Mayor Levar M Stoney has appointed Melanie Buffington, associate professor of art education, to the city’s History and Culture Commission. The commission is tasked with advising Mayor Stoney on Richmond’s pertinent historical and cultural issues, including memorializing the legacy of slavery in Shockoe Bottom and directing proposed changes to Monument Avenue.

Buffington was previously awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant in 2016 that funded workshops about collective memories of the Civil War in the Richmond community. As part of the mayor’s commission, she will work alongside peers from the Valentine museum, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and NASA.

“I am grateful for the service of these talented and committed experts,” Mayor Stoney said. “And I look forward to their work to ensure the complex narrative of the City of Richmond is told accurately, inclusively and holistically.”

See the full list of commission members in the official press release.

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The National Endowment for the Arts has approved a $25,000 Art Works Grant to fund “Atmosphere,” a site-specific work by Michael Jones McKean, associate professor of sculpture. The project is part of a long-term work of art titled “Twelve Earths” that spans 12 different locations.

Co-developed with scientists, “Atmosphere” (seen in a digital rendering above) will take shape as a shelter in the desert, with a climate-controlled interior that simulates environments from the Earth’s distant past. Its opening is planned to coincide with a series of public talks and performances on ecological stewardship.

Fathomers, a creative research institute based in Burbank, Ca., was awarded the grant to construct McKean’s project.

“We hope to design ‘Atmosphere’ as a semi-permanent installation,” says Stacy Switzer, Fathomers’ curator and executive director, “to be maintained and open to the public for a minimum of one year. Ultimately, though, the goal is to survive much longer: to exist as time outside of time; a space of mysterious origin and quality to be discovered by adventuring tourists and art pilgrims alike; a breath that pre-dates the human, and suggests what we might return to again.”

Read more at Fathomers’ website.

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From March 21 to 23, the VCUarts Department of Music will proudly host the international Experiencing Villa-Lobos festival for the second time.

The celebration showcases musicians and scholars from across the globe, coming together to honor the prolific and influential Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. In addition to performances of Villa-Lobos’ work, the festival will also feature discussions and paper presentations that offer a nuanced perspective and appreciation of his life and music.

Concerts are open to the public, with a mix of free and ticketed events. Festival registration is required for presentations, masterclasses and discussions. See the full list of concert performances and presentations.

VCUarts first hosted the festival in 2008, and many of the artists who attended a decade ago will return to Richmond for this special event—including Mexican string quartet Cuarteto Latinoamericano and Brazilian pianist Sonia Rubinsky. Other guest performers this year include harpist Colleen Potter Thorburn and the Governor’s School for the Arts Orchestra, in addition to the VCU Symphony, VCU Commonwealth Singers and Vox Concordia (formerly VCU Women’s Choir).

Grayson Wagstaff, director of the Latin American Music Center at the Catholic University of America, will deliver the keynote address. The festival is organized by John Patykula, assistant chair of music and area coordinator of guitar.

Villa-Lobos wrote approximately 1,000 compositions across his more than 50-year career. His work, heavily influenced by Brazilian folk music, popularized the nation’s choro genre internationally. As a teacher, Villa-Lobos revolutionized music education in his home country and founded the Conservatório Nacional de Canto Orfeônico (National Conservatory for Choral Singing).

Learn more about the festival at the VCUarts Calendar.

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At 27 years old, Richard Carlyon (MFA ’63) was living in New York City with 2¢ to his name. Two pennies had arrived in the mail with a Reader’s Digest advertisement, asking him to spend the money on a subscription.

It seemed like Carlyon’s dream of living as a studio artist in New York—art capital of the world—was truly dead. After all, he’d been rejected from the famous Hans Hoffman School of Painting not once but twice—first due to his military status, and second when the school abruptly closed. It appeared as if his luck was as exhausted as his bank account.

The only hope he had left was the GI Bill, a government program that could provide him with significant tuition assistance, and going to graduate school could secure him a teaching job. But, as he discovered, “time was of the essence.”

“If I didn’t start to use my GI Bill by May of 1957, I would lose the whole thing,” said Carlyon in a 2005 interview. “So I did some research and I found out that I could do a semester at [Richmond Professional Institute] and transfer it to somewhere else. So that was my plan.”

That spring, he would be the only MFA student at RPI’s new graduate program in painting and printmaking.

Carlyon felt humiliated traveling back to Richmond. After all, he’d graduated from RPI’s respectable art school five years prior, hoping to eke out a living as an independent artist in the big city; now he was returning south broke and unknown.

Despite his depression, Carlyon was still hungry for deep and meaningful creative inquiry. It was this determination that ultimately kept him in Richmond for life.

Carlyon in his painting studio, 1964.

By 1963, Carlyon had earned his MFA, become a full-time art instructor and married fellow RPI alumna Eleanor Rufty (BFA ’58). He took to his studio religiously and began exploring new painting styles.

Though Carlyon was now fully embedded in the city’s culture, he still longed to be a part of the international art world. So, he brought New York to Richmond.

In 1964, Carlyon and his fellow RPI School of Art faculty members organized the BANG Arts Festival. The event, which occurred annually through the mid-’60s, brought to campus such artistic luminaries as John Cage, David Tudor, Larry Rivers, Roy Lichtenstein, Thomas Hess, Allen Solomon, Yvonne Rainer, Lucina Childs and Robert Morris.

At BANG, these prominent New York artists premiered daring and provocative work that rattled provincial onlookers in Richmond. One infamous nude performance by Rainer and Morris nearly got the organizing faculty fired (until Theresa Pollak stepped in and shared her glowing review).

BANG built a bridge between two very different communities, and provided students with invaluable insight into the lives of the 20th century’s eminent working artists.

“Bringing something here that the community didn’t have was the idea,” said Carlyon in 2005. “I do think that it set a tone for the students and faculty, and hopefully the community at large, that when VCU came along [in 1968] that it was going to be a different kind of school—and it was.”

But for Carlyon, the festival also allowed him to choreograph performances and share experiences with artists he’d admired from afar for many years. It turned a job he’d first accepted out of desperation into a role that excited and energized him, where he worked alongside peers who believed in the transformative power of the arts.

“The real qualification for anybody that taught here,” said Carlyon, “was that you came here because you had some kind of connection to change via art. More than the MFA or anything like that, you had some sort of commitment to change and ideas, concepts, trying new things, new ways to experience things. That was the spirit that I think these festivals brought to the community here. And you look around today and it stuck. I think it took a while, but it stuck.”

Carlyon with his paintings UP(SIDE)DOWN, That, and Vox II: Soprano, in 1987.

Richard Carlyon passed away in 2006. Learn more about this influential artist and professor.

2018 marks 90 years of creative daring at VCU School of the Arts. To mark this occasion, VCUarts is spending this school year reflecting on our shared history and envisioning how we can continue to pave the way for creative practice in the 21st century and beyond. Visit the VCUarts 90th Anniversary website to learn more about the many stories that have shaped our school, and to share memories of your own.

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As Hallie Chametzky dances in front of images of data and maps, she tells a story of shifting landscapes, of loss and of gain, of percentages and identity.

It’s a story she’s wanted to explore for years, but one that has only recently been fully realized.

As a Jewish American growing up in a secular household, Chametzky didn’t feel the deep-seated connection to Israel many Jewish Americans harbor. However, when she later began to explore her Jewish identity, she started to question the roots of Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

She felt an urge to make something related to the subject, but the idea didn’t start to take shape until last spring, when the VCUarts Department of Dance + Choreography hosted the American College Dance Association’s Mid-Atlantic Festival. There, she saw a screening of Okwui Okpokwasili’s Bronx Gothic, a one-woman show about the story of two 12-year-old black girls coming of age in the 1980s.

Around the same time, Chametzky’s mind was on the work of one of her dance heroes, Liz Lerman. Chametzky was particularly inspired by Fifty Modest Reflections on Turning Fifty, a performance that premiered the same year the nation of Israel turned 50. Lerman, a Jewish choreographer, mapped Israel on her body as a way to contend with her complex feelings about the nation.

“I think these seeds had been planted at different places,” Chametzky says. “Then, out of nowhere, this idea sprang into my head, fully formed.”

Still, she felt it wasn’t completely her story to tell.

“I wanted it to be a storytelling performance,” she says, “but I didn’t want it to feel like I was either co-opting the stories of Palestinian people or that I was like, ‘Here’s my story [as a white Jewish American] and it’s the only relevant story.’ Neither of those felt right. So, I thought of projections as a way to bring in some more concrete elements.”

To create the projections, she sought out Kinetic Imaging student Fiona Penn, who developed a series of animations that incorporated maps, text and data visualization. Chametzky rounded out her production with music by composer Colton Dodd (BM ’18); videography and lighting design from Photography + Film student Zephyr Sheedy; and advice from faculty mentor Kate Sicchio, a choreographer, media artist and performer.

In 22 Percent: A Disintegrating Data Visualization, Chametzky explores the cultural, emotional, spiritual, and physical consequences of land loss for those displaced in the 70 years since Israel’s founding . Through storytelling and choreography, she embodies decreasing numbers, starting at 100 and working down to 22—reflecting the dwindling percentage of historic Palestine that remains in Palestinian control. Sometimes the statistics are represented by physical items like clothing and the barrier separating Israel and Palestine. Other times they manifest in bodily elements like breath. Each vignette aims to communicate the challenge of living with a fraction of what one once had.

Chametzky submitted her idea for a VCUarts Undergraduate Research and Innovation Grant and received funding to bring her concept to life. 22 Percent premieres this weekend at The Anderson.

“It’s my first big public performance of my solo work, which is scary,” she says. “I don’t like to perform as much; I like to make work more. But this felt personal and not like something I would want to coach someone else to do.”

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Sonia Rubinsky is a Grammy Award-winning classical pianist who will perform Friday at the Experiencing Villa-Lobos festival hosted by VCUarts. Rubinsky began her career as a child prodigy, performing her first recital at five and a half years old. She earned her master’s and doctorate degrees at the Juilliard School of Music, and has performed in concert halls around the world, from Carnegie Hall in New York to Teatro Municipal de São Paulo in Brazil. Her extensive recording career won her the award for “Best Recording of the Year” at the 2009 Latin Grammy’s.

In anticipation of Rubinsky’s upcoming performance, VCUarts shared a brief Q&A with the musician before she takes the stage in the Sonia Vlahcevic Concert Hall. To listen to Rubinsky live, visit the VCUarts Music website for information on programing and tickets.

VCUarts: You will be performing many of Heitor Villa-Lobos’s works during your program. What is your favorite piece to play, and why?

Rubinsky: The program I am performing is very varied in form and content. There are pieces with strong folkloric component (like the pieces from the collections called CIRANDAS, and the Ciclo Brasileiro. Others are very modern like the ones from the collection Prole do Bebê II. And I love all of them. There is so much feeling, passion and vivacity in them, that it is hard for me to choose. I must say, I have a predilection for “Que Lindos Olhos” (“What Beautiful Eyes”) which comes from the cycle CIRANDAS. It is based on a child round song, and the text talks about love. It is a nightmarish vision of love. The song comes from very far; Villa-Lobos writes the song citation in small notes, while the left hand plays ominous repeated C sharps. It is quite a piece. Another that I love is “O Cachorrinho de Borracha” (“The Rubber Puppy”) which is about a sleeping dog and his dreams. The melody is haunting and beautiful.

VCUarts: Why do you think this modern composer’s work continues to resonate with an international audience today?

Rubinsky: Villa-Lobos was able to express his genius in a very personal manner, but its power lies in the wonderful mix of lyricism, and rhythmic vitality. And he is able to do that within a tonal language, even though at times it can be quite dissonant. But the framework is tonal. In my experience, the audience can relate immediately to the melodic component of his music. And even though the rhythms are Brazilian and by definition are local and specific, its power is so contagious that the audience responds to that internationally. I do believe that Villa-Lobos is one composer whose power lies in approaching the audience of today with the music of the 20th century.

VCUarts: You recently developed and taught a course designed for gifted young pianists at the Jerusalem Music Center. As someone who began performing for audiences as a child, what do you think are the most important lessons that young musicians should learn?

Rubinsky: My experience as a teacher in master classes or in private lessons has been a great source of thought and intellectual development for me. I am very intuitive when I teach, and I tend to teach everyone in a different manner, responding to the person’s personality and qualities. Young musicians should be exposed to the beauty of music not just within the piano repertoire, but also in chamber music and in listening to great performances of orchestral music. I do think that listening is the most important activity to train a musician. How to listen, what to listen to, and so forth. I like to expand the student’s horizons, and it is certainly through the intellect and the ear that one can develop beyond.

VCUarts: You performed at the Villa-Lobos Festival when it was last held in Richmond in 2008. How does it feel to return to the city and participate in this celebration more than a decade later?

Rubinsky: In fact it was 11 years ago. I am very happy to come back and I am very much looking forward to meeting the other participants. This festival is a wonderful project, unique in the world. The music of Villa-Lobos is vast and varied. There are many aspects in need of research. I do hope that these actions help promote this wonderful music as well as research in this area of study.

VCUarts: What would you like listeners and students to know about the music before your performance?

Rubinsky: I intend to explain the works I will play in my recital on March 22. Come with your ears and hearts. Villa-Lobos used to say that Brazil has the shape of a heart. He really believed he was the expression of that heart. And his intent was to enchant. I hope I will do justice to that, so come ready to be enchanted!

I would also like to add a big “thank you” to John Patykula and all the staff working so hard on making this happen, and to the amazing Dr. Vlahcevic, who is hosting me, and whose indefatigable energy and love for this institution—the Department of Music at VCUarts—is a model for us all.

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Eleanor Smith (BFA ’06) and collaborator Molly Lieber have been choreographing and performing intimate dances together for more than a decade. Their latest works, which incorporate nudity and verbal storytelling, confront the audience’s gaze and the objectification of women. For Lieber and Smith, introducing speech into their performances has given them tighter control over the messages that they want their dances to convey.

The New York Times interviewed both dancers about their latest piece “Body Comes Apart,” which debuted at New York Live Arts in early March.

Over the years, they’ve worked on ways of representing [their] relationship physically, ways of supporting each other’s bodies so that neither is passive, neither dominant. By 2015, when their work “Rude World” had its premiere, they had perfected a technique for rolling together on the floor as a single organism.

But something else was happening, too. As they improvised together in the studio, the discoveries were not just physical. “Improvising with deep trust,” Ms. Smith said, “you open up freedom and space for each other, so things come up that wouldn’t normally — personal histories, including personal trauma.”

They found that their method had created a new context, one that was not hers or hers but theirs. And when their experience of trauma entered into this context, they could feel it physically and intensely but also achieve distance from it and look at it as artists together.

“You can take it and put it back together and mix it up and all of a sudden it makes sense in a new way,” Ms. Lieber said.

Read the full article at the NY Times.

Lead image: Molly Lieber (L) and Eleanor Smith (R) during a performance. Photo by Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times

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To the VCUarts community,

For 90 years, one thing has remained constant at the School of the Arts: the powerful voices of our alumni. Alumni tell the VCUarts story through the lives they lead and the transformational ideas they introduce to the world. They’re the torchbearers of our shared legacy, the lifelong friends of many faculty and staff members, and wellsprings of inspiration for new students and graduating seniors alike.

This April, VCU has arranged an extensive schedule of events that bring alumni together with their peers and the faculty, staff and students on campus. As of last year, the VCU Office of Alumni Relations has waived their membership fees and extended benefits to all graduates. I hope you will take advantage of the many special opportunities available to travel, network and volunteer with your fellow alumni.

At VCUarts, we’ve organized an event commemorating our 90th anniversary, which will take place on Thursday, April 18. Attendees are invited to enjoy a lively conversation with alumnus Bobby C. Martin Jr. (BFA ’99), student Tommy Ryan, and emeriti faculty Elizabeth King and David Freed, in addition to performances by students in the departments of music, dance and choreography, and theatre. The first round of the Graduate Thesis Exhibition will also take place that afternoon. I look forward to seeing and speaking with all of you during this exciting day.

In a few more weeks, VCUarts will welcome a new class of graduates into our international community of alumni. The ingenuity that our students bring to their work today promises to be the catalyst for progress around the world. Our community knows that the passionate and devoted individuals who call VCUarts home are vital to the growth of our school as an international beacon of creative excellence.

Warmly,

Shawn Brixey

Dean | School of the Arts
Special Assistant to the Provost for the School of the Arts in Qatar
Professor | School of the Arts
Affiliate Professor | College of Engineering

Header image: “Pupil” (1987–90) by Elizabeth King.

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Actor Josh Marin (BFA ’12) joins the cast of the uproarious Tony Award-winning musical The Book of Mormon on the Altria Theater stage this week. As a member of the ensemble cast, Marin is part of the Broadway production’s national tour, which will also stop in Philadelphia, Toronto and San Diego later this year.

Marin, who currently lives in New York but has had starring roles in many Virginia Repertory Theatre productions, spoke with Broadway World about returning to RVA.

“I remember when the Altria Theater was called the Landmark, and I saw STOMP there,” Marin said. “It was at that moment that I told myself, ‘one way or another I am going to be on that stage in my hometown.’”

At 28 years old, Marin is excited to make The Book of Mormon his first national tour and says the experience has been unforgettable. He is thrilled to be able to perform in front of many friends, family and colleagues this week.

“It is surreal to be back in Richmond with a show of this magnitude and such acclaim,” he says. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that this is actually happening!”

The Book of Mormon plays at the Altria Theater through Sunday, March 31. Tickets are available through Etix. Students are eligible for discounted fare with a VCU ID.

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Theatre sophomore Seth Lyons advanced far enough through the early rounds of ABC’s American Idol singing competition that he was invited to Hollywood to continue filming the series. A tenor, Lyons is a longtime fan of the show and was overjoyed to advance past the audition phase.

Although he was eliminated during this week’s two-part episode, VCU News spoke with him about his experience in the competition.

“I think it was every singer’s dream, we’re always like, ‘Oh, I wish I was on “American Idol,”’ but I never thought in my life that I would actually audition and then make it to Hollywood like that,” he said. “That’s crazy. That’s amazing that that could actually happen. If I had told myself this when I was younger, I would probably be like, ‘you’re lying.’”

For his “Idol” auditions, Lyons sang “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga and “Stone Cold” by Demi Lovato.

“I always liked ‘Bad Romance’ ’cause I just thought it was such a fun song that I liked as a child,” Lyons said. “And then I wanted to sing it like in my own kind of style. That was the song that went the best, in my opinion. And I did ‘Stone Cold’ ’cause it’s just such a pretty song.”

Read the full story at VCU News.

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A program of events in Doha known as Qatar Creates has invited influential individuals in arts and culture from around the world to speak at a series of panel discussions, tours and workshops. Shawn Brixey, dean of VCU School of the Arts, spoke at the conference  earlier this week, alongside peers at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Yale University School of Art. Their discussion, which centered around the role art schools play in the wider art industry, took place on the VCUarts Qatar campus in Doha.

Organized by Qatar Museums, the events are scheduled to coincide with the public opening of the National Museum of Qatar on March 28.

Learn more at Qatar Is Blooming.

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For decades, a print of Vincent van Gogh’s only etching hung unrecognized on the walls of VCU. The print is a black-and-white portrait, a stark contrast to the rich colors of the painter’s more famous works. The interweaving lines that fade and swirl around the page form the face of Dr. Paul Gachet—the physician who treated Van Gogh in the final weeks of the artist’s life.

The print lingered untouched in the dark corner of an office. But when a religious studies professor discovered it, the Anderson Gallery rushed to reclaim it and have it authenticated.

Today, the rare print Man With a Pipe (1890) is stowed away in Cabell Library’s Special Collections and Archives. It’s valued at more than half a million dollars. But how did it get from Paris to Richmond, and how was it forgotten for so long?

The answer lies somewhere in the earliest days of Richmond Professional Institute.

Man With a Pipe arrived overseas in the care of Henry Horace Hibbs, the first director of RPI. Hibbs was a lifelong art lover and a key player in the establishment of the School of the Arts in 1928. He traveled to Europe regularly to acquire new works for his private collection.

Though sales of Van Gogh’s art regularly break records today, in the early 20th century he was virtually unknown. Van Gogh’s late print likely commanded a modest price when Hibbs picked it up.

Over the years, Hibbs donated hundreds of artist prints to RPI, including the portrait of Dr. Gachet. But until the founding of VCU in 1968 and Cabell Library in 1970, RPI lacked the resources to maintain a proper archive. Instead, Hibbs’ historic collection—containing works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec—was scattered around administrative offices on campus.

In the 1970s, a new director at the Anderson Gallery was stunned to discover so much valuable artwork displayed as decorations at VCU. He demanded that the millions of dollars of work be returned and preserved, but at least one piece of Hibbs’ collection escaped the recall.

It wasn’t until the 1980s—nearly a century after Van Gogh created his only etching—that Man With a Pipe would be recognized for its true worth. Cliff Edwards, professor of religious studies at the VCU School of World Studies, was waiting for a meeting at the president’s house on Franklin St when he noticed something peculiar.

Cliff Edwards in his office. From VCU News.

“I looked in a corner, and I saw a strange little dark thing,” Edwards told the Commonwealth Times in 2012. “No one seemed to realize where it was, much less what it was.”

If anyone was to recognize the work of Van Gogh, it would be Edwards, who’s authored several books on the Dutch painter.

After being verified by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the etching impression ended up with Special Collections when the Anderson Gallery’s archives were turned over to Cabell Library in 2015.

In a 2011 interview with Style Weekly, Edwards pondered what would have happened had he not revealed the print’s location.

“What if I hadn’t told?” he said. “Then I’d be able to see it every day. I could just walk in and look. Now it’s put away because it’s worth so much. You don’t want it to be stolen.”

2018 marks 90 years of creative daring at VCU School of the Arts. To mark this occasion, VCUarts is spending this school year reflecting on our shared history and envisioning how we can continue to pave the way for creative practice in the 21st century and beyond. Visit the VCUarts 90th Anniversary website to learn more about the many stories that have shaped our school, and to share memories of your own.

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The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council has announced this year’s artists-in-residence—which includes two VCUarts alumni—who will work in the newly renovated Art Center at Governor’s Island when it opens this September. Painting alumni Colleen Billing (BFA ’13) and Ander Mikalson (MFA ’12) will join 17 other artists, in addition to many more yet to be announced.

The LMCC residency program invites professional artists to investigate social justice, the history of the surrounding harbor and island, and the health of the natural environment. The Art Center provides artists-in-residence with dedicated studio space that can be used throughout the week, as well as professional development programming and open studio events.

Billing is currently based in Brooklyn, working in a multimedia practice that combines physical objects, video and installation to explore how sociological change affects the body and the planet. She has previously been selected as an artist-in-residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Madison, Maine, and the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vt.

Mikalson is also based in Brooklyn, and considers her artistic roles to encompass orchestrator, “instigator” and conductor. She organized a performance of her collaborative composition “Score for the Big Bang” last October at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond. She has previously served artist residencies with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Captiva, Fla., and the Queens Museum Studio Program in New York.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal and on the LMCC website.

Header image: Colleen Billing (left) and Ander Mikalson (right). Mikalson photo by Kuo-Heng Huang.

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Honored guests include Manhattan-based designers Abdul Abasi and Greg Rosborough of Abasi Rosborough, and fashion illustrator Richard Haines

RICHMOND, Va. (April 1, 2019) – Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts (VCUarts) Department of Fashion Design and Merchandising presents “Shimmer,” the annual fashion show. The event will be held on Wednesday, May 8, at 7:30 p.m. at the Train Shed, Main Street Station, 1500 E. Main St., Richmond, Virginia. Tickets are available for purchase at https://www.showclix.com/event/shimmer2019.

This year marks the 90th anniversary of VCUarts’ founding, and the 50th anniversary of the school’s fashion show. Honored guests for the evening’s event are Manhattan-based designers Abdul Abasi and Greg Rosborough of Abasi Rosborough, and fashion illustrator Richard Haines.

Abasi and Rosborough founded their eponymous company and label in 2013 with a redesigned suit jacket that moves and breathes with the wearer, while preserving the archetype, lineage and cultural meaning of the original design. The Abasi Rosborough aesthetic focuses on comfort, flexibility and natural clothing that is made in New York with recycled deadstock fabrics.

An alumnus of the Communications Arts and Design program, Haines is a former fashion designer who now sketches haute couture looks from the catwalk and leading fashion houses.

“We are in a celebratory mood this year, as Richard Haines returns to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the School of the Arts as well as the 50th year of the VCUarts Fashion Show in Richmond,” said Patricia Brown, chair of the VCUarts Department of Fashion Design and Merchandising. “We are also excited to welcome Abasi and Rosborough, as they share their vision for reimagining tailoring for the 21st century.”

This annual juried event presents the finished work of fashion design students, as well as the strategic production talents of fashion merchandising students. “Shimmer” will feature women’s sportswear, dresses, menswear, denim, embellishment/luxury and surface design, all created by hand or with the assistance of industry-standard machinery. Clothing modeled on the runway includes junior and senior class designs, as well as designs from VCUarts Qatar, the school’s campus in Doha, Qatar.

“Shimmer” is organized by nine junior and senior merchandising students enrolled in the fashion department’s Advanced Show Production class, in collaboration with design students, fashion faculty and sponsors. Students produce all aspects of the show, from model selection and training to lighting, music selection and backstage operations.

Tickets are available for purchase online at https://www.showclix.com/event/shimmer2019. Tickets are $100 for front-row seating; $75 for second-row seating; and $60 for third-row seating. Discounts are available for fashion students and their families. The show will also be live-streamed at arts.vcu.edu/fashion/livestream.

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About Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts

VCUarts is the top-ranked public arts and design school in U.S., with more than 250 faculty, lecturers and staff, 175 graduate students and 2,800 undergraduates spanning a wide range of creative research and scholarly disciplines. Faculty members are internationally recognized in their respective fields and contribute significantly to VCU, a major research university located in a creatively vibrant city and committed to mentoring the next generation of artists, entrepreneurs, scientists, scholars and engaged citizens of diverse communities around the world. The school’s fashion department is listed among the top programs of its kind in the country and offers a BFA in Fashion Design and a BA in Fashion Merchandising. VCUarts has an international branch campus located in Doha, Qatar.

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In order for bugs to communicate with potential mates, they move rapidly across plant leaves to create vibrations decipherable only to the insect world. A new show at Sediment Arts offers listeners a rare opportunity to hear these hidden songs for the first time.

Stephen Vitiello, professor and chair of Kinetic Imaging, collaborated with St. Louis University biologist Kasey Fowler-Finn to develop the auditory experience “Singing Amongst the Weeds.” Together, they recorded the vibrations of insects at the University of Virginia’s Mountain Lake Biological Station to create a six-channel composition.

Style Weekly‘s Amanda Dalla Villa Adams visited the show, which is open through April 7.

In her research, Fowler-Finn studies the effects of climate change on insects’ songs. As the climate warms, she has discovered that male and female songs may be altered possibly leading to a mismatch of signals. To indicate the relationship between the insect songs and a shift in temperature, Ollestad’s installation emits lights overhead flowing from cool blues to hot reds. The six posters at the front of the gallery present in scientific terms, alongside infographics and photographs, the research behind the insects’ songs and broader global-warming implications.

Research-based art can be overwhelming in its breadth sometimes, but the best presents a balance between art and research and leaves visitors feeling intrigued, perplexed or transfixed like any great art, while not becoming pedantic.

Read more at Style Weekly. Photo by Dana Ollestad.

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Hope Ginsburg, associate professor of painting, has created a four-channel audio and video installation for the Arts Research Institute that places visitors at the center of a project to restore a Caribbean coral reef. The 13-minute-long piece “Swirling” mixes vignettes that capture the tragic destruction of climate change and the optimistic pursuit of regrowth.

“Swirling” is named for the Swirling Reef of Death in Saint Croix, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands. At the site’s coral nursery, conservationists and divers cultivate and replant fragments of surviving coral, using plastic trees and epoxy to hold them in place.

The show, which is viewable at the Arts Research Institute in the Depot, was produced during Ginsburg’s residency at the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University last fall.

Not teaching classes gave Ginsburg the time to finish “Swirling” as well as work on a new concept, Meditation Ocean. That concept, Ginsburg said, is a product of both “Swirling” and her interest in land diving—breathing on land in scuba gear.

Ginsburg has completed land dives from the beaches of Florida to the deserts of Qatar. She began situating land dives in sites that can be interpreted environmentally, she said. For instance, she and collaborators went to the coast of Canada and four divers—including Ginsburg—sat in meditation at the edge of the Bay of Fundy as the world’s highest tide flowed in and “rose on our bodies until we were gone,” Ginsburg said.

Read the full story in VCU News. Photo by Kevin Morley.

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“Self-mastery makes you a better actor.”

That was just one core lesson that Chad Coleman wished to impart on his student guests. On March 29, VCUarts Theatre majors gathered at the Shafer Street Playhouse for an intimate Q&A with the successful television and voice actor known for his roles as Tyreese in AMC’s The Walking Dead,  Fred Johnson in Syfy’s The Expanse and Klyden in Fox’s The Orville.

Coleman was a generous and amiable guest whose hearty laugh filled the room. And he wanted to hear from students as much as they wanted to learn from him about how to navigate a professional career in television, film or on stage. Coleman’s lesson of self-mastery occurred in response to a question about which area of his life he wished he’d devoted more energy towards.

“I would have nurtured myself as a person more, not as an actor,” he said. “I wish I’d paid more attention to me, because that comes through first.”

Dorie Barton, a graduate theatre student, worked with undergraduate Anna Leonard to organize the forum, which provided theatre majors with valuable and honest career advice. The event also brought Coleman back to his hometown. The actor was raised in Richmond and attended VCU before serving in the army, with one of his first starring roles being Dennis “Cutty” Wise in HBO’s The Wire.

Throughout his talk, Coleman was eager to address students’ thoughts and fears about professional acting, what it’s like to be on a film set and how to switch between vastly different characters while simultaneously filming two shows. How did he transition, a student asked, from the more insular world of theatre school to the wider industry of Hollywood and television?

“I was aggressive. You have to be aggressive,” he said. “You know, it’s a business. And with social media, you can be the captain of your own exposure ship.”

He also stressed the importance of networking, picking the right city to find work, and staying close with friends in the acting and production business.

“If you know anybody in the game that you have a real relationship with, let them know,” he said. “Show them you’re here.”

You can follow Coleman on social media via Twitter and Instagram.

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Erin Freeman is both the director of choral activities at VCUarts Music and the director of the Richmond Symphony Chorus, and her extraordinary leadership has earned her national recognition.

Performance Today, the most popular classical music radio program in the United States, asked its listeners to nominate living women in the genre who inspire them for the show’s Classical Woman of the Year award. Among the six finalists was Freeman, who was described by nominator Roy Hoagland as “brilliant, fun, and charismatic.”

Erin’s leadership in the Richmond, VA community is extraordinary. In a place burdened with histories of racial and economic disparity, she is a creative light of hope for our future. She understands and conveys the power of music to touch our souls, heal our hurts, and dissolve our divisions. Conducting for the Richmond Ballet, Symphony, or Chorus, she emanates and shares the potency of the music she helps create.

Read the full list of finalists and nominees at Performance Today.

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Music alumnus Gordy Haab (BM ’00) has built a career composing for films, television shows and video games. Haab is particularly known for his sweeping symphonic works—deeply influenced by his musical hero John Williams—that provide a soundscape for players as they navigate worlds from Star Wars to The Walking Dead.

Here, he talks about getting his start, how his analog process works in a digital world, and what it’s like to hear his work come to life.

Did you always plan to compose for video games? Or was that a natural evolution from working in film and television?

While I was in grad school at the University of Southern California, I met a friend who went on to become the head of music at LucasArts, which was Lucasfilm’s video game division. Around the same time, I had scored this Star Wars fan film called Ryan vs. Dorkman. We recorded it with an orchestra and it kind of blew up on YouTube back before blowing up on YouTube was a thing. Somebody at Lucasfilm saw it and reached out to my friend to say, “You should check this guy out.” He said, “Actually, we went to school together. I know this guy.” He called me up and I got hired to do this Indiana Jones video game, which was my first game.

It sort of snowballed from there. That led to scoring Star Wars: The Old Republic, which was my first big Star Wars title. From there, I became the go-to guy for Lucas and doing Star Wars-type music for their game projects.

How is composing for video games different from composing for film?

When you’re scoring for a film, you’re dealing with a fixed timeline. You write a cut for this scene, and the music leads up to the moment when they kiss, and then the music leads to the next cut to a new scene—and that timeline never really changes. With video games, it can be different every time the player plays the game. It’s the musical version of choose your own adventure books. I’ll write a one-minute piece of music for a battle sequence, and at the end of that minute, based on what the player’s doing, triggers within the game will tell the audio engine, the player is about to lose or about to win, or there are more enemies attacking or fewer enemies. At the next logical downbeat in the music, it might translate to a completely different version of that same piece of music that sounds more like you’re winning, or like you’re about to lose, with an impending doom kind of feel. Or it may dial back the intensity of the music and it becomes more of a dialogue-type of scene.

John Williams is a big inspiration for you, beginning with the ET soundtrack. What’s it like to follow in his footsteps, building on what he’s established while also creating your own sound?

It’s really cool to step into the shoes of what I consider to be a musical hero. That’s always been exciting, but also a bit daunting. But beyond that, a property like Star Wars has a large fan base already in place—and I’m a big fan as well. Getting to write the kind of music that inspired me to do this in the first place, and knowing that I’m writing for a fanbase that I’m a part of—it’s a bit of a dream come true.

What is that like when you hear that first recording, or that performance, and things start to come to life?

The first time I recorded in London with the London Symphony was for a project called Kinect Star Wars. It was a video game for the Xbox. Up to that point, games didn’t really have budget for a 105-piece orchestra and Abbey Road [recording studio]. But being Star Wars, they did.

I went over there, and I expected it to be good. But I remember sitting in the studio and I thought that they were actually listening to the music of John Williams on the speakers in the studio, just to test the speaker system or something like that. Then I glanced up and realized, “Oh wow, they’re actually playing. And oh wow, that’s my music.” I basically lost it, emotionally. It was overwhelming because it sounded so amazing, like everything I ever imagined. In this one moment, I heard everything that I’d been working on come to life in the best possible way.

You have an analog process, with paper and pencil. Why does that work when you’re composing for a digital medium?

I’m most comfortable when I’m sitting at a piano with a piece of paper and a pencil. I feel my best music comes out when I’m writing that way. And I would honestly say that a big part of that is from my training at VCU. My mentor there, Doug Richards, was also a pencil-to-paper composer and a huge advocate for learning to write that way.

With the computer, it’s trial and error. You can play it, listen to it, change a couple of things, listen to it again. Writing with a pencil and paper forces you to hear it in your mind’s ear first, before you put it down. I feel like that’s greatly responsible for the complexity of the music I write, which tends to fit this form well.

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Dear VCUarts students, faculty and staff,

Please take a moment to read the attached memo on diversity and inclusion from me and Gypsy Denzine, Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs.

Sincerely,
Shawn Brixey

Dean | School of the Arts
Special Assistant to the Provost for the School of the Arts in Qatar
Professor | School of the Arts
Affiliate Professor | College of Engineering

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