Stan State Arts Enjoying a Renaissance

Live Performances, Opportunities Returning After Pandemic

By Lori Gilbert

Stanislaus State’s galleries opened in March.

Music and theatre students performed for masked and safely distanced audiences throughout the 2021-22 academic year.

With similar safety precautions in place, live performances, exhibits and programs are scheduled for the upcoming academic year as the arts reclaim their inspired and valued places in our lives.

Artists, some of the University’s greatest ambassadors, carried on throughout the pandemic, thanks to Stan State professors who found new ways to help students pursue their passions in an unprecedented moment in our lives.

Assistant Professor of Acting and Directing Carin Heidelbach taught students to perform on camera and filmed their productions. Professor of Music Stuart Sims used a program for students to record their part of an ensemble piece which he then put together so they could listen, critique and analyze the final product as they would in a classroom.

Now, they’re looking ahead.

“We lived through a huge cultural discontinuity,” Sims said. “There’s no going back to anything, because it’s over. Whatever existed in January of 2020 is not the culture we’re returning to, and it’s not the society we’re rejoining.”

The 22-year Stan State coordinator of instrumental studies is preparing Wind Ensemble performances

and spending class time introducing “Campus Outreach and Local Culture Creation.”

It’s a mouthful, but a simple concept. Small groups of students — organized by seniors — will performed unannounced short musical sets at different campus or community locations.

“We’re learning pieces that can be played with flexible groups, so they don’t have to have a specific instrument for any given piece,” Sims said. “I’m curious about the places and times students will think of to drop music on their peers.”

Students who live in on-campus housing have signaled a desire to perform there, but other locations abound.

“As musicians on campus, the onus is on us. We’re part of the people who are supposed to help create local culture,” Sims said.

Sims’ colleagues are looking at an uncertain future, understanding the pandemic is not yet finished.

Department of Music Chair David Chapman, a guitar instructor and international performer, is cautiously optimistic.

“We have to make sure our students are safe,” Chapman said. “As excited as I am about performing and bringing performance opportunities to our students, I want to make sure they are safe.

“We are moving forward. We are going back on stage. Performances are being booked.”

The spring 2023 lineup includes a Guitar Festival and Jazz Festival collaboration along with a new and exciting Latin American Arts Festival, tentatively scheduled for March.

Second-year Director of Music Education Sarah Minette is hoping she and her students will be allowed to visit local schools and work with K-12 students.

The Department of Theatre has similar hopes. It wants to restart its performances for children and visit area schools, sharing the craft its students honed throughout the pandemic.

When California State University campuses operated remotely in 2020-21, Heidelbach directed, on film, “Everybody” and “Antigone X.”

“I was proud of the things we put out during that time,” Heidelbach said. “We all learned a lot. I learned why I didn’t go into film to begin with.”

She loves live theatre and in 2021-22 directed “Head Over Heels,” with music by The Go-Gos and Belinda Carlisle, and Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.”

The latter drew more than 1,000 spectators over the course of its run last spring in the University’s outdoor amphitheater, supporting Chapman’s assertion that the public is hungry for the arts.

The Department of Theatre is exploring new opportunities, having hired a new faculty member, Jamie Johns, to teach musical theatre.

Johns spent six years as musicdirector for the national tour of “Phantom of the Opera” after three years leading the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee musical theatre/opera department.

His interview for the Stan State faculty position inspired him, he said.

“The real vision seems to be wanting to serve the community and wanting to serve the students,” Johns said. “Clearly the Theatre Department is pretty sure there’s a demand for this.”

He anticipates producing shows from the canon of musicals, but also original work.

“More than anything, we’re ripe to have local communities tell their own stories,” Johns said. “The biggest vision people here have is to build shows from the ground up with students putting their voices into them from both sides of the table. They won’t just be performing. They’ll be helping to write and design them.”

Students presenting their work permeates all Stan State arts programming.

Two galleries allow visual art students to exhibit alongside professionals. Graduating seniors in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program produce solo exhibitions at Art Space in downtown Turlock. Art Space and the on-campus University Art Gallery are open to the public.

“I do see us as outreach to the community,” said Kory Twaddle, the new gallery assistant who is aiding Ellen Roehne, the gallery director while Dean De Cocker is on sabbatical. “We’re one of the main suppliers of art experiences for everyone in the area. Everyone needs art in their lives and to be able to go out and see art in person. It’s enriching. I hope more and more people will start coming to the galleries, more families, more field trips for school kids.”

Twaddle is working to increase the number of visitors, but her primary role is helping students develop their ability to exhibit and be comfortable with a gallery. She hopes it makes them confident to visit other galleries.

Exposing students to the entirety of their fields is what Stan State faculty and staff do. It helps them understand the uniqueness of their chosen fields.

“One of my favorite philosophers said music continues talking to you when words fail to have meaning,” Chapman said. “The power and energy transmitted to the audience from the performer is something that cannot be expressed in words. It’s the closest thing we have to magic.”

The same could be said of any artistic creation, and the world is ready for the magic to begin, again.

Viewing upcoming events: https://www.csustan.edu/soa/soa-events