behind the
CURTAIN Vol. XII, Issue III, Summer 2017 carolinaperformingarts.org
Focused on Arts@TheCore Also in this Issue:
Initiating Curiosity, Exploring Creativity A Tribute to Heroes Here and Gone Meet CPA’s Audience Services Manager Rebecca Black 1
EMIL UNPLUGGED
Initiating Curiosity, Exploring Creativity Emil Kang
Executive and Artistic Director, Carolina Performing Arts Special Assistant to the Chancellor for the Arts Professor of the Practice, Department of Music
By Tatjana Zimbelius-Klem
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PHOTO BY YORK WILSON
ince its launch in 2012, Arts@TheCore has redefined the role of the performing arts in the academy and increased direct faculty involvement. Thanks to a 5-year grant of $800,000 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Carolina Performing Arts inspires faculty to extend and reimagine their own intellectual, disciplinary, and interdisciplinary frontiers. “While we grew Arts@TheCore we realized that we didn’t have a physical space for artists to work with students and faculty, spaces for artists to experiment,” Emil Kang says. “I also wanted to figure out how we A space to reinvent the audience experience: CURRENT will open for creative explorations in February, 2018. could integrate creative practice with fields of study and also include the community at large.” CPA soon realized that a different kind of venue besides a knowledge to be moved; that you need to be familiar traditional proscenium-style environment with the with the work, have some kind of education to properly audience on one side and the artists on the other was appreciate it. But where is the curiosity?” As Kang sees it, needed. Arts@TheCore models how the performing to experience art one doesn’t need education in the arts, arts can be utilized to teach all different kinds of just an openness to new experiences and a willingness subject matter. The next step was to take that idea to to connect to our own humanity and to that of others. the public and reinvent the audience experience. His dream is to have a series where people come without For some time, Kang had imagined marrying knowing anything about the artists or the performance the future of Arts@TheCore with the future of arts that awaits them; where the audience is open to presenting. In his mind, said future was about experiencing and engaging with the unknown. reinventing the role of the arts presenter. The days He also worries about the loss of wonder in our of sitting quietly in a dark theatre are numbered, Kang thinks. So without world; the inability to be enraptured or awed or moved by something. wanting to completely eliminate that traditional setting, the idea was to “Every aspect of our lives is commodified, everything is measured by its add a different environment for people to come and experience art that is monetary value,” Kang assesses. “But what is the dollar value of a Mozart more immersive, participatory, and co-creative, which would sit alongside symphony? What we need is to show the value of creative expression in the more traditional passive model of arts attendance. our world; to be able to talk about meaning, empathy, ambiguity, nuance, These considerations led to the creation of CURRENT, envisioned as a intangibility – when you’re at a loss for words.” Success to him will be if the home for artists to interact with the community, faculty, and students. It will venue becomes a space where ‘non-arts’ people can find a home for them be a space for CPA to curate programs that engage its audiences in different to experience art in ways that are interesting to them. When the focus is ways than Memorial Hall does. “We need to find other ways to engage young on co-creation and participation it doesn’t matter who the artist is or what people in the arts beyond traditional performance, and it’s going to be in the knowledge the audience members bring to it. immersive and co-creative environment, meaning the person has to have an ability to contribute to the art for them to feel its value as opposed to - Tatjana Zimbelius-Klem is a Chapel Hill-based writer, editor, knowing by looking or by hearing. Too often people think you need to have and translator. 2
behind the curtain
A Tribute to Heroes Here and Gone By Tatjana Zimbelius-Klem Photography by York Wilson
Merge Record artists reimagining the original Heroes album, from left: William Tyler (guitar), Jenn Wasner (synthesizer), Dan Bejar (lead vocals), Ken Vandermark (tenor sax), Joe Westerlund (drums), Brad Cook (bass), Mac McCaughan (guitar and synthesizer)
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hen what has come to notions of how Lieder should be interpreted be known as the “water or what to expect from a piano recital. crisis” hit Chapel Hill at Club and concert hall seemingly merge, the beginning of February it could not and while this cross-pollination may seem have come at a worse time for Carolina extraordinary, it is nothing entirely new and Performing Arts. We were in the middle of has been a long time in the making. Philip our Glass at 80 festival – a major endeavor Glass was part of that cultural moment in and a challenge to pull off in many regards, the 1970s and 1980s when the popular and even without the added complications the avant-garde sought inspiration in each of having to relocate artists because the other: punk, minimalism, rock, and pop town had basically shut off the entire water met in figures such as Laurie Anderson, Tonu Kalam conducting the UNC Symphony Orchestra supply. And while we had to reschedule Steve Reich, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, and one of our performances, we were rather David Bowie. One of these mutually fortunate that it was the Heroes Tribute of all things, as this was the only inspiring friendships across genre lines was the one between Philip Glass show with a largely local cast. and David Bowie. They became friends in the early 1970s, and with his The evening consisted of two stylistically opposing halves: one part artistic collaborator Eno – himself an avid admirer of Steve Reich, seen by classical symphony, the other part rock concert. The first part of the many as Glass’s counterpart of the musical scene at the time – he later program saw the UNC Symphony Orchestra, led by Tonu Kalam, performing that decade recorded what would be known as the “Berlin Trilogy:” Low, Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 4, entitled “Heroes.” The second half belonged Heroes, and Lodger. The albums are a testament to their immersion in the to a team of musicians who are all affiliated with Merge Records, an musical world of minimalism and experimental, and Glass remarked that independent label out of Durham that doesn’t usually perform as an he had “never encountered pop music conceived with that level of artistic ensemble. Together they reimagined the original Heroes album (David ambition.” Not surprisingly, then, the master let himself be inspired by two Bowie/Brian Eno, 1977). of the albums. In 1992 he wrote his “Low” Symphony (No. 1), and in 1996, As avid concertgoers know, the contemporary moment in music is “Heroes,” his fourth symphony. a wildly eclectic one. The lines between traditional genres are being Programming “Heroes,” performed by UNC’s student orchestra, together increasingly blurred. Classically trained artists like Brooklyn Rider and Anne with a collaboration of a number of innovative local musicians was a brilliant Sofie von Otter translate popular compositions into their musical language; move on CPA Programming Director Amy Russell’s part, as it not only pays jack-of-all-genres Chris Thile blows music lovers’ minds by arranging Bach’s tribute to the bridging of genres, which is such a vital part of Glass’s artistic Violin Sonatas and Partitas for mandolin; Gabriel Kahane effortlessly persona, but it also speaks to the composer’s renown as a collaborator. blends classical, modernist, and popular sensibilities, challenging our continued on page 7
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Mellon Distinguished Scholar Carl Ernst joins Emil Kang to talk with members of Senegalese musician Youssou N’Dour’s ensemble during sound check.
Focused on Arts@TheCore
Although the grant that sparked Arts@TheCore will wrap up this year, the energy behind this integrative arts program will continue to impact campus for years to come.
By Laura Zolman Kirk
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o further Carolina Performing Arts’ (CPA) reputation as not just an arts presenter but also a source of education, CPA Executive and Artistic Director Emil Kang turned to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In 2012, CPA was awarded a five-year, $800,000 grant for the creation and support of Arts@TheCore programs, which have included lectures, seminars, faculty workshops, and curricular connections – all of which designed to further “integrate the performing arts into the academic and teaching mission of the entire university,” says Director of Engagement Aaron Shackelford, whose role as the first Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow was to bridge these arts-facultystudent connections. 4
“I joke that I am a regular at every coffee shop on campus from all of the discussion and collaboration [meetings I’ve had] with faculty from across the university,” Shackelford says. He worked with professors, devising ways to connect curricula with CPA performances, and he worked with artists, too, brainstorming ways to integrate their work across disciplines on campus. And then there were discussions between the students, faculty, artists, and CPA’s audience – the merging of perspectives – which produced the biggest take-away moments for Arts@TheCore. Medical school students collaborated with those of the School of Social Work in an after-performance behind the curtain
discussion during the 2014/2015 season on the topic of Curlew River, a play about the loss of a child: “You have so many more words to describe ‘grief’ than we do,” one medical student said to the social work students. “In that moment, a future doctor – who will work side-by-side with social workers on hospital floors and clinics – realized just how diverse of a knowledge basis their colleagues possess,” notes Shackelford. “The arts enabled this important insight that will have very concrete impacts on the lives of future patients treated by these students.” “I can say that invariably students have been energized and excited by the new perspectives that performing arts added to their academic work,” says the inaugural Mellon Distinguished Scholar and UNC American Studies and English Professor Joy Kasson, who served Carolina Performing Arts directly from 2012 to 2015. For Kasson, one of the most rewarding moments of her work with Arts@TheCore came in the fall of 2013 when she invited Yale professors Sarah Demers, a particle physicist, and Emily Coates, director of Yale Dance Studies, to present their work connecting physics and dance. “[The] audience brought together UNC physicists, dancers, scientists, and humanists in a rare moment of STEM-humanities collaboration,” Kasson says. For the current Mellon Distinguished Scholar and Co-Director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations Carl Ernst, his worth-it moment came this season during the performance of Indonesian mask dancer Nani. “A day before the performance,” Ernst says, “we learned that there would be 10-minute gaps in [Nani’s] performance for costume changes.” So, Kang and Ernst took the stage. “[Kang] interviewed me about our experiences in Indonesia two years before,” Ernst says, “I discussed some deeper aspects of the religious tradition that [Nani] belongs to. Our audiences later told us this was one of the high points of the season for them,” he says. As an American literature scholar with an interdisciplinary specialty in health humanities, Mellon Distinguished Scholar from 2015 to 2016, Jane Thrailkill, wanted to foster connections between CPA and the health sciences on campus. One of her most impactful moments in achieving this goal came during a two-day faculty and graduate student instructors workshop with Deb Gottesman and Buzz Mauro of DC’s Theatre Lab. “Through different improv techniques, we made common cause as teachers and investigators across divisions that often divide us into hierarchies and siloed disciplines,” Thrailkill says. “It was exhilarating, and we all left having learned a lot about each other and re-energized to bring creativity into our classrooms and research.” And it isn’t just the students and faculty gathering perspective from these discussions. “We have also learned that artists enjoy and greatly benefit from their conversations with faculty and students,” Shackelford says. “It can inform their own ideas and creative process.” “In 2012/2013, there were 22 classes that included CPA performances on their syllabi. Thanks to the ecosystem of faculty who connect with CPA now, the 2016/2017 season saw nearly 100 courses,” says Shackelford, and upwards of 4,000 students engaged this season. Instead of being challenged by trying to get faculty from far-fetched disciplines to see the connection in the arts, Shackelford notes, “the biggest challenge became how to fit so many classes and students into all of the performances where we identified connections.” “This experience [engaging with this initiative] was one of the best things I have encountered in 30 years as an educator,” Ernst notes. “It confirms my feeling that the arts are one of the greatest things we can focus on to create understanding between cultures.” carolinaperformingarts.org
Mellon Distinguished Scholar Jane Thrailkill (left end, 2nd row) poses with participants in a Theatre Lab workshop she organized for faculty.
Mellon Distinguished Scholar Emeritus Joy Kasson and Professor of History John Kasson talk with pianist Lang Lang. And now that the stitch between arts and the rest of campus has begun, connections are sure to follow. “The Chancellor’s present initiative, ‘Arts Everywhere’ is an important response to the work that the Mellon grant supported,” Kasson says. She is also thrilled for the new Carolina Square arts space that CPA will open in 2018 “Arts should be not just a recreational activity, but a transformational part of the education process, and I believe that Carolina Performing Arts is leading the way in this regard,” Kasson concludes. “There is a growing cohort of faculty at Carolina who, through Arts@ TheCore, have found ways to bring performances to their students [...] and [are] ready to pick up new initiatives,” says Thrailkill. “This is an outstanding investment in the ‘people infrastructure’ and will distinguish Carolina in years to come,” she says. Shackelford agrees. “[Now,] Faculty are eager for ways to use the arts to enhance their teaching and research,” he says. “I believe the arts will have an increasingly important role in academic, teaching, and service work that happens across UNC’s campus. Faculty and students recognize the arts can open conversations and enable learning that does not happen in the regular classroom.” Shackelford is confident: “CPA’s performances and artists will be a vital part of UNC’s mission for years to come,” he says. - Laura Zolman Kirk is assistant editor at Chapel Hill Magazine, Durham Magazine and Chatham Magazine. 5
A Pop Tour de Force By Tatjana Zimbelius-Klem
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24-Decade History of Popular WWI scene started. I don’t think it was Music, Taylor Mac’s artistic just me anticipating it. The 1910s were journey, brought together a a significant decade that gave Mac the theater full of strangers for 24 hours and 240 opportunity to highlight the challenges of years of American history. Through works pacifism versus war and America’s response of popular culture that can be considered and responsibility in this context. I did miss representative of the respective decades, the the Clef Hangers, though. I greatly enjoyed performance artist told an unsparing history their performance at Memorial Hall in 2014.” of our country from 1776 up until today. Tiemann described the importance of CPA’s CPA’s longtime donor, board member, and involvement in this one-of-a-kind project: friend, Michael Tiemann was in the audience “I am proud that Carolina Performing Arts on October 8, 2016 at St. Ann’s Warehouse recognized that this was an artist to invest in, in Brooklyn, to experience the thrill ride of and that we participated in a community of Mac’s transcendent performance. “Taylor investors. This was one of the great triumphs, Mac performed a work of geniuses, those and we really should be proud to have who wrote the music and himself as this identified, supported, and performed it, and master interpreter. It was so impressive to to have informed the community enough that Michael Tiemann reaches for Taylor Mac see a finished product of which we got a the community could choose to go see it if while on stage as a wounded Confederate soldier. @2016 Jenny Schuessler taste during the 2014/2015 season. When they wanted to.” he said at the time that this was going to be Taylor Mac’s performance was a oncea 24-hour performance done once, I made in-a-lifetime experience, one that Michael a mental note not to miss it.” Carolina Performing Arts commissioned Tiemann and the rest of the audience at St. Ann’s Warehouse will likely the 1910s portion of Mac’s masterpiece, thus previewing part of the show never forget. Collaborations of this magnitude are rare and powerful, in Memorial Hall two years before the world premiere of the full piece. which is why Carolina Performing Arts continues to stay committed to For two nights in October of 2014, UNC’s Clef Hangers joined Mac on developing relationships with the global arts community, to share these stage to transport the audience to the 1910s, the decade during which moments and works of passion with UNC and the world. America joined the Great War. “I felt a definite shift in energy when the *All images used at the discretion of Michael Tiemann. 6
behind the curtain
meet your cpa staff
Rebecca Black Where were you working prior to joining the CPA team? I served as the Events Coordinator for the Lied Center of Kansas, the performing arts center at the University of Kansas. Prior to that, I was a graduate student in Arts Administration at the University of Oregon and before that, I had the honor of working for U.S. Congressman Dennis Moore (ret.) as both legislative and communications staff.
Want to know more about what CPA is doing to improve the overall experience for our patrons? Get to know our Audience Services Manager Rebecca Black! by Susin Seow
I still remember walking into the hall for the first time and falling in love with that space.
Why are the arts important?
I’ve always been drawn to organizations where I thought I could help make a difference for others and where public service was part of the organization’s core values. CPA is doing some really amazing things that set it apart, even from other university presenters, so joining this team was the obvious choice for me.
Where do I begin?! I think the thread through all of my thoughts about this is the concept of “presence.” It’s through the arts that we fully experience what it means to be human – with all of the joy and revelry, as well as the pain and complexity. Whether you’re participating, creating or observing, it’s through art that we can try to understand perspectives other than our own, explore the intersections and dissonances between complex ideas or simply stop for a moment to celebrate the beauty of color, sound, and movement. For me, this is all about being fully present in our lives and present in our relationships with other people and the world around us. The arts help me do that.
What was your first experience with CPA?
What’s something that people might not know about you?
In spring 2016, I had the pleasure of meeting Butch Garris, Director of Production, at a conference and he was kind enough to offer to give me a tour of Memorial Hall later that summer when I would be visiting Raleigh.
- Susin Seow is Director of Development for CPA.
What drew you to your role at CPA?
I have a weakness for terrible action movies, especially if they have fast cars and heists. They’re just so much fun!
A Tribute to Heroes Here and Gone, cont’d
PHOTO BY YORK WILSON
For most of the UNC Symphony’s the entire music world? Mac McCaughan, front members Philip Glass’s musical language man of the band Superchunk, Merge Records was entirely new. Being used to Brahms and co-founder, and on guitar and synthesizer on Beethoven, the composer’s specific idiom the evening in question, wanted to “create a brought new and unexpected challenges version of the album that [stayed] true to the requiring a mental adjustment and a different spirit of the original without attempting to focus. Though there are some passages, make a straight copy.” And they succeeded. especially in the string sections, that The band brought their own interpretations are slightly awkward, most of the fourth and let their respective artistic personalities symphony is fairly straight-forward – a lucky shine through while keeping the atmosphere Professor Tonu Kalam at the baton coincidence, as the ensemble had very of the original. McCaughan and Jenn Wasner little time to practice. With the scheduled on synthesizers created a soundscape that performance so early in their semester, the musicians only had 7 rehearsals. remained true to that of Brian Eno’s. Their partners in crime were William While technically not too difficult, the repetitive structures demand Tyler on guitar, and Ken Vandermark on tenor sax. Bassist Brad Cook and concentration and all the more focus on shaping and dynamics, so as not to drummer Joe Westerlund made up the rhythm section, and Dan Bejar on be lulled into complacency and mechanical reproduction. Keeping it fresh lead vocals channeled his inner Bowie. was the challenge posed by the rescheduling. Naturally, the ensemble needed And the audience approved, diverse as it was. As different as the two to move on and focus on different material after the originally scheduled halves of the program were, as enthusiastic was the response from the performance. Thus a whole month went by with little opportunity to revisit. listeners: standing ovations for the orchestra were followed by cheers and Yet one wouldn’t have noticed, given the zeal and attention to detail that the whistles for the band from the same crowd. Grandparents of orchestra performers exhibited that evening under the baton of Professor Tonu Kalam. members, fans – young and old – of Bowie, Eno, and the musicians on For the Merge artists, the challenge was a different one: how does one stage could all agree that music really is a many-splendored and multicover a legendary album of a seminal artist whose recent passing shook up faceted thing. carolinaperformingarts.org
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behind the curtain