Elissa Loch

Creating Art, Uplifting Communities: Nine CVPA Faculty Members Receive Purks Grants

Emily Schneider — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 15:50:44 +0000

Creating Art, Uplifting Communities: Nine CVPA Faculty Members Receive Purks Grants Emily Schneider Wed, 04/13/2022 - 11:50

In This Story

The College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA) is proud to encourage the continued creative development and expansion of our faculty, offering them time and resources to pursue the interests that energize them beyond their classrooms.

Established in 2018 by Robert Purks, a long time Arts at Mason Board member and supporter, The Robert K. Purks Faculty Enrichment Endowment provides perpetual support to further the research and creative activity of faculty in the College. Faculty across CVPA can apply annually for funds in support of projects that fuel or are fueled by their own creative ideas and artistic expression.

For 2022, nine faculty members from the School of Art, the Film and Video Studies Program, and the Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music will use their grants to explore projects and work that ranges across mediums and styles, connecting communities and sharing new ideas.

Read on to learn more about each faculty member and their projects, in their own words.

Juana Medina, Assistant Professor in the School of Art, will integrate the stories, livelihoods, and cultural practices of Zapotec women of Teotitlán del Valle, Mexico into a children’s book centered on the community’s attainment of financial independence through mastering the art of Oaxaca rug weaving.

“As a children’s book author and illustrator, I'm committed to sharing stories that elicit understanding and increase our sense of empathy. I believe it is possible to do so by increasing fair and accurate representation of marginalized communities in books,” Medina said. “Featuring Vida Nueva’s weavers holds unique value: these individuals, once marginalized and isolated, came together and reclaimed their traditions, finding strength and sense of purpose, while becoming some of the top weavers in Oaxaca.”

Justin P. Sutters, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Art, is attending the highly competitive leadership training program “School for Art Leaders,” hosted by the National Art Education Association (NAEA) in Bentonville, Arkansas. During the year-long training program, Sutters and his cohort will engage in workshops, interactive activities, and reflection exercises with trained mentors to advance his skills as an arts educator.

“Personally, [the NAEA training] is a natural progression in my own development as I continue to take on more leadership within the University,” Sutters said. “Likewise, [the training] increases the visibility of our burgeoning Art Education program on the national level and adds credibility as a graduate program at a Research I Institution. This truly is an enriching opportunity for my development as an artist, educator, researcher, and leader."

Peter Kimball, an adjunct faculty member within Film and Video Studies, is bringing his award-winning American Sign Language play “Millstone,” to the big screen, with the funds awarded from Purks financing on-set ASL interpreters and ASL coaches during the film’s pre-production.

“I am shooting the film version of [Millstone’s] script with an entirely deaf cast and entirely in American Sign Language,” Kimball said. “The story does not deal with deafness nor does it directly address the characters’ deafness at all. Instead, the characters simply happen to be deaf. I believe it is important to create art that does not only include people living with disabilities, but that also allows them to be whole, complicated individuals not defined by their disability.”

Robert W. Gillam, Director of Music Technology in the Dewberry School of Music, is using his expertise and abilities as an electro-acoustic composer to research, write, and share music amplifying the benefits of National Parks.

“As a composer-in-residence I [will be] living at the National Park location for several weeks to a month, working with the park rangers to learn about the special features of the location while composing music based on my experiences there," Gillam said. “The residency [will] culminate in one or more public concerts at the park with the possibility of live-streaming the concert to an even wider audience. The [Purks] funds will be used to purchase a variety of sensors, connectors, contact microphones and cables to be used in the composition, performance and recording of electro-acoustic music.”

James Justin Plakas, an Assistant Professor in Film and Video Studies and the School of Art, is merging historic photographic processes with motion picture film to create his multimedia project "Camaro Lucinda." With a vision to make the film "colorful, comedic, and visually dynamic," Plakas’s converging of several image-capturing methods is in the pursuit of creating a new, unique, and surreal visual experience for viewers.

“The imagery [of ‘Camaro Lucinda’] will have a graphic quality and involve characters that exist in our world but in surreal scenarios,” Plakas said. “For example, a group of nuns playing tennis or a single clown on an overpass sandwiched by a wall of concrete and an endless blue sky. This work comments on the complicated aspects of representation in modern life. It is increasingly necessary for artists to engage in critical dialog that asks the viewer to scrutinize the media they consume and to question what they are seeing.”

Victoria Ellison, an adjunct faculty member within the School of Art, is attending a workshop in the art of Nihonga—a traditional Japanese mineral painting technique. The workshop, taught in Washington State by authority Judith Kruger, will allow Ellison to expand her artistry and share one of Japan’s oldest art practices with Mason students.

“I’ve experimented with creating Nihonga paints, but find now advanced training, such as Kruger teaches, essential,” Ellison said. “I teach color and contemporary art to students from broad disciplines in the sciences and humanities, and diverse cultural practice is a critical component of my teaching. Studying Nihonga also addresses color science, mineralogy, contemporary paint manufacture, and its environmental impact. Studying Nihonga will enable my future research in the country where it’s been taught for 1,000 years, as well as opportunities for research back at Mason.”

Samirah Alkassim, Assistant Professor in Film Theory, Film and Video Studies, is traveling to Jordan in pursuit of research for her upcoming book “A Journey of Screens in 21^st Century Arab Film and Media,” (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2023). Exploring Jordan’s visual media over the last two decades, Alkassim will be visiting Jordan’s Department of the National Library, the Cinema Section of the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation, and the library of Darat Funun to access their archives of film, film makers, and film history.

“One of the eight chapters [of ‘A Journey of Screens’] focuses on Jordanian cinema, its cinematic and televisual past and present,” Alkassim said. “Aiming to fill in the lack of scholarship on Jordanian cinema, this chapter advances the book’s general study of an array of media –auteur cinema, television series, documentaries and short films –in the context of the changing media-scapes of the last twenty years, as evidence of a “new” modernity that is simultaneously old, commonplace, and provocative.”

Mark Cooley, an Associate Professor within the School of Art, is using the Purks Faculty Enrichment Fund to support the distribution of his documentary "Fighting Indians," which premiered in November at the American Indian Film Institute. The film chronicles the last school in Maine - the homogenously white Skowhegan High School, known as "the home of the Indians" - as they fight to keep their mascot prior to the historic legislation banning Native American mascots in the State's public schools. 

“This landmark legislation marks the fulfillment of a decades-long struggle on the part of the Tribal Nations of Maine to educate the public on the harms of Native American mascotry,” Cooley said. “This is the story of a small New England community forced to reckon with its identity, its colonial history, and future relationship with its indigenous neighbors. It is a story of a small town divided against the backdrop of a nation divided where the 'mascot debate' exposes centuries-old abuses while asking if reconciliation is possible.” 

Edward Knoeckel, adjunct Professor within the Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music, is utilizing the Purks Faculty Enrichment Fund to implement problem-based learning (PBL) methodologies in a Music for Non-Majors course. With the objective to enhance students' learning experiences beyond traditional teacher-based approaches, Knoeckel will be spearheading a pilot study to analyze the effect of implementing the PBL learning style in a music appreciation course at Mason.

“PBL is an approach that maximizes student engagement with course content through group-based problems which motivate formative learning experiences,” Knoeckel said. “This approach is broadly used in the STEM fields, however, there is still a gap in understanding the effectiveness of PBL across disciplines in the arts. Through the course of this funded research, I will see how PBL affects critical and creative thinking as well as self-regulated learning and collaboration skills by transforming the traditional music learning conditions into a PBL treatment for a music appreciation course.”

Topics

grants

faculty research

College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA)

Arts

Dewberry School of Music

Tech Talent Investment Pipeline (TTIP)

A Legacy of Artistry: CVPA Discusses Artistic Growth with the Five Recipients of the 2021-2022 Young Alumni Commissioning Project

Emily Schneider — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 20:55:50 +0000

A Legacy of Artistry: CVPA Discusses Artistic Growth with the Five Recipients of the 2021-2022 Young Alumni Commissioning Project Emily Schneider Mon, 01/24/2022 - 15:55

In December 2021, the College of Visual and Performing Arts opened submissions for 2022-2023’s Young Alumni Commissioning Project (YACP), an annual grant awarded to CVPA alumni in support of projects in film, dance, theater, arts management, visual art, music, and game design. Providing anywhere from $2,500 - $5,000 in artistic funding, the YACP grant also provides production and marketing assistance for a public showing of the recipients’ work at a Mason venue.

Now in its fourth year of project funding, the YACP provides crucial support for our alumni’s continued artistic development. During the YACP’s 2021-2022 season, Jada Salter (‘20) received the Young Alumni Commissioning Project Award and $5,000 in funding, while Katherine Thompson (Visual Art ‘15), Nicholas Horner (Theater ’18, MFA Candidate ‘21), Cristian Perez (Music ‘12), and Nicole Daniell (Dance ‘17) each received Young Alumni Creative Development Awards and $2,500 in commissioning support.

Salter’s award is supporting the continued development of her film project “Just the Two of Us,” a documentary about her grandfather, multi-Grammy award winning musician William “Bill” Salter.

Thompson is using her award towards her upcoming photography exhibition “Reflections: The Black Male,” which takes a hard look at the narrative surrounding representations of the Black body in American visual media.

Horner is in production on his laboratory theater piece “Free,” a new play that re-visions Norman Rockwell’s Americana series, “Four Freedoms,” while Perez is developing a new chamber music album focused on the symbolism of water as a way to unite humanity and create cultural awareness.

Finally, Daniell’s award is helping her produce her dance film “Isolation Stories,” a visual dance piece inspired by the pandemic and focused on exploring the synergy between dance and filmmaking technology.

In a conversation with the five alums, CVPA discussed the artists’ Mason origins, their current projects, and future endeavors as they expand their artistry.

Q: How has your work and your perspective grown and changed since your graduation from Mason?

Perez: After graduating, I was happy to have more time to perform, work on my own music and continue learning on my own at my own pace. Every year that goes by I feel less and less of a guitarist, and more of a musician. What I mean by that is that what I play with my fingers on the guitar becomes less and less important, and what gets prioritized more and more is the music itself and what I'm trying to express through it. Like any discipline, what matters most is what one does with his/her skills and tools. This has been an ongoing journey for me and I despite its challenges, I hope it never ends.

Salter: During my time at Mason I was able to learn so much about film and video studies both from textbooks but, most importantly, by professors who have experienced the industry. The film at Mason community is like a family and always seems to want the best for its students. Since graduating I’ve been able to complete jobs and tasks professionally with confidence. I would not have been able to create this project without my education from Mason.

Thompson: While studying photography during my time at Mason, I started this process of searching through family archives to find out more about my family. My work shifted to focus on the diaspora of those who are first-generations that never truly understood their Caribbean heritage, alongside discovering what lost identity means. As a first-generation born in the US, from a Jamaican family, there was always an identity issue that I struggled with. On one side, I identify with my Jamaican heritage while, at the same time, I also want to be an American ---- not African American or Jamaican American, just American. That side of me, the American, was pushed through during 2019.

Q: How did you make the decision to submit this particular project for submission to the Young Alumni Commissioning Project? Was this one of many projects you were considering? Or were you already in progress with this effort and decided to submit to YACP for the funding opportunity?

Daniell: The idea for this project was born out of the pandemic. As dance shifted to the virtual space, my long-time friend and cinematographer on the project, Justin Ayers, and I found that the work we were seeing online was not engaging the mediums of film and choreography together. Film and dance are separate art forms, and combining them becomes a challenging interdisciplinary project, which is where the inspiration for the dance film came from.

I chose to apply for the Young Alumni Commissioning Project in order to boost the budget for the project. I really want to be able to pay the artists with whom I am working, which is not always a guarantee when working on small dance projects. The YACP grant helps me do that.

Horner: I have had a long and winding connection to the work of Norman Rockwell and find that we are at a dramatic intersection of the ideas of freedoms he proposed. This project has been cooking for a while and has had enormous outside support, but the time wasn't right, and it needed a home. As the pulse of political and economic strain has quickened, this idea bubbled up again. Mason seemed a marvelous place to investigate and agitate these questions. When addressing an American audience in the "roaring 20's" of a new generation, I am committed to forming connections between past, present, and future. The questions we will take up in this work have been on the hearts and minds of Americans for more than a century, and I felt it was time to shine a light on some of the difficult themes expressed in these works while activating them for the contemporary audience.

Q: What makes you most excited as you conceptualize and plan this project?

Salter: My project is about a Black American hidden figure who should be celebrated for his works of art (he also is my grandfather). I’m very excited to share his story but, I am also doing this for him as a tribute and thank you. It’s the least I can do for the legendary artist that he is. I am excited to show him just how much his art has touched many across the globe. To show just how amazing he truly is.

Horner: I am thrilled to see these classic works animated by a diverse company. The face of American Freedom has changed significantly in the last five years, and offering a glimpse at its evolution through movement, sound, light, text, and image excites the hopeful artist/citizen in me. Whenever people come together in a space for the purpose of storytelling, I am giddy at the possibility of expanding minds, reflecting on where and who we are, and artfully creating community.

Thompson: I am excited to have the opportunity to show my work. The process for this project will inspire me to become more progressive and push the boundaries as an artist, thinker and activist. With what's happening in this social climate for POC’s, especially black people, I wanted that to be a reflection in the work. As a young Black artist, I want to convey my perspective and continue to explore and question how African Americans, particularly African American men, are viewed in the current scope of media. This will be my first project that doesn’t include myself as the subject, but I am still a part of the work because of the shared similarities in experience.

Perez: As I plan the recording of the music for this project, I'm getting very excited to listen to all the music with fresh ears. I'm finding things that need some tweaking as well as things that I love and can't believe I wrote them.

Daniell: Combining film with choreography opens up so many new pathways that do not exist when choreographing for the stage, which is equally exciting and daunting. While I’m interested in creating a high-tech dance film that fuses the two art forms, I also want to tell a story in which people see themselves and are able to process their own isolation experiences.

Ultimately, I feel like this project is really different from anything I have seen in the screen dance space, so I am excited to work with my creative team to navigate the challenges and contribute to the current dialogue surrounding dance, film, and technology.

To see the exhibitions of these five artists at a Mason venue, tune in to CVPA’s social media channels this spring and summer for information on upcoming presentation dates and times.

The Young Alumni Commissioning Project for CVPA’s 2022-2023 season is now open. Visit cvpa.gmu.edu/about/alumni/young-alumni-commissioning-project for full program rules, requirements, and application information. Proposals must be submitted by February 11, 2022 at 11:59 p.m. ET for consideration into this year’s program.

The Young Alumni Commissioning Project is made possible by a generous bequest from the estate of Linda E. Gramlich for the support of young artists, and by donors to Mason’s Giving Day, including Shugoll Research.

Topics

Alumni

Young Alumni Commissioning Project. alumni support

College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA)

A Concert with a Cause: Jazz4Justice™ Celebrates 20 Years of Giving back through Music

Kirstin Franko — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 20:32:12 +0000

A Concert with a Cause: Jazz4Justice™ Celebrates 20 Years of Giving back through Music Kirstin Franko Wed, 11/03/2021 - 16:32

Hear members of the Mason Jazz Ensemble and more in Jazz4Justice™ November 20 at 8 p.m. at the Center for the Arts. Photo by Gabriel Rivera-Martinez.

On Saturday, November 20 at 8 p.m., ��AV’s Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music is proud to present the Jazz4Justice™ 20th Anniversary Concert, a one-of-a-kind event celebrating Northern Virginia’s love of music while raising funds to support legal services for low-income Northern Virginians and the ��AV Jazz Studies program.

This year, in celebration of Jazz4Justice™’s 20^th anniversary, Professor of Jazz Studies and Mason Jazz Ensemble Director Jim Carroll has assembled a stellar musical program featuring a tribute to the great Duke Ellington. The performance will include world premieres of new music as well as classic jazz standards performed by the Mason Jazz Ensemble and Mason Jazz Vocal Ensemble. To commemorate the special event, ��AV Provost and Executive Vice President Mark Ginsberg will take the stage as a special guest conductor and lead the Mason Jazz Ensemble in select performances.

“We thought what better person to ask to take the baton as guest conductor for our 20th Anniversary than our Chief Academic Officer, Provost Mark Ginsberg,” Carroll said. “We are grateful he agreed to join us and lead us as Special Guest Conductor.”

Jazz4Justice™ is presented in partnership with Legal Services of Northern Virginia (LSNV), a nonprofit legal aid organization that has assisted thousands of clients in the NOVA region for over 40 years. The services of LSNV in tandem with the musical talents of Mason’s Jazz and Vocal Ensemble has transformed Jazz4Justice™ into a welcoming space where Jazz admirers can congregate and celebrate their love for music. With over 3,000 concert attendees annually and over 50 Jazz4Justice™ concerts held so far, the audience response has been an enthusiastic one, and the event’s reach continues to expand year after year. In celebration of Jazz4Justice™’s incredible impact, alumni from the Dewberry School of Music Jazz program have been invited back to perform during the event’s program.

“Giving back to the community through musical performance is a great opportunity to share the joy and history of Jazz,” shared Tomas Jackson, a Dewberry School of Music alumnus (MA in Music ’20) and six-time Jazz4Justice™ performer. “Those strong relationships have lasted past my graduation and have inspired my peers and I to continue our support of our community and pursuit of Jazz through writing, arranging, recording, and performing. We will always be grateful for the opportunities and inspiration Jazz4Justice™ provided us.”

Professor of Jazz Studies and Mason Jazz Ensemble Director Jim Carroll with the 2021 Jack Wood Award for Town-Gown Relations.

Jazz4Justice™ began in 2000 when Fairfax attorney Edward L. Weiner attended a jazz recital by Mason’s School of Music. Impressed by the music, and reflecting on his work as a past President of the Fairfax Law Foundation (FLF), Weiner saw an opportunity for a new partnership—one in which universities would provide the musical talent and the local legal community would provide the audience and sponsors.

Today, this breakthrough idea has grown into a symphonic, celebratory event with over $500,000 raised for music scholarships, educational aid, and charitable legal services for Virginians in need of civic resources. Due to its astounding impact, Jazz4Justice™ has received awards from the American Bar Association and the Virginia State Bar, and has most recently received the 2021 Jack Wood Award for Town-Gown Relations, a coveted award recognizing leadership in fostering beneficial relationships between ��AV and the community during the past year.

“This year’s Jazz4Justice is especially important as so many people in our community are hurting,” Carroll added. “That we can use Jazz, a true metaphor for democracy and teach our students to be “Artists as Citizens”' is truly a blessing.”

Tickets to the concert at the Center for the Arts are available at the Ticket Office (open Tuesday–Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.), by calling at 703-993-2787, or at cfa.gmu.edu.

Topics

College of Visual and Performing Arts

Center for the Arts

Campus News

Jack Wood Award for Town Gown Relations

Dewberry School of Music