Haight-Ashbury music shows; interstitials and titles for tv and film, from Lassie and The Smothers Brothers to Taxi Driver and Tron; and motion graphics from the earliest animated abstractions to the classic 7-Up “Bubbles” ad and Atari arcade video games.

Sandhaus wrote, edited and designed the gorgeous tome, while fellow faculty members Lorraine Wild and Michael Worthington (Art mfa 95), as well as alumna Denise Gonzales Crisp (Art mfa 96), provided additional commentary. “A raucous compendium of the best of the Wild West,” enthused Roman Alonso of the design studio Commune. Andrew Blauvelt of the Walker Art Center compared the rich history showcased by Sandhaus to “the Golden State’s famed agricultural production: a bountiful harvest of design staples, both indigenous and invasive, and other exotic and hybrid varietals.”

In conjunction with the release of the study, Sandhaus taught a research class called “Making History” in the Graphic Design Program during the fall semester.

Picking up where the book leaves off, the class called on students to further explore California’s many overlooked graphic designers, projects and institutions. “Earthquakes is a conversation starter,” says Sandhaus. “I want to inspire and help others to build on the incredible history of California design. The work has such a ‘wow factor’ when people see it. There really needs to be more documentation—and appreciation—of these groundbreaking contributions to design, so that this work won’t end up in that proverbial dustbin of history.”

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CALARTS WELCOMES TWO NEW TRUSTEES

christopher barr

Greg McWilliams

THOMAS NEWMAN

Valencia resident Greg McWilliams is president of Newhall Land, which has partnered with CalArts throughout its history in Valencia. “We’ve always considered CalArts one of the great assets of this community,” says McWilliams. “The arts offer value to all communities, and to have a school with global significance right here is a real benefit to the region—yet, 80% of our residents have never set foot on campus. Our goal is to build a bigger and wider bridge between CalArts and its local neighbors.” McWilliams will serve on the CalArts Board’s Building and Grounds Committee.

Before joining Newhall Land, McWilliams was regional president of Lennar Urban Communities in California and president of Lennar Communities in the Bay Area. Prior to that he was a division president of kb Home. McWilliams has also served in the public sector, as executive officer of San Mateo County lafco, executive officer of calafco, and as city manager for the City of Palmdale.

McWilliams currently serves as chairman of the California Business Properties Association (cbpa) in Sacramento, and as chairman of the Southern California Association of Governments Global Land Use and Economic Council (glue). He sits on the Board of Directors of the California Chamber of Commerce, and also serves on the Board of Directors of the Building Industry Association (bia).

Twelve-time Oscar nominee and six-time Grammy award winner, Thomas Newman, brings a deep knowledge of the music business to the CalArts Board of Trustees. The composer of music for more than 50 films including Skyfall, American Beauty, The Shawshank Redemption and Wall-E, and television programs including Six Feet Under and Angels in America, Newman first learned about CalArts through his daughter, who is currently enrolled in the Institute’s Musical Arts Program. “I appreciate that CalArts demystifies the process of creativity,” he says. “Rather than only studying the arts, CalArts offers practical approaches to the fostering of imagination. I think that’s so important.”

Newman is part of an extraordinarily accomplished family of musicians that includes his father, Alfred, longtime musical director at 20th Century Fox, and cousin, Randy, who he cites as a “big influence.” Born and raised in Los Angeles, Newman studied composition and orchestration at the University of Southern California, and completed his academic work at Yale University. Stephen Sondheim was an early mentor and champion of his work. Newman completed his first film score in 1984 when he was promoted from musical assistant to composer for the film Reckless. Newman will serve on the CalArts Board’s Academic and Campus Affairs committee.

WANG YUANYUAN AND COMPANY RETURN TO THE U.S. WITH NEW DANCE THEATER PRODUCTION Internationally acclaimed choreographer Wang Yuanyuan (Dance mfa 03) and her powerhouse company, Beijing Dance Theater, returned to the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival to give the u.s. premiere of Wild Grass last October. Inspired by “expressions of the will to survive” in Lu Xun’s 1927 poetry collection of the same name, Wang’s full-evening, three-part dance theater opus unfolds as an evocative abstraction of the iconic writer’s volatile elemental landscapes, accompanied by solo piano, strings and experimental electronica. The production next traveled to The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, dc, and the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Chicago.

“For its physical power alone, Wild Grass was an invigorating experience,” reported The Washington Post. “Add to this the sheer visual beauty of the production.”

Wang, who contributed choreography to the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, is known for blending time-tested Chinese performance traditions with strong visual elements and a brisk, youthful style. She had previously brought her company to the Next Wave Festival and The Kennedy Center in 2011.

Beijing Dance Theater, Wild Grass, 2014.

courtesey of bdt photo: han jiang

Headliners

Thomas Newman

GREG McWILLIAMS

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CHARLIE HADEN 1937—2014

The CalArts community lost one of its all-time leading lights last summer when the legendary jazz bassist, composer, bandleader, educator and social activist passed away following a long illness. Haden, who founded the Institute’s illustrious Jazz Program in 1983, was 76.

Hailed by Time magazine as “one of the most restless, gifted and intrepid players in all of jazz,” Haden built a stupendous creative career over seven decades and mentored generations of CalArts jazz artists. He was best known as an original member of the Ornette Coleman Quartet and, later, founder of the Liberation Music Orchestra. A three-time Grammy winner, Haden was named an nea Jazz Master in 2012 before going on to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Recording Academy in 2013. He gave his final live performance at redcat in December of that year.

The CalArts jazz standard-bearer was a singer since early childhood with his family’s popular country band until polio damaged his vocal chords and forced him to concentrate on the double bass.

“Mr. Haden had a deep, grounded way with the bass and a warm, softly resonant tone,” wrote Nate Chinen in The New York Times. “His approach to harmony was deeply intuitive and sometimes deceivingly simple, always with a firm relationship to a piece’s chordal root. Along with his calm, unbudging rhythmic aplomb, this served him well in settings ranging from the ragged and intrepid to the satiny and refined.”

He first burst onto the jazz scene in 1959 as the bassist of the boundary-shattering quartet led by alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman. Beginning with the watershed album The Shape of Jazz to Come, the quartet pioneered a radical polytonal approach to improvisation—with Haden’s harmonic bass as both anchor and pivot—that set off the avant-garde “free jazz” developments of the ’60s and ’70s.

In addition to his definitive work with Coleman, Don Cherry, Billy Higgins, Ed Blackwell and Dewey Redman from this period, he collaborated with jazz innovators John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Archie Shepp and Joe Henderson, among many others. The bassist also played in Keith Jarrett’s celebrated groups through the mid-’70s.

In 1969 Haden formed his own large ensemble, the politically charged Liberation Music Orchestra. Featuring compositions and arrangements by pianist Carla Bley on four landmark studio albums, the experimental big band combined bravura improvisations with the immediacy of folk and protest songs crying out for social justice.

Haden’s other standing ensemble, started in 1986, was the straight-ahead Quartet West, whose elegant bop-oriented style looked to the origins of modernism in jazz. A late career highlight arrived in 2008 with the recording Rambling Boy, in which the 21stcentury iteration of the Haden family was joined by all-star guest artists to revisit the roots music played by the original Haden Family Band in the 1930s and ’40s.

Haden first came to CalArts in 1982, enlisted by then-Music dean Nicholas England to teach a class in improvisation, with a view toward launching a formal jazz program. Jazz had not been part of

the CalArts music curriculum because of founding dean Mel Powell’s opposition to the stifling academicism of jazz programs in the ’60s, but England, co-architect of the curriculum, continued to push for a new creative approach to jazz education. Haden’s class was an instant revelation and by the fall of 1983 the fledgling Jazz Program, led by Haden and David Roitstein, was up and running. Its original goals remain true to this day, says program chair Roitstein. Much more than training technically proficient players, its course of study strives to develop each student’s singular musical voice, as improviser and composer, in the service of greater artistic expression.

“As a musician, Charlie’s greatest gifts were his immediately recognizable sound, his melodic inspiration, his phenomenal ears, his openness and curiosity with all kinds of music, and his humanity,” says Roitstein. “Those same gifts also made him such an exceptional educator.”

Haden’s survivors include his wife, Ruth Cameron, and his four children, all accomplished musicians: singer-songwriter Josh Haden and the Haden Triplets—Petra, Rachel and Tanya Haden (Film/Video mfa 00).

In cooperation with Ruth Cameron and Petra, Rachel and Tanya Haden, the Institute has established the Charlie Haden CalArts Scholarship Fund to help support Jazz Program students who embody the late maestro’s “character, originality, independence and commitment to beauty.” If you wish to honor Charlie’s legacy by making an online contribution to this fund, please go to: calarts.edu/support To learn more about giving to the fund, please contact: Randy Lakeman, Executive Director of Development 661 253-7728 or rlakeman@calarts.edu

Winter 2015

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Spotlight

TIM DISNEY The Institute’s Newly Elected Board Chair Peers Ahead

The CalArts Board of Trustees unanimously elected longtime member Tim Disney as chairman in October, exactly 50 years after his great uncle, Walt Disney, first publicly unveiled the sweeping vision behind the new California Institute of the Arts.

The 53-year-old Disney, a writer-director, producer, entrepreneur and philanthropist, succeeds Austin Beutner, who stepped down from the chair to focus on his new position as publisher and ceo of the Los Angeles Times.

“Having grown up in my family right alongside CalArts, it’s an honor and privilege to be asked to serve as chair,” said Disney after his election.

Disney’s appointment marks a generational shift in the Disney family’s ongoing commitment to the Institute, following the original founders, the brothers Walt and Roy O. Disney, and a second generation represented by Roy E. Disney and Sharon Disney Lund. President Steven D. Lavine, though, looks to the incoming chairman to build on the family legacy in his own distinctive way, bringing to his new leadership role the experience and insight won first-hand as a creative practitioner and mediaand tech-savvy entrepreneur.

“Tim really ‘gets’ CalArts,” says Lavine. “He deeply and intimately understands the value we place on individual creative vision, independence of mind, and the drive to innovate—and why we do it. Those are the capabilities we seek to bring out in our students because those abilities, as part of a comprehensive skill set, are what will help young artists take their talent to the next level, where they can shape the direction of art, culture and entertainment.”

As Disney recalls growing up with CalArts lore, he points out that while his father, the late Roy E. Disney, had great affection for the Institute, “he also talked about CalArts with a kind of bemusement—as if it was a rather naughty but charming child. I found that intriguing. It was only later, when I was a fine arts major in college, that [CalArts] started to make more sense, that there were specific ideas behind its subversiveness, which are a positive force.

“I prefer ‘subversive thinking,’ which is more purposeful and critical than the mainstream buzzword ‘disruption,’ now used to describe any business novelty,” Disney adds. “As much as people and organizations form themselves into hierarchies, we need to keep challenging those structures to keep them from hardening.

Not just in order to have an energetic economy, but in all modes of thinking across society. I think the arts play a central role in asking questions of the status quo and pushing boundaries.

CalArts is not the only school where this kind of critical, out-ofthe-box thinking is encouraged, but we are one of its high temples—where it’s a shared community value.”

Disney believes that CalArts today is at an historical apogee.

“I don’t think the school has ever been stronger, as measured in terms of its national and international reputation, and the quality of the students we enroll and graduate,” he says. Yet he also recognizes a fast-approaching inflection point as more and more families struggle to afford college exactly when quality education is most needed by the up-and-coming generation. “The changing economics of higher education are a significant challenge for all colleges—and for CalArts in particular.” he says. “We don’t have the large endowment older universities do, or a mechanism like a football team to generate one.” At stake, Disney maintains, is the dynamic heterogeneity of the CalArts student population, which correlates with the richness of the creative output. “That the students here come from diverse backgrounds— economic, ethnic, cultural—is something we are very proud of.

We’ve made it a priority and we’ve lived up to it. So we absolutely don’t want the makeup of the student body skewed by affordability.

“This is why we need to re-examine—as the [forthcoming] Strategic Plan does—how we deliver our brand of creative education to make it as efficient and effective as possible. We obviously want to hang on to what we do best—the core, one-on-one mentoring of young artists—but we have to be open to change as well. College students are facing enormous, unprecedented pressures, and we have to explore every option for a meaningful response to the environment as it exists today.”

The shape of any such changes, Disney says, will have to ultimately emerge from community consensus. “The Institute is not a company; it’s a lively community with many voices that demand to be heard. Governing CalArts is a loud and messy business. But over the years I have observed that the process is based on real shared values, and everyone is committed to the core mission of educating the best possible artists. And so it works.”

The new chairman adds that the Institute would not be on the stable footing it is today without the stewardship of his predecessor, Austin Beutner, whose financial acumen helped CalArts keep its resources intact through two recessions—the second occurring during his tenure as chair. “Austin deserves full credit for seeing the organization through really difficult times and now to its reputational peak. He leaves big shoes to fill, but I will do my best to carry forward the work of helping CalArts achieve its goals.”

by freddie sharmini

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Having grown up in my family right alongside CalArts, it’s an honor and privilege to be asked to serve as chair.

A trustee since 1993 and a founding co-chair of the redcat Council, Tim Disney is a graduate of Harvard University, with a degree in Fine Arts. As a founder and partner of Uncommon Productions, he has written, directed or produced 15 feature films and documentaries.

Disney is also a founding director of Blu Homes, Inc., a highly innovative builder of green prefabricated housing.

In addition to his long affiliation with CalArts, Disney serves on the board of the Southern California Institute of Architecture (sci-Arc). He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Neda and three children.

Winter 2015

by stuart i. frolick

Life, Work

Value Scholarships

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The six CalArtians profiled here are a cross-section of outstanding students who would be unable to pursue their dreams without the help provided by scholarship funds.

Each is an original—unique as an artist, yet typical of the student population he or she represents. All CalArts students have stories worth telling, and those stories are often variations on a theme: talents recognized at early ages; skills developed through the encouragement of family and teachers; and dreams of artmaking at the highest levels of excellence. Whether the students are younger, coming directly from high school, or older, enrolling after years in the work force, all of their paths led, in one way or another, to CalArts. In many cases their CalArts experiences were made possible through the sacrifices made by parents and gifts offered by benefactors, known and unknown, on their behalf.

82% of CalArts' 1,489 students require financial aid in order to enroll. Awards to students are based both on need and merit, and while merit is consistently high across the board, need has never been greater. The financial weight of college tuition on students and their families is a subject of urgent national concern, and its impact on the education and careers of CalArtians cannot be overstated.

In response to the ever-growing need for increased financial aid, CalArts has launched a special $25 million fundraising initiative under the name Students First. Twenty million dollars will be assigned as scholarship endowment and current need scholarships. Five million will endow expanded career services through The Patty Disney Center for Life and Work. To date, $7.5 million has been raised toward the $25 million.

They ensure that the most gifted students are able to enroll, regardless of their financial means, and help maintain the diverse student population that is so important to the Institute’s mission and creative vitality.

Financial aid allows students to reduce the hours they spend working jobs during the academic year to pay for their living expenses, thus enabling them to devote more time to their art and studies.

Finally, scholarships help alleviate the enormous debt burdens facing students after graduation, freeing them to focus more sharply on their budding careers and creative practices.

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Scholarships

Scholarships are critical for three reasons:

Scholarships

the sharon disney lund school of dance

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Brance Souza Los Banos, California

A dancer with a movement vocabulary “sees� the art form in new ways.

bfa

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One senses the power of Brance Souza’s physical energy immediately. His effervescence and good cheer belie the fact that in addition to a rigorous schedule of classes, rehearsals and performances at CalArts, he also holds a full-time job in the food service industry.

The Central Valley native came to dance late, only four years ago, at 21; his background in movement was gained primarily through musical theater, both in high school and at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz.

“I had my own way of feeling movement and musicality, but I came to CalArts to find the technical aspect of dance: understanding where my body was placed, and why it was there, as opposed to just moving freely and allowing my body to do what it wants. There’s a difference between free-form movement that comes from knowing your body—a lot of musical theater is about learning steps and embodying them as a character—and applying a dancer’s technical precision to performing those moves. At CalArts the focus is artistic growth. In my journey, that meant developing a way for my ballet and technique classes to work for me, rather than me working for them. Handling the financial challenges has been hard. I don’t receive much money from my family–not because they don’t want

I had my own way of feeling movement and musicality, but I came to CalArts to find the technical aspect of dance...

to contribute, but because they are unable to. I’d been out of school for five years as a self-sustaining adult, so it was interesting going back to pull out loans and try to find cosigners. Luckily, my family are very hard workers with good credit. This year, my last at CalArts, I was having difficulty finding cosigners. I worked with my financial aid liaison in the dance school to see if there was any extra money available for distribution, and that’s what ultimately allowed me to come back and finish. I also receive funds from a private scholarship through a company (kfc) that I worked for in high school. So, it’s all cobbled together: money I worked for and saved myself, student loans and the scholarship awards.

“The CalArts community is special, regardless of your particular school. Everyone wants to collaborate and work with you, whether you’ve known them for five minutes or four years. That’s a beautiful thing that doesn’t happen at other schools. There’s an intimacy here; a family feeling, and that’s part of what we’re paying for.” above: Souza in action.

Winter 2015

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(1) (2)

(3)

I’m so grateful for my scholarship. It takes the burden off of worrying about money so that I can focus, fully, on my thesis film.

It is with charming humility that Madeleine Mathis says, “There wasn’t anyone like me in my grade in high school. I was the only kid serious about art.”

Raised in the wooded area outside of Dallas, her first film was a time-lapse of a wolf she’d painted on paper, and she’s made a point of including at least one animal in every film since. Mathis found CalArts by researching her favorite artists—Tim Burton, Henry Selick and Steve Hillenburg—and discovering that they’d all attended the Institute.

“Coming here is so inspiring. I thought that I had good drawing skills, but everyone here is amazing, especially in Character Animation. I shoot to become as good as they are. It’s intimidating, but, at the same time, it’s comforting to know that everyone else is just like me: we have the same interests; we watch the same tv shows. If there’s an experimental technique that I want to try, there’s probably someone here that knows all about it. In my first year, I was working with a very obscure stop-motion technique called strata-cut, which was developed by David Daniels, another CalArts alum.

“Animals have always been important to me. As a child we had cats, dogs, birds, hamsters, and our woods had deer, coyotes, foxes and racoons. Observing the differences in animal behavior is inspiring. When I was little, I said I wanted to be a kitty when I grew up!

I’ve done some voice acting for other artists here, doing animal sound effects for their films.

“I’m so grateful for my scholarship. It takes the burden off of worrying about money so that I can focus, fully, on my thesis film. I feel fortunate that I don’t have to work. My parents are paying for college, but this year was going to be tough because my sister is starting college too, and we weren’t sure if my parents could afford having both of us in school at the same time.

The scholarship made the difference.

“I’ve grown and improved a lot at CalArts. Before I came I didn’t know how to use the computer in my work. Now I’ve got Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere, Pro Tools, and this year I’m learning Flash. Going to screenings of other people’s work and learning about the clichés we need to avoid as storytellers has helped me attain a deeper wisdom about the whole area of animation. I feel like I’m making more meaningful films now, and I’m really pleased about that.”

(1) Tin Grin, 2014.

(2) Puptato: The Potato That’s Also a Dog, 2013.

(3) Sophomoric Shenanigans, 2013.

Scholarships

school of film/video

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Madeleine Mathis Argyle, Texas

An experimental animator is inspired by her affection for animals.

bfa Winter 2015

Scholarships

the herb alpert school of music

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Neelamjit Dhillon Vancouver, British Columbia

A composer/performer combines jazz and Indian classical music with his passion for social justice.

dma

sofia canales

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Read just a few sentences of Neelamjit Dhillon’s doctoral thesis abstract and you know that this citizen-artist thinks and cares deeply about his cultural heritage, his art, and his calling in life.

“By looking at the use of art as activism,” he writes, “specifically in the case of the Civil Rights Movement, the role of musical improvisation emerges as a means to express the struggle for justice, and as an audible way to communicate that struggle to the listener. By utilizing the musical language of jazz and coupling it with Indian classical music, a sonic representation emerges…”

“My parents are from Punjab, India, and they immigrated to Canada, where I was born.

They wanted me to engage with something related to our cultural heritage and when I was 10 I started playing tabla, a drum used in North India. So, I had been playing tabla 20 years before I even came to CalArts. Vancouver is very multicultural, and there I played music with Chinese, Arabic and Persian musicians as well as North American jazz musicians. My work here combines Indian melodies with jazz harmonies to evoke certain emotions and depict a sense of time, space and the personal struggles of someone that looks different than the typical North American.

“The Sikh population has been part of the community in America for more than 100 years, yet because the overall population is so large, the Sikhs have been hidden. Due to conflicts in the Middle East, the media coverage, and people’s lack of education, often they see a turban and think, ‘Oh, they must be Muslim. They must be other.’ Most Americans don’t know that Sikhism is a different religion, a different culture. It comes from India, but it’s not a sect of either Islam or Hinduism. Sikhism is the fifth-largest religion in the world…

“Music has become my spiritual practice. It makes me feel something deeper than any religion could. CalArts being open and accepting of all people, has a no-censorship policy on artmaking, which I think trickles down to the way we treat each other as people. At times, I’ve gotten looks from other students; they’re curious, definitely, Winter 2015

Music has become my spiritural practice. It makes me feel something deeper than any religion could.

but never with malice. CalArts is inclusive of color, gender and sexual orientation. It’s a safe place in which to make art.

“Along with all the freedom we have as creative individuals here— the training we get, the people we meet—there is also the financial burden or responsibility. Incurring debt is a reality. I cannot buy new clothes; I skip meals frequently to reduce costs. I cannot really socialize or go out, which also limits networking opportunities. Only two people are accepted into the dma program each year. I feel truly honored to be one of them and am willing to deal with the financial hardships…” above: Dhillon in performance at the Roy O. Disney Music Hall on campus.

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Scholarships

The Aesthetics and Politics Program in the School of Critical Studies often attracts students who are considering doctoral work. This unique CalArts program allows them to develop their critical thinking and discursive skills under the guidance of expert faculty and with feedback from an intellectually and creatively sophisticated peer group. One such case is Emily Donnini, who studied art and religion as an undergraduate, and earned an mfa in Glasgow, Scotland, working in sound, sculpture and video. She currently works full-time as an operations manager for the International English Language Testing System (ielts), which administers a standardized test of English proficiency for non-natives. Headquartered in Los Angeles, ielts’ 50 American centers serve, primarily, students coming to the States from the Middle East. Donnini has become increasingly interested in how power structures both frame and shape issues central to immigration and other pressing narratives.

“What I found so important about the structure of the Aesthetics and Politics Program at CalArts is exactly the nexus of the two discourses held within the title. My current research is centered on economics and what we might consider stateless or marginal groups, the concept of the state of exception, and how one might find a generative form of economics within such communities. The building of narratives through the visualization of data is a part of this process and is an incredibly malleable process. Inherent within such visualizations are the bio-politics or even necro-politics of the population as data and metadata. What we don’t always recognize is that a lot of decision-making, story construction and manipulation takes place; who or what is in; and how tweaks in one direction or another can have immense consequences in people’s lives.

“A contemporary example is Thomas Pikety’s book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. As an economic text, it is overflowing with graphs and data, and there’s been quite a bit of discussion about both the collection of that data, and of what may have been omitted, and how the data has been framed. What does one not include? For a basic example, when we think of the census, whom do we not count? There are, of course, ethical and political implications; our data inscribes and valorizes our ideals.

It becomes an aesthetic issue when we consider how design affects content, or color choices, or whether we scale data from zero to 1,000, or from zero to 10,000 or 20,000. These things can be subtle, yet they can have a large impact on the way people read and use data.

emily donnini

emily donnini

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For me, the decision to go back to school is tied to an ever-present concern with unimaginable debt, with the ethics of debt.

“We live in a time of neoliberalism, of high frequency trading, of surveillance and incredible disparity. Understanding and challenging our present context remains of critical importance. The Aesthetics and Politics Program earnestly interrogates our present state and has provided a distinct platform for vital work in aesthetic/political thought. In such a context, funding for education is political, it is a practice of such thought. For me, as for many in my generation, the decision to go back to school is tied to an ever-present concern with unimaginable debt, with the ethics of debt.

“As tuition fees have increased, many like myself have found the reality of affording higher education prohibitive. I was impressed by the openness of the program leaders in the School of Critical Studies to work to make it possible for me—through scholarship funds and ta-ships—to attend CalArts, for which I feel very fortunate.”

(1) Stone Record, 2010. Stone and metal tone arm.

(2) Facebook is a Flawless Object, 2011. Resin, iPod, mixer, headphones, video and drawing.

Scholarships

school of critical studies

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Emily Donnini Erwin, Tennessee

A sculptor and theorist explores the economic and political implications of information design.

ma

Winter 2015

Scholarships

school of theater

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Adrian Brizuela Pasadena, California

An actor from the age of four works to express identity rather than character.

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An early love of pretending drives many actors toward their chosen art form, and that was certainly the case for Adrian Brizuela. The theater provided exactly the outlet needed for his unbridled creative energy. “Sports was not going to be it,” he says with a smile. “My mother’s an actress and she read that energy. ‘Gotta throw him into the theater!’ she said.” Speaking in quick bursts—verbal jazz riffs– sometimes finishing sentences, oftentimes not—Brizuela is a forceful personality who’s squeezing everything he can into and out of his CalArts experience.

“I was in cap [CalArts’ Community Arts Partnership] for many years—all through elementary school—without knowing that it was connected to CalArts. cap was all about opening up, being imaginative, being silly; we did a lot of training and exercises. It’s weird, but I remember being in first grade—six-years old—and already knowing that I had to up my antics; I had to up my game. Director B.J. Dodge’s openness and directness really hit me…

“CalArts has been amazing. There have been ups and downs, but that’s why you go to school. Not for the applause, but to get better. Specifically, what I’ve learned is how to get the grease going. Get the motor going. Get into that zone. Cut the b.s. Cut all the acting. Just get to the grit. Get to the words. Don’t add much salsa to it. Play identities, not characters. A character is funny or sad; it’s great to play a character for a second.

But with an identity, you want to love, hate, be intrigued. The nuances are much richer.

Winter 2015

“I’ve played lots of parts here. In first year, I played a boxer, then a young lover. And then, Shakespeare; I became Othello, a brutal killer. I played Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen…’ Third year, I worked on a lot of film noir, oldie kind of flicks: Out of the Past, The Big Sleep. That is really my stuff! Then, Ibsen and Chekhov. You need to be a certain age or a certain way along; you get too much. You take too big of a bite. You don’t even know what you’re doing with Chekhov until you’re three years in and have that seasoning… The faculty really changes up the game. Every year you have someone that has a great impact, and then the next year, someone even more powerful. That’s the way the theater school is set up. It’s about nurturing and presence and sensitivity and grace.

It’s about getting out of the way and letting your spirit take over.

“Without my scholarship, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to connect with the faculty, students, and the creativity here, with the quality and excellence that inspires bigger, more productive dreams.

The struggle of paying a huge tuition bill? I have a very strong faith, so I’m not going to get into the worrying—but it’s a wringer for all of us: the family calling the uncle to cosign the loan, your medical bills, you have to put all that away and just be here for the art. CalArts always tells us, ‘Keep dreaming. If you think it’s over, it’s not over.

Keep looking because something’s going to happen soon…’” above: Brizuela on location in Evergreen, Colorado, for the web series Country Boys, which he created, directed, and starred in.

Scholarships

CalArts has been amazing. There have been ups and downs, but that’s why you go to school. Not for the applause, but to get better.

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Scholarships

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“I didn’t get to take any art classes in my high school,” says Angelica Monreal, “so cap was a very important part of my life. It gave me a place to learn and put into practice my ideas and inspirations. The cap office bought my very first painting and opened up the art world to me.” This native Angeleno, the oldest in a family of five children, speaks quietly, with a sensitivity that springs from a wisdom of the heart.

“My parents would do anything in the world to help me, to help my future. If they had to, they would take out full loans, but I don’t want them to have to; I don’t want to burden them with that hardship. Scholarship funds make it possible for students who can’t afford to come to CalArts, which is very pricey, to attend. It gives them a chance. So, every single bit of scholarship money is helpful.

“The creative writing and other Critical Studies classes I’ve taken here have had a big impact on me. I treat my paintings and my texts in a very similar way—right now I’m writing things that I call short text—treating the text as an art object, and trying different ways to engage text and image, without one dominating the other. Finding that line is difficult.

“My writing is about personal things that have happened to me.

Some have a specific emotion that I’m trying to convey, maybe from a memory. I recently wrote a sestina about an elderly homeless woman that I used to see at a grocery store in North Hollywood. The store eventually was abandoned, and this woman took it and made it her home. Every day on my way to school I’d see this woman and she would see me. We recognized each other without knowing or ever talking to each other. One day she was just gone. But emotionally, for me, she’s still there. It’s an attachment, like to home or family. I think everyone has these defining moments in their lives, that may not seem significant at the time, but have a hold on you for the rest of your life, like a fondness for someone you don’t even know.

“I want to be a studio artist when I graduate and to keep expanding my practice. I’m working with paint and text right now, but I’ve also taken classes in sculpture and ceramics. I don’t think artists should do only one thing. I want to try to write a novel…”

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Scholarship funds make it possible for students who can’t afford CalArts to attend. It gives them a chance.

So, every single bit of scholarship money is helpful.

(1-3) Mixed-media works on paper.

(4) Sestina excerpt.

Scholarships

school of art

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Angelica Monreal North Hollywood, California

An abstract painter tests the boundaries between text and art object.

bfa Winter 2015

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The

PATTY DISNEY

Center for LIFE and

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“What can we do to get students to start thinking, from the moment they first step on campus, about their lives after CalArts?” asks Travis Greene, the Institute’s new dean of Student Affairs. The Patty Disney Center for Life and Work represents part of the answer.

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photo: ??? ??? photo:

Greene, who joined CalArts last July, has designed an ambitious agenda to address the full range of student experience, from activism and advocacy to residential life and shared governance, all aimed at creating greater agency for students during their time at CalArts.

“We’re looking at the entire spectrum,” says Greene. “My vision for the direction of Student Affairs is based on proactivity, intentionality and accessibility— and that includes a robust career services component. We want students to know that when they come to CalArts, they will connect with people who are committed to their success beyond the classroom, studio and stage, who will be here for them throughout their lives.”

To help that tall order become a reality, Greene chose Rita Soultanian as his director of Career Services at CalArts, with a shared charge from the president and provost to develop a deeper counseling services model to better serve the diverse needs of the student population. Soultanian comes to CalArts with a great deal of experience in her field, and understands artists from the inside out—she’s a professional vocalist who has performed with The Silver Lake Chorus—founded by Michael Wells (Music mfa 10)—Pi Jacobs, Top Shelf Vocal, and the Apsis Requiem, among others.

At her office on the top floor of CalArts’ sleek new generator building, Soultanian offered this thumbnail history of career resources: “Essentially, career centers used to be staffed with ‘job fillers,’” she says. “In the late 1940s and ’50s we had a placement model. Veterans on the gi Bill were trained, placed in positions, and hopefully they succeeded. In the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s educational pursuits led to career paths.

Career planning was the paradigm. Paths were more clear-cut, as were the steps toward reaching career goals. Next came assessment, and letting personality test results inform choices, and in the ’90s, we saw the emergence of networking.

(1) Travis Greene, dean of Student Affairs (2) Rita Soultanian, director of Career Services

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The Patty Disney Center for Life and Work

That extended to social networking using new technology, and then to a global networking model.”

All of which raises the question of where we are now. “Today,” says Soultanian, “career centers are typically staffed with teams of professionals who have mastered four essential skills: counseling/advising, technology, public speaking, and teamwork. We’re seeing an overall increase in the use of career services by students and alumni, and the model has changed again. We’re seeing many more people, especially at CalArts, creating their own career paths—starting companies, businesses and nonprofits—and it’s important that students understand the process of how to do that, beginning with an understanding of themselves. So, our current model is based on interests, skills and values. Where and when these intersect, we’re probably headed in the right direction.”

The last piece in that puzzle—values—often differs from one generation to another.

Millennials’ values, for example, are often in conflict with those of their parents, who may place job security and compensation at the top of their priority lists. “CalArts students,” says Soultanian, “value working independently and communicating their ideas. They want to maintain the individual identities and voices developed here at CalArts. In these cases, learning to build their own communities becomes important. An example is Machine Project, an experimental arts collective founded by alumnus Mark Allen (Art mfa 99).”

Soultanian’s plan includes significant expansion of paid internships that often lead students to post-graduation employment, as well as extending more invitations to alumni who want to mentor the next generation of artists. “Whomever you come in contact with can create a potential employment opportunity,” she says, “and our job as counselors is to prepare students to identify contacts, teach them to network to their full advantage, and to teach basic business etiquette.”

Finally, what about graduates whose career paths may lead away from the creative professions? “While it’s true that not all of our grads will support themselves directly through their art,” says Soultanian, “regardless of where they end up, they will always be artists—they just may be practicing in different contexts. No matter what their job environment turns out to be, CalArts graduates will always be creative, outof-the-box critical thinkers, and their skills will be sought after and highly valued by a wide range of employers.”

Soultanian’s individual counseling sessions may cover anything from developing résumés and cover letters, to how to supplement income while pursuing a studio practice. “I’m also here to provide emotional support for students,” she says. “Sometimes they just need someone to listen and help them manage some of the anxiety they’re feeling about career choices.”

Winter 2015

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Spotlight

CALARTS' FILM/VIDEO IN A NEW KEY

By Stuart I. Frolick

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media art, in the work of Leighton Pierce, the layering, processing and mixing of his audio tracks are as important as the composition and movement of his lyrical imagery. He’s acutely aware of what he calls “the musical and emotional effects of non-musical sounds.”

Music was Pierce’s first art form and he says it still influences and informs his approach to work.

In an interview for the Sheldon Museum of Art, he said, “It is the soundtrack that structures the video into ‘phrases.’ A sound beginning and then ending defines a phrase... and each phrase becomes a unit of perceived time. Since the images seem to flow one to the other without a break, it is the sound that actually gives shape to the piece.”

Visually, those pieces, which he calls “transformative experiences in time-based media”, tiptoe across many live wires, among them, those between the concrete and abstract, between chaos and control, and between the predictable and unknown. The multi-channel, site-specific and single-channel productions—for which he does left: The Back Steps, 2001, digital video.

Winter 2015

all the shooting, compositing, editing, sound design and music composition himself—are fluid, meditative, multi-layered, and, we daresay, very beautiful.

Pierce came to film through a love for its materiality, realizing in his first college film class, he says, “that I could construct a film like I was constructing music—taking little pieces, putting them together, and creating some kind of meaning—developing an experience for the viewer. With film, I had pictures and sound together.”

Leighton Pierce

While the element of sound is essential to most if not all film and

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“

Leighton Pierce

I’m interested in how our school interacts with the others at CalArts, and how Film/Video’s four programs interact with each other.

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When we spoke to him last October, this open, forthright and contemplative artist/educator had been the new dean of CalArts’ School of Film/Video only since mid-July–too soon for him to spell out a detailed agenda for the school’s four programs. He’d already developed a deep appreciation of the CalArts community, of the faculty and students of the School of Film/Video, and of the newfound balance struck between his art and pedagogical practices. In conversation his recurrent theme was values, and one senses that Pierce may value balance above all else.

Raised outside of Rochester, ny, Pierce came to CalArts, most immediately, from Pratt Institute in New York. After 11 years in charge of the Program in Film and Video at the University of Iowa, in 2011 Pratt recruited him to lead and reshape the curriculum of its Film/Video Department. At Pratt Pierce also upgraded technical resources and led the design process for a new Film/Video building. A year later he was appointed acting dean of the School of Art and Design, which meant oversight of 3,500 students in 15 departments ranging from fashion and film to fine art and industrial design.

Though he knew of CalArts and the work of its Film/Video faculty through attendance at various film festivals, Pierce’s formal introduction to the Institute came in April 2012 when he was invited to present his work at redcat and conduct a four-day workshop. “I was astounded by the students,” he recalls. “They were really smart and technically savvy. They absorbed every concept I offered and fed them back to me. It was one of the best short-term teaching experiences I’d ever had.”

Asked about the Film/Video faculty, Pierce laughs. “Intense,” he says. “They know what they’re interested in and they probe you and, metaphorically, slap you around a bit, and wait to see what comes back. I’ve been very impressed by how every faculty member I’ve met, or observed at a distance, is devoted to their students.”

While Pierce was pleased to find the School of Film/Video operating at a high level upon his arrival, he also sees some areas of potential improvement. “I realize,” he says, “that every idea I have raises a socio-political question, as well as a curricular and outreach question within the ecosystem of the school. Students are hardworking and dedicated to their work, but much of what

happens here, both in and out of class, happens in an unstructured way. That’s probably true in other schools at CalArts as well.

I’m interested in how our school interacts with the others at CalArts, and how Film/Video’s four programs interact with each other. As an administrator, I’m obligated to help make this place sustainable by providing more order and creating clearer pathways for students. I’m working toward doing that without dampening down the school’s productive chaos. I don’t want to make this a very orderly, ‘do this, and this, and this’ sort of school. It’s not that kind of place. So, I’m taking my time to figure out and separate the productive messiness from the unproductive messiness.”

As should be expected of a filmmaker, Pierce is deeply committed to exploring technology as a set of creative and pedagogical tools. His work has spanned the range of analog, electronic and digital technologies since he first worked with video, film and electronic music many years ago. He acknowledges that “different things happen depending on the tools and materials one uses. Do you play acoustic or electric guitar?” he asks. “Well, you do both.

Do you paint in watercolor or in oil? You can do both.” Since the emergence of readily available digital video around the turn of the 21st century, Pierce’s artistic work has focused primarily on exploring the territory of digital video. He describes the digital medium as an incredibly rich and, as yet, partially unexplored territory. In fact, he says, “the territory seems to expand the more we explore. With digital as a primary teaching tool, I have seen student work develop quickly in more diverse directions. This serves my larger pedagogical goal, which is to provide our students with the tools to create while simultaneously cultivating the conditions for them to lead us toward new manifestations and meanings of media in our culture.” Without apparent contradiction, he also expressed hope that here at CalArts “we can continue to explore a dynamic role for 16mm film, a medium that, while supplanted with digital in the commercial world, still provides avenues of potential discovery. In our role as educators we must help students unlock potential meanings and fertilize their artistic growth using all the tools available to us.”

Of the school’s storied programs in animation, Pierce says, “I thought I knew more about these from seeing the amazing work

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at festivals, but they’re more complex than I expected. Last week I attended an event by alumna Rachel Ho, who was wearing a motion-capture suit for a live performance downtown. Faculty Michael Scroggins, Hilary Kapan and Gordon Kurowski are working on this too; they’re talking about domes and other immersive environments. They’ve taken animation out of the theater and are supporting exciting student work using new technologies.”

Character Animation, which is more closely tied to the film industry, Pierce calls a different beast. “There, I think we want to hone the philosophy of the program and cultivate another renaissance, the next Pixar revolution. Because if we train people to do what the industry currently wants, we’ll always be 10 years behind. Then, we’re just doing what they’ve figured out that they want to do, and are trying to perpetuate for market purposes—not something to dismiss—but it shouldn’t be our goal as an academic institution. Whatever happens, we want CalArts alumni to be creating and leading the next charge.”

Pierce’s transition to California and CalArts has brought other surprises. “After running 15 departments at Pratt, I thought, ‘how hard can this be, coming to a 400-person school with four programs that I actually understand?’ It has proven to be an irrelevant equation because there is so much happening here. I’m still amazed by it. Last week, alone, I attended Lucrecia Martel’s screening and talk in Structuring Strategies; I sat in on part of her workshop; I saw a representative from Canon, which was a really robust tech presentation; I listened to an alum who’d come to show her work in an experimental animation class that was just great; and, as I was leaving campus on Wednesday, I peeked into Gary Mairs’ Film History class and he was screening a gorgeous 35mm print of F.W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh—a silent film—with a live band performing original music composed for the film for the class, and this was just Gary’s regular weekly class! I went home thinking, ‘This is a normal week in the School of Film/Video? And I didn’t even get to redcat for Steve Anker’s and Bérénice Reynaud’s program.’”

Welcome to CalArts, Mr. Pierce...

Winter 2015

(1) Glass, 1998, 16mm.

(2) Wood, 2000, digital video.

(3) 50 Feet of String, 1995, 16mm.

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The Book of Life’s main characters—Joaquin (left), Maria and Manolo—are voiced by Channing Tatum, Zoe Saldana and Diego Luna.

STAR ANIMATION ALUMNUS JORGE GUTIERREZ DELIGHTS STUDENTS WITH NEW FEATURE On December 12, Jorge R. Gutierrez (Film/Video mfa 00, bfa 97) returned to CalArts to present a special screening of his big-budget animated feature debut, The Book of Life, at the Bijou. Earlier in the day, the zesty cg thrillride had been nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature.

The bilingual love story, set in Mexico during the celebration of El Día de los Muertos—the Day of the Dead—came out in October to terrific acclaim. “Overflowing with hyperactive charm and a spectacular sea of colors, it showcases some of the most breathtaking animation we’ve seen this decade,” said Entertainment Weekly. Produced by revered Mexican fantasy and horror auteur Guillermo del Toro, the project has been a labor of love for Gutierrez and his wife and creative partner Sandra Equihua, having evolved from the CalArtian’s mfa thesis film, the 3d short Carmelo.

“The Book of Life is a delight,” declared the Chicago Sun-Times. “Gutierrez and del Toro have conjured up an original vision.” The Washington Post, meanwhile, noted that the Reel fx/Twentieth Century Fox release “may use state-of-the-art animation, but it derives its strength from the wisdom of antiquity. It only looks new, but it’s as old as life (and death) itself.”

Gutierrez had first made waves with the Emmy and Annie Awardwinning Nickelodeon series El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, which broke new ground by bringing urban Latin themes to mainstream animation programming. Now The Book of Life, which has grossed more than $90 million internationally, has extended this effort to the big screen.

In addition to its Golden Globe nom, the film is up for five Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature, Outstanding Achievement in Directing for Gutierrez, and Outstanding Achievement in Character Design for Gutierrez, Equihua and Paul Sullivan.

During his campus visit, the Mexico City-born cartoonista attended a luncheon with a group of the Institute’s Latino students and shared insights on his own development as a Latino artist and filmmaker. He recounted how he and Equihua look to their own backgrounds, having grown up in Mexico City and Tijuana, respectively, to shape genuinely compelling stories. “As a student at CalArts, I was very much encouraged by the faculty to ‘look inside’ for both aesthetic and emotional truth,” he said.

“So The Book of Life is really a humble epic that comes straight from the heart, inspired by all the tall tales heard in my own family.”

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The Book of Life is really a humble epic that comes straight from the heart, inspired by all the tall tales heard in my own family.

Jorge Gutierrez

reel fx/twentieth century fox

above: In addition to the screening at the Bijou, Gutierrez met with students throughout his daylong campus visit, checking out their work, spreading hard-won pieces of industry wisdom, and, not least, posing for plenty of pics with his fans.

Winter 2015

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Courtesy of the artist and Susanne Vielmetter l.a. Projects. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

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DISPATCHES News from Faculty, Alumni, Students and Other Members of the CalArts Community

SCHOOL OF ART Edgar Arceneaux (mfa 10) staged an ambitious solo exhibition this fall at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. Entitled A Book and a Medal: Disentanglement Equals Homogeneous Abstractions, the show drew on the “future-focused” humanitarianism of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in major new works, including a feature-length film, A Time To Break Silence, and a sculpture, A Book and a Medal. The former, presented in the gallery as an installation, links one of Dr. King’s last major speeches, “Beyond Vietnam,” with thematic elements from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The sculpture, meanwhile, derives from a telling historical curio: a so-called “Suicide Package” that was prepared by the fbi’s dirty tricks unit and sent anonymously to Dr. King in a scurrilous attempt at personal intimidation.

Known for having more locally rooted artists on its board than peer institutions, l.a.’s Museum of Contemporary Art can now boast MacArthur genius Mark Bradford (mfa 97, bfa 95) as one of its trustees. The native Angeleno joined alum Catherine Opie (mfa 88), former faculty members

John Baldessari (Chouinard 60) and Barbara Kruger, and Mark Grotjahn to make up the contingent of practicing artists on the board. Opie, Baldessari and Kruger had famously voiced the sentiments of the local art community by resigning in protest during a leadership crisis at the museum in 2012. They eventually rejoined the board upon the arrival of new director Philippe Vergne.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art made its first presentation of a large-scale installation by faculty Sam Durant (mfa 91) since acquiring the politically charged work two years ago. Created in 2005, Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions, Washington, dc, includes 30 scaled-down replicas of public memorials to the casualties of 200 years of “Indian wars” between Native Americans and settlers of European descent. Durant also had a solo engagement at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York. Featuring large graphite drawings and mixed-media sculptures, the show, Invisible Surrealists, revisited lesser-known episodes in the history of Surrealist art.

The early oeuvre of Art Program faculty Charles Gaines was the subject of a first-ever major survey at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974–1989 arrays 75 photos, drawings and other works on paper—including rare and neverbefore-seen pieces—to trace the artist’s exploration of the role of “systems and rule-based procedures” in the construction of forms, objects and meanings. Proposed by curator Naima J. Keith as a bridge between the first-generation conceptualists of the 1960s and ’70s and the conceptualism-influenced practices of artists in the ensuing decades, this body of work generates its most alluring effects in the “interplay between objectivity and interpretation, between the systematic and the poetic.” This exhibition arrives at the Hammer Museum in Westwood in February.

Having first studied typography based on the Roman alphabet, Graphic Design students Jessica Kao, Miyu Shirotsuka, Kennis Wong and Karin Yamauchi have turned to exploring type in their own native languages and form-making idioms.

The quartet self-published a beautiful four-part zine called C&J Type: Chinese and Japanese Typography

as part of an independent study guided by faculty Caryn Aono and supported in part by a CalArts Diversity Grant.

Ian Lynam’s (mfa 04) Tokyo design studio developed a pair of personality-rich, hand-drawn typefaces seen in the Whole Foods Market “Values Matter” holiday ad campaign. Meant to honor the manual labor of the supermarket chain’s food suppliers through their “handmade” look, the fonts are differently weighted variations of YouWorkForThem’s oftimitated Hannah, made in consultation with ywft.

Sculptor Rita McBride (mfa 87) is currently showing new eye-popping installations of three large-scale works in a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Known for deftly engaging the tropes of architectural design, modernist sculpture and public space, McBride is the recently appointed director of the famous Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where she has taught since 2003. The show, Rita McBride: Public Tilt, remains on view through February 8.

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Courtesy of the artist and mcasd. Photo: Pablo Mason

Courtesy of the artist. Collection Bruce Bower

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Ed Ruscha’s (Chouinard 59) 1963 Pop “word painting” Smash fetched $30.4 million at Christie’s record-busting auction of postwar and contemporary art in New York. The sum is the highest ever paid for art by Ruscha, who was among 11 artists—alongside Cindy Sherman, Martin Kippenberger and Cy Twombly—whose works hit record prices at the November 12 sale at Rockefeller Center. Ruscha also had a second word painting, Radio on Royal Blue, move for $3.3 million. Andy Warhol’s Triple Elvis (Ferus Type) was the evening’s top seller at a whopping $81.9 million.

The Christie’s bonanza grossed $852.9 million, the largest total ever recorded for a single auction.

SCHOOL OF CRITICAL STUDIES

Jaded Ibis. The series is edited by Janice Lee (mfa 08).

Joe Milazzo’s (mfa 08) daring debut novel Crepuscule W/ Nellie came out last October from Jaded Ibis Press.

This speculative historical fiction muses upon the complex interaction of three main characters: the iconoclastic jazz great Thelonious Monk, his wife Nellie, and his patron and confidant, British-born Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, an heir to the Rothschild financial dynasty.

“Crepuscule W/ Nellie does not attempt historical accuracy,” says Milazzo. “Neither is it an ekphrastic experiment meant to mimic Monk’s brilliance, with his signature dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists. Instead, much like Monk’s composing, the novel creates a whole new architecture in which to tell its otherwise untold story.” Steve Erickson, editor of CalArts lit magazine Black Clock, notes: “The challenge in writing on behalf of Joe Milazzo’s fiction is finding the language to convey how special it is, but let us begin with audacious and fearless, lyrical and brilliant, superbly imaginative and assuredly accomplished—one of tomorrow’s great novelists on the cusp of his moment.” Crepuscule W/ Nellie is the first volume in the “#recurrent” series of novels forthcoming from

Writer-director Nijla Mu’min’s (Critical Studies–Film/Video mfa 13) script for her film-in-progress Noor won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Screenplay at the 2014 Urbanworld Film Festival. The story involves an African American woman who develops an unexpected physical connection to a Palestinian bodega worker in the aftermath of her brother’s unsolved murder.

(1) Edgar Arceneaux, A Time to Break Silence: Reliquary of the Stars, 2014. Detail. Mixed media, 97 1/2 x 77 x 13 3/4 in.

First developed at CalArts as an Integrated Media (im) project, James Pianka’s (mfa 14) language game “Roots” has been picked up by the Pasadena design and development firm Predicate as its first inhouse product. A tabletop card game in the vein of Apples to Apples, Roots calls on players to combine Prefix and Suffix cards to form new words in relationship to a given Subject card. The cards, however, only set up a series of oral arguments, a game of creative narrative warfare in which players must win over the group while at the same time undermining individual opponents. School of Theater undergrad Alixandra Schwartz also contributed to this project.

(2) Charles Gaines, Numbers and Trees V, Landscape #8: Orange Crow, 1989. Acrylic sheet, acrylic paint, watercolor, silkscreen, photograph, 46 5/8 x 38 5/8 in.

Winter 2015

Aesthetics and Politics Program alumnus Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió (ma 13) was part of a team of architects, artists and thinkers that represented the United States last year at the Venice Biennale’s International Architecture Exhibition. Assembled under the banner of “Officeus” by curators Eva Franch, Ana Milja ki and Ashley Schafer, the group of “partners” was set up inside the American Pavilion as a functioning research center for the six-month duration of the Biennale. The eight partners were Shvartzberg Carrió, Arielle Assoulline-Lichten, Matteo Ghidoni, Curtis Roth, Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe of Cooking Sections, and Mona Mahall and Asli Serbest of m-a-u-s-e-r. The task of Officeus was two-fold: to develop a multifaceted history encompassing some 1,000 projects carried out by American architects abroad over the past 100 years, and to envision a future architecture studio based on this research. Shvartzberg is currently working toward a PhD in Architecture History and Theory at Columbia University.

(3) Rita McBride, Toyota and Toyota (Tilted), 1990/2014.

Installation, mcasd, 2014.

Dispatches

Ruminating on his transition from lo-fi outsider artist to indie-pop A-lister, Ariel Pink (bfa 00) has put out a new double album called pom pom. The release, Pink’s third studio effort on the 4ad label, is an opus of “scarecrow genius,” according to Pitchfork. “The CalArts alumnus remains the stylistic next-of-kin to Frank Zappa: satirical, divisive, and more interested in terraforming genres than neatly deconstructing them… But for all the arch humor and affectation, Pink writes some of the most wistful and peculiarly moving songs in contemporary music.”

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Dispatches

THE SHARON DISNEY LUND SCHOOL OF DANCE Having premiered the full-evening work otro teatro last year at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis and New York Live Arts, luciana achugar (bfa 95) took the piece to her native Uruguay in December for a run at Teatro Solís in Montevideo.

The Guggenheim Fellowshipwinning choreographer is next presenting otro teatro at the Fusebox Festival in Austin.

Durational choreography by Maria Hassabi (mfa 94) is the subject of a current Hammer Projects presentation at the ucla Hammer Museum.

Following the recent standout projects premiere and intermission (both 2013), Hassabi continues to examine the conventions of display and live performance in relation to the idea of physical “stillness.”

Hassabi and three other dancers are carrying out an extended choroeography throughout the museum during its normal hours of operation.

Jacques Heim’s (mfa 91) gravitydefying company Diavolo is now additionally monikered with the trademarked tagline “Architecture in Motion,” referring to the troupe’s use of custom-engineered

(6) Courtesy of James Pianka

©Ed Ruscha. Photo: Paul Ruscha

Courtesy of the artist. Photos: Robertas Narkus

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architectural forms with which dancers interact. Diavolo/Architecture in Motion is continuing its national tour through May, with stops in Houston, Dallas, University Park, pa, Kalamazoo, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Denver, Aspen and Portland.

Kate Weare (bfa 94) and her ensemble, Kate Weare Company, are marking their 10-year anniversary this month with five performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s bam Fisher venue. The program features the world premiere of Unstruck Sound, a trio set to an original score

by Curtis Macdonald, as well as passages from Bright Land (2010), Bridge of Sighs (2008) and Drop Down (2007). In addition, dancers from San Francisco’s odc are performing Still Life with Avalanche, the result of a collaboration last year between Weare and Brenda Way. In related news, Weare’s company has received a Dance Touring Grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts (nefa) through the National Dance Project (ndp) to support touring Unstruck Sound through the fall of 2016.

(4) Ed Ruscha, smash, 1963. Oil on canvas, 71 3/4 x 67 1/4 in.

SCHOOL OF FILM/ VIDEO Fourth-year undergrad Mikheil Antadze traveled to the Vienna International Film Festival for screenings of his found-footage documentary The Many Faces of Comrade Gelovani, which was a selection of the Viennale’s experimental “Propositions” program. Antadze’s 67-minute work explores the mythmaking apparatus of Stalinism through the career of Mikheil Gelovani, a Georgian actor regularly cast as Joseph Stalin during the Soviet leader’s reign. The shorts program “A Million Dreams” included Square Dance, Los Angeles County, California, 2013, by Sílvia das Fadas (mfa 14), who constructed the film from photographs taken by Russell Lee in rural America during the Great Depression. Lastly, faculty member James Benning (see next column), a Viennale favorite, was represented by two new films: natural history, a documentation of the spaces hidden from public view inside Vienna’s Museum of Natural History; and farocki, a cloudscape originally meant as a personal gift for the late experimental film luminary Harun Farocki.

(5) Maria Hassabi, intermission, 2013. Performance and installation, Cypriot and Lithuanian Pavilion, Venice Biennale. Featuring artwork (top) by Phanos Kyriacou.

Three works by CalArts filmmakers were among the 25 titles inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2014: alumna Lisze Bechtold’s (mfa 76, bfa 74) hand-drawn experimental animation Moon Breath Beat (1980), a five-minute short made when she was a student; faculty member James Benning’s 13 Lakes (2004), which consists of 13 10-minute takes of different American lakes; and John Lasseter’s (bfa 79, see opposite) Luxo Jr. (1986), a two-minute Pixar animation that was the first 3d film to be nominated for an Oscar.

“The National Film Registry showcases the extraordinary diversity of America’s film heritage and the disparate strands making it so vibrant,” said James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress. “By preserving these films, we protect a crucial element of American creativity, culture and history.” The remaining 22 inductees last year included titles such as Rio Bravo, Rosemary’s Baby, Saving Private Ryan and The Big Lebowski.

Writer-director Patrick Brice’s (bfa 11) second feature, The Overnight, premiered in the u.s. Dramatic Competition of the Sundance Film Festival. Starring Taylor Schilling (Orange Is the New Black), Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) and Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore),

(6) Roots, a game developed by James Pianka.

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© Pixar/Disney

Courtesy of Jaded Ibis Press

Courtesy of the Storefront for Art and Architecture

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Nine works by CalArts students, alums and faculty were chosen for the experimental program of the 52nd annual New York Film Festival, accounting for one-seventh of the lineup. Formerly known as “Views from the Avant-Garde,” the internationally prestigious program was renamed “Projections” for the 2014 edition of the festival. It included: Detour de Force by Film/Video faculty Rebecca Baron, The Hummingbird Wars by Theater faculty Janie Geiser, Field Notes by Vashti Harrison (mfa 14), The Occidental Hotel by Theater faculty Lewis Klahr, Friday Mosque by mfa candidate Azadeh Navai, Against Landscape by mfa student Joshua Gen Solondz, Under the Atmosphere by Mike Stoltz (mfa 14), Second Sighted by Deborah Stratman (mfa 95), and Babash by the mfa duo of Lisa Truttmann and Behrouz Rae.

(7) Cover of Crepuscule W/ Nellie, a novel by Joe Milazzo.

In addition to having made last spring’s Whitney Biennial, transgender collaborators Rhys Ernst (mfa 11) and Zackary Drucker (Art mfa 07) served as associate producers on the first season of the acclaimed Amazon series Transparent, which tells the story of an adorably dysfunctional l.a. family after its patriarch, Mort, played by Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development), comes out as transgender Maura. Drucker, moreover, landed a recurring on-screen part as a support group counselor, while Ernst created the show’s opening credits. Transparent, which is doubly “transfirmative” for its policy of employing trans performers and crew throughout its production chain, has been nominated for the Golden Globe for Best tv Series, Musical or Comedy.

Of the five movies nominated for the 2015 Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature, three boasted CalArtians at the helm: The Book of Life, directed

by Jorge R. Gutierrez (mfa 00, bfa 97); Big Hero 6, by Don Hall (95) and Chris Williams, and The Boxtrolls, by Anthony Stacchi (bfa 86) and Graham Annable. A fourth nominee, How to Train Your Dragon 2, was executive-produced by Chris Sanders (bfa 84), while John Lasseter (bfa 79) was the executive producer on Big Hero 6. Earlier, the animation industry’s dedicated

awards, the Annies, now in their 42nd year, had given nods to the same three films—The Book of Life, Big Hero 6 and The Boxtrolls—for the year’s Best Animated Feature, this time out of a total of eight shortlisted entries. Gutierrez, Hall and Stacchi received further noms for Outstanding Achievement, Directing in an Animated Feature Production. On the small screen, CalArtians were creators of four of the five Annie nominees for Best Animated tv/ Broadcast Production For Children: Gravity Falls by Alex Hirsch (bfa 07), Wander Over Yonder by Craig McCracken (92), Over the Garden Wall by Patrick McHale (bfa 06), and Adventure Time by Pendleton Ward (bfa 05). The nominees for Best General Audience Animated TV/ Broadcast Production include Back to Backspace, created by Dominic Bisignano (mfa 08) and Amalia Levari (mfa 09), and Regular Show, originated by J.G. Quintel (bfa 05).

Elsewhere, there was poetic symmetry, from a CalArts standpoint, between noms for a revered master and an up-and-coming talent: Animation legend Glen Keane (74) was up for Best Animated Short Subject with Duet, while Tiny Nomad

by Toniko Pantoja (bfa 14) was selected to contend for the Annie for Best Student Film. Other individual Annie nods went to alums Benjamin

(8) Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió, International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale.

Winter 2015

Balisteri (97), Shiyoon Kim (bfa 06), Jasmin Lai (bfa 12), Joe Moshier (04), Alonso Ramirez Ramos (bfa 10), Rob Renzetti (bfa 92) and Louise Smythe (14), as well as faculty member Andy Suriano.

In recognition of her debut feature, It Felt Like Love, Film Directing Program alum Eliza Hittman (mfa 10) has been nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the upcoming Independent Spirit Awards. The special prize goes to the best feature with a budget of less than $500,000.

Back east, Hittman was among the nominees for the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award at the 2014 Gotham Independent Film Awards. It Felt Like Love explores how a teenager’s sexual quest takes a dangerous turn when she pursues an older boy and “tests the boundaries between infatuation and love.”

The short Eager, the latest claymation extravaganza by Allison Schulnik (bfa 00), was named Best Laika Experimental/Abstract Animation at the 2014 Ottawa International Animation Festival— the foremost North American stop on the worldwide animation circuit.

(9) Luxo Jr., directed by John Lasseter, 1986.

Dispatches

the offbeat comedy takes place over a single night in Los Angeles, where a young couple new to the city chance into bizarre goings-on during a family “playdate.” The festival’s Shorts Program, meanwhile, includes Myrna the Monster, by Ian Samuels (mfa 11), while Abandoned Goods, co-directed by faculty Pia Borg with Edward Lawrenson, was part of the Documentary Shorts lineup.

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© 2014 laika/Focus Features

© Walt Disney Animation Studios

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Dispatches

THE HERB ALPERT SCHOOL OF MUSIC Having already netted the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his apocalyptic opus Become Ocean, John Luther Adams (bfa 73) has been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for the Seattle Symphony’s recording of the work.

The album, Become Ocean (Cantaloupe Music), is nominated for two additional Grammys for Best Engineering and Best Producer. In other categories, two noms went to the ensemble Partch—a distinctive l.a. repertory outfit with plenty of CalArts personnel that is dedicated to the microtonal music of mid-century California visionary Harry Partch. Last year the group recorded the first-ever complete version of the composer’s three-part cycle Plectra and Percussion Dances (1949–52) on the Bridge Records label, and now that album is up for Best Classical Compendium, while the track “Castor and Pollux” is nominated for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. Founded by guitarist and kpfk world music programmer John Schneider, the ensemble employs a fantastical array of oneof-a-kind just intonation instruments built according to Partch’s original specifications. The album includes

performances by CalArts faculty David Johnson (bfa 72), Ulrich Krieger and Paul Berkolds and alums Erin Barnes (bfa 97), Matt Cook (mfa 10), Yumi Lee (bfa 10), Derek Stein (mfa 10), Nick Terry (mfa 04), T.J. Troy (mfa 01) and Alex Wand (mfa 12). It was recorded by CalArts recording engineer John Baffa at redcat, where Partch—the group—performs every June.

Southland Ensemble, an experimental music collective of CalArts alums, has rapidly emerged as a “reliable resource for new music in the Los Angeles area,” according to Sequenza 21. Over the past year-anda-half, the group—which comprises co-directors Eric km Clark (mfa 06) and Christine Tavolacci (bfa 06) and core members Casey Anderson (mfa 09), Matt Barbier (mfa 10), Orin Hildestad (bfa 01), James Klopfleisch (mfa 10), Jonathan Stehney (bfa 04) and Cassia Streb (mfa 06)—has given highly original presentations of work by composers such as Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros and former faculty James Tenney at community-based and artist-run alternative spaces throughout the city. The ensemble has now booked its first redcat appearance in April with a program of early works by the late Robert Ashley.

(10) Big Hero 6, directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams, 2014.

Two posthumously released recordings of jazz great Charlie Haden were among DownBeat magazine’s Top Albums of 2014: Charlie Haden – Jim Hall (Impulse!), a set of stunning acoustic duets recorded in Montreal in 1990, and Keith Jarrett/ Charlie Haden: Last Dance (ecm), a collection of classic jazz love songs.

Alums James Brandon Lewis (mfa 10) and Daniel Rosenboom (mfa 07) also made the DownBeat list, the former with Divine Travels (Okeh) and the latter with Fire Keeper (Orenda), performed by the Daniel Rosenboom Quintet. In London, meanwhile, The Wire, the esteemed experimental music journal, named composition faculty Michael Pisaro’s Continuum Unbound (Gravity Wave) and Ariel Pink’s (Art bfa 00) pom pom (4ad) among its Top 50 Albums of the Year.

Todd Lerew (mfa 14) won the American Composers Forum’s annual National Composition Contest last summer with a 10-minute work entitled flagging entrainment of ultradian rhythms and the consequences thereof. The piece, one of three finalist entries in the competition, had received its world premiere in a performance by So Percussion at Princeton University. The contest drew more than 250 composers enrolled in graduate and undergraduate institutions throughout the

(11) The Boxtrolls, directed by Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable, 2014.

country. The newly minted CalArts alumnus works with invented acoustic instruments, repurposed found objects and unique preparations of traditional instruments.

Kicking off the “Piano Spheres” concert series last fall at Zipper Hall in downtown l.a., piano faculty Vicki Ray gave a solo performance that consisted of works written by CalArts composers over the years.

Entitled “Exquisite Corps(e) (A love letter to CalArts),” the program featured compositions by former faculty Arthur Jarvinen (mfa 81), Stephen “Lucky” Mosko (mfa 72), Mel Powell, Morton Subotnick and James Tenney. The concert closed with an “exquisite corpse” work written in sequence by current faculty Clay Chaplin (mfa 99), Michael Jon Fink (mfa 80, bfa 76), Vinny Golia, Amy Knoles (bfa 82), Ulrich Krieger, Anne LeBaron, Marc Lowenstein, David Rosenboom (see below), Michael Pisaro, Sara Roberts, Karen Tanaka, Mark Trayle, Wolfgang von Schweinitz and Robert Wannamaker.

Music dean David Rosenboom’s new double-CD recording of the landmark composition Zones of Influence, featuring star percussionist William Winant, came out on Pogus Productions last summer.

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© Southland Ensemble 2014. Photo: Eron Rauch

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SCHOOL OF THEATER Three School of Theater alums took home honors on Nov. 2 at the 2014 l.a. Stage Alliance Ovation Awards— the Los Angeles equivalent of the Tonys. The prize for Featured Actor in a Play went to previous Ovation winner Hugo Armstrong (bfa 98) for his astounding portrayal of Ted, a returning absentee dad, in the Echo Theater Company’s production of Backyard.

Jenny Foldenauer (mfa 12) collected the Ovation for Costume Design (Intimate Theatre) for her work on Sheila Callaghan’s play Everything You Touch at the Theatre @ Boston Court, while Adam Flemming (mfa 07) and Michael Hoy won for Video Design of the musical The Wrong Man at Skylight Theatre Company.

Foldenauer was one of the three nominees for the Richard E. Sherman Award for emerging theater artists.

The Theatre @ Boston Court, codirected by Jessica Kubzansky (mfa 94), topped all theaters with 19 nominations, with its co-production of Everything You Touch nominated for Best Production of a Play (Intimate Theatre) and Kubzansky for Director of a Play.

Actress Eliza Coupe (bfa 03), of Happy Endings fame, has a new star vehicle in the sitcom Benched, which

(12) Partch performs at redcat, 2014.

premiered in October on the usa network. She plays Nina Whitley, a conceited corporate lawyer forced to become a public defender after a career-ruining tantrum. “Coupe is very funny, very talented, and deserves a show that stays on the air long enough to showcase her skills,” said The Hollywood Reporter.

Los Angeles-based playwright Sigrid Gilmer (mfa 05) is among the 34 artists who received unrestricted $50,000 fellowships last fall from grant-making consortium United States Artists (usa). Awarded in eight different creative disciplines, the usa fellowships recognize innovative artists of all ages and careerstages “for their commitment to excellence and the enduring potential of their work.” Gilmer’s plays include Frilly, The Great White Way, and Harry and the Thief.

In conjunction with the 25-year anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in November, the Berlin branch of the Madame Tussaud’s chain placed a life-sized wax statue of David Hasselhoff (73) next to the city’s famous Brandenburg Gate to mark the actor and singer’s incidental, though fondly remembered, role in the early stages of German reunification. Back in 1989, after The Hoff’s power-pop anthem “Looking for

(13) Southland Ensemble plays music by Pauline Oliveros, Human Resources, 2014.

Winter 2015

Freedom” had been adopted by East German protesters as their own, he was invited to perform in a historic New Year’s Eve concert—staged atop the partially-dismantled Wall—in front of a crowd of 500,000 from both halves of the long-divided city.

The emotional highlight of the show turned out to be the CalArts alum’s rousing rendition of his hit song, an expression around which both East and West could unite.

The mind-bending multimedia spectacle abacus, conceived, written and directed by faculty member Lars Jan (mfa 08) and realized by the company Early Morning Opera, is one of six productions selected by the United States Institute of Theatre Technology (usitt) to make up the usa National Exhibition at this year’s Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space—the “Olympics of performance design.” Previously presented at redcat, the Sundance Film Festival and the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, abacus features a lead performance

by Sonny Valicenti (mfa 08), scenery and projection by faculty Pablo Molina (mfa 07), lighting by Christopher Kuhl (mfa 05, see next page) and sound by faculty Nathan Ruyle (mfa 08). The show is co-produced by Los Angeles Performance Practice, the collaborative producing

Dispatches

Written in 1984 as a concert-length work for percussion soloist, live computer-generated electronics, and auxiliary keyboard and glissando instruments, Zones represented at the time a major breakthrough in linking virtuoso electroacoustic performance with interactive compositional algorithms. The 2014 recording, however, was realized with technology not available earlier, namely, a new software instrument called the “Touché II,” which allows the dynamic dimensionality of the music to take its full, mind-expanding, cosmological shape.

On Nov. 1, Rosenboom, holder of the Richard Seaver Distinguished Chair in Music, teamed up with Winant at redcat to give an exhilarating live performance. The five-part epic “ends with a long joyous section, Rosenboom scratching out slides on amplified violin, body swaying like a rock star, while Winant grounded the flamboyant gestures with timpani rolls and sharp hits on metal,” reported the Los Angeles Times in its review. “The last thing heard is a short synth wave, growing loud then back to soft, a quiet encomium to a big, swaggering work.”

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LEO F. HOBAICA JR.

(14) © Photographer/abc Studios

1946—2014

Dispatches

fx Networks

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organization founded by faculty member Miranda Wright (mfa 09). usitt also chose The Industry’s siteadaptive production Invisible Cities: An Opera for Headphones, which was first staged at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles in the fall of 2013. Numerous CalArts music and theater artists were involved in that production, among them costume designer E.B. Brooks (mfa 07). pq 2015 will be held in the Czech Republic this June.

At the New York Dance and Performance Awards, aka the “Bessies,” set designer Peter Ksander (mfa 01), lighting designer Christopher Kuhl (mfa 05) and video designer Keith Skretch (mfa 12) were part of the team that won the Outstanding Visual Design Bessie for Mallory Catlett’s This Was the End at The Chocolate Factory.

Katey Sagal (73) returned as bikergang matriarch Gemma Morrow Teller for the seventh and final season of fx’s Sons of Anarchy. Coinciding with the show’s season opener, the Golden Globe-winning actress was honored with her own star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in a ceremony on Sept. 9.

Joining Sagal were cast members of Sons of Anarchy and Married… with Children, in which she had originated the indelible character of Peg Bundy.

(14) Eliza Coupe as Nina in Benched.

(15) Katey Sagal as Gemma in Sons of Anarchy.

Saturday Night Live cast member Cecily Strong (bfa 05) has landed one of comedy’s most sought-after gigs as entertainment headliner of the 2015 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Held each April, the celebritystudded black-tie gala is a highlight of Washington’s social calendar and a national showcase for topical political comedy. “[Strong’s] political humor is sly and edgy, and it comes with a Chicago accent,” said the White House Correspondents’ Association, the event’s organizer.

The CalArts alum’s recurring characters on snl include “The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party,” retail employee Dana, and Kyra from “The Girlfriends Talk Show.” Strong’s predecessors at the dc fête have ranged from perennial favorite Bob Hope to, more recently, Stephen Colbert (who gave a legendary, reputation-making performance in 2006), Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel. She will be only the fourth woman to have headlined the dinner in its 82-year history.

(16) ABACUS, conceived and directed by Lars Jan, redcat, 2012.

CalArts lost beloved character animation faculty Leo Hobaica on December 30 when he succumbed to a long illness in Utica, ny, with his family at his side. Hobaica, who also had served as assistant dean of the School of Film/Video, was 68.

An artist of rare refinement, Hobaica came to CalArts in 1996. On campus he cut a bright, avuncular figure, best known for his annual welcome address to new students during orientation week, and his influential Color and Design class, required for all firstyear Character Animation students. Over the years, it was always students in this class who festooned the Institute’s hallways during the fall semester with stunning arrays of cut-paper silhouette art. In addition, Hobaica was especially prominent in CalArts’ Community Arts Partnership (cap) youth arts education program, leading the way in developing its animation curriculum. His honors included a Fulbright Scholar’s Grant, recent artist residencies in France, and a visiting professorship at Istanbul Kültür University in Turkey, among other achievements.

“Leo was a free thinker, an innovative artist, someone who was unafraid to challenge the status quo,” said Maija Burnett, director of the Character Animation Program. “He was brave, kind, bold, generous, and fiercely intelligent. Leo was a mentor to so many students, both at CalArts and in cap, and a wonderful and cherished colleague. There are no words for how much he will be missed.”

The School of Film/Video is establishing an award fund in Leo Hobaica’s name to help support the next generation of CalArts Character Animation students.

If you wish to honor Leo’s legacy by contributing to this fund, please contact: Randy Lakeman, Executive Director of Development 661 253-7728 or rlakeman@calarts.edu

stuart i. frolick

THE � LEGACY CIRCLE

“WHY I JOINED”

ALICE DAVIS (CHOUINARD BFA 50) meetings years earlier. “I told her that I wanted to be an animator and she said, ‘Only men can be animators. That’s just the way it is.’ Then she said, ‘There’s an opening in costume design. You can study that instead.’” Marc Davis taught animation at the school at the time, and as a consolation, Chouinard gave her special permission to sit in on his Tuesday night class.

Making and designing clothes wasn’t totally foreign to Davis. Her mother had taught her weaving and sewing while she was growing up, and with a strong work ethic, she quickly developed skills in costume design.

When she graduated, she worked at Chouinard as an office assistant for a year before taking a job at the Beverly Vogue & Lingerie House, designing lingerie, girdles and brassieres, and learning how to work with elastics. She Crossing paths with one person can change the course of a life. For Alice soon became head designer there, helping to run two factories.

Davis (Chouinard bfa 50), that person was Nelbert Chouinard, the founder Her life took another turn in 1954, when Marc called her asking for of the Chouinard Art Institute, the school that would eventually merge with help. He was drawing a scene from Sleeping Beauty in which Princess the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music to form CalArts.

Aurora dances in the forest, and asked her to make a dress so that he could At Chouinard, Davis met her future husband, study the twists and turns of the cloth on a live model. legendary Disney animator—one of Disney’s famous “I knew exactly what he wanted from having taken his “Nine Old Men”—and Chouinard alumnus Marc Davis, animation class,” she says. “The dress came out perwho passed in 2000. After graduating from Chouinard, fectly. He said he knew I could do it because I was We knew that CalArts Alice Davis launched an esteemed career in costume good at sewing things exactly as they should be. From design, including a long tenure with The Walt Disney there, I got more costume design work from Disney.” was the best and would Company. A strong believer in giving back to one’s She also started dating Marc, and two years later, in continue to be the best. alma mater, Davis has been one of CalArts’ most 1956, they married.

It was where we wanted steadfast supporters, and has provided for the One highlight of Davis’ career was designing all the Institute in her estate plan. “Marc and I chose CalArts talented students to go to costumes—more than 300—for the audio-animatronic as a significant part of our charitable giving because dolls in “It’s a Small World,” the attraction that keep up the quality of our careers and success all started from Chouinard, a debuted at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Before it Chouinard. school that had been so important to us,” Davis says. opened, designers noticed that the plastic skin cover“We knew that CalArts was the best and would coning the knees of the Can-can girls in the France sectinue to be the best. It was where we wanted talented tion was ripping. To solve the problem, Davis added students to go to keep up the quality of Chouinard.” knickers. On the day that Walt Disney inspected the attraction, she was Davis still lives in the hillside Silver Lake house that she shared with standing on a scaffold above the ride. “Walt called out to me, ‘How come her husband for more than 40 years, filled with carved masks and other art you put pantaloons on the Can-can girls?’ So I shouted back, ‘You told me they acquired on two trips to Papua New Guinea, as well as Marc’s drawyou wanted this to be a family show.’” Davis interacted with Disney on many ings and paintings. Still active at 85, Davis has a quick wit and a mischieoccasions and developed respect and admiration for his hands-on approach. vous smile that she flashes often when telling stories from her past.

For her accomplishments, she was named a Disney Legend in 2004 and Growing up in Los Angeles, Davis lived for several years with her pareight years later was awarded her own window on Main Street, u.s.a. in ents and four siblings in the MacArthur Park neighborhood near Chouinard.

Disneyland, right next to Marc’s.

Walking to and from elementary school, she’d often stop by the Institute to Davis has supported CalArts for years, providing funds for scholarships look at students’ work, and several times, she spoke with Mrs. Chouinard. and underwriting the renovation of the Bijou Theater, among other gifts. By Davis dreamed of becoming an animator and says, “On one occasion, I told including CalArts in her estate, she joined the CalArts Legacy Circle, a Mrs. Chouinard, ‘I plan to go to school here some day.’ And she replied, community of artists and supporters who have provided for CalArts in their ‘I hope you do.’” Davis’s family eventually moved to Long Beach, where estate plans or through a life-income gift. Legacy Circle members like Davis studied art in junior high and high school. In her senior year, she won Davis keep the Institute’s educational programs strong and assist students a four-year scholarship to Chouinard from the Long Beach Art Association. in the development of their work.

But when she arrived to register for classes in 1947, she discovered that “Art is what brings beauty into the lives of people,” Davis says. “What most of the slots were filled by wwii veterans. The registrar told her that would you do without music to hear or films or beautiful paintings to look she’d have to wait two more years to begin her studies. at? Life would be very boring.” —Michael Rogers “I’m not a crier, but boy did I start crying,” Davis says. Mrs. Chouinard came out of her office and spotted Davis, recognizing her from their For more information about the CalArts Legacy Circle, please contact: Randy Lakeman, Executive Director of Development 661 253-7728 or rlakeman@calarts.edu

CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS Office of Communications 24700 McBean Parkway Valencia, California 91355-2340

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cover image: Buffalo Juggalos, directed

by Scott Cummings, 2014. Detail. hd, 30 min. Courtesy of the filmmaker.

Cummings (Film/Video mfa 07), one of Filmmaker magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film,” made the acclaimed experimental short Buffalo Juggalos after “embedding” for six months among a Buffalo, ny, cluster of “Juggalos”—a subculture developed among fans of the Detroit horrorcore duo Insane Clown Posse and controversially classified by the fbi as a “violent gang.” The film, which Cummings insists is not a documentary but a collaborative exploration with members of the Juggalo community, won the Live Action Short Award at the American Film Institute’s afi Fest last fall. “Subtlety and extreme subcultures don’t normally go hand-in-hand,” wrote Chloe McClaren in Cine-File, “but this film bridges the gap of public, private, and personal with great and beautiful dexterity: we would all be lucky to be so well-seen.”

CalArts is published twice each year by the CalArts Office of Communications.

California Institute of the Arts Steven D. Lavine, President

Headliners Introducing Board Chair

02.

06.

Tim Disney

From Scholarships to Life

08.

and Work: Six Profiles

Student Affairs Launches

22.

The Patty Disney Center

Leighton Pierce: Film/Video

24.

in a New Key

Jorge Gutierrez Arrives in Style Dispatches

28.

30.

Jay Carducci, Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, Office of Communications Editorial: Stuart I. Frolick and Freddie Sharmini Design: Christopher Morabito (Art mfa 00) Typefaces in this issue include: McBean by Benjamin Woodlock (Art mfa 13), Spektro Gothic by Andrea Tinnes (Art mfa 98), Montserrat

by Julieta Ulanovsky, and Miller by Mathew Carter Photography: Steven A. Gunther Telephone: 661 255-1050 E-mail: communications@calarts.edu