Carlton Newton, former professor of sculpture, welcomed the Richmond Times-Dispatch to his Church Hill studio to chat about his career before the April 5 closing of his Reynolds Gallery exhibition “Drawings for Sculpture.” The show collected his steel sculptures, which weave through the air like undersea plant life, along with Sumi ink drawings that envision pieces yet to be fabricated.

Newton and his wife, professor emeritus Elizabeth King, have lived and worked in Richmond for 34 years, and the couple helped the sculpture department become the number one public art program in the country.

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Can artists use virtual reality to train doctors to be more empathetic?

That’s one of the questions being answered by Embodied Empathy, a new interdisciplinary project lab at VCUarts. The lab is led by VCUarts assistant professors Jill Ware and John Henry Blatter.

In Embodied Empathy projects, participants wear an Oculus Rift virtual reality (VR) headset, watch videos and follow instructions that simulate the experience of being in someone else’s body. So far, VR has been used to study micromovements in golf swings, help violin students learn fingering technique and even analyze ballet form among dance students. According to Ware, “Early on, it became really apparent there were a lot of ways to connect this project to other disciplines.”

Two new research projects are forging connections between the arts and health. In one project, the Embodied Empathy team is working with Dr. Scott A. Vota from the Department of Neurology at VCU Health to create VR experiences that will help family, caregivers and advocates understand what it’s like to suffer from early, middle and late stages of ALS.

The team is also working with Dr. John E. Nestler, VCUarts Physician-Scientist in Residence, on a VR pilot program supported by the VCU Presidential Research Quest Fund to promote empathy and reduce bias towards gerontology patients among first-year medical students. The controlled study will validate theories on empathy and bias, by conducting measurements before and after students complete a VR experience, based on the Jefferson Scale of Empathy and the UCLA Geriatrics Attitudes Scale. If successful, the researchers think VR training could become part of conventional medical school curriculum. Connecting the arts and medicine through an emerging technology has been an exciting undertaking for the team.

“It’s about striking the balance of the creative versus the cognitive and the analytical versus the creative,” Ware says. “There are so many learning spaces within VR. It’s a whole new medium to work with.”

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For decades, VCU students have planned and printed original magazines that capture the voice and style of their generations. Today, students from the School of the Arts collaborate with writers and editors from across the university to publish regular issues of Poictesme (also known as Pwatem), Ink Magazine, Amendment and Emanata. Each year, these captivating literary, art and fashion magazines introduce incredible student work to the Richmond community. Most of all, they provide formal exposure to young creators who are just beginning their careers.

Since the days of Richmond Professional Institute, students and faculty have worked together to produce long-running arts publications. Here’s a look at some of the historic issues held by Cabell Library’s Special Collections and Archives.

Image (1960s)

Image was one of the first print magazines produced by the Student Government Association of RPI, and its run extended into the earliest years of VCU’s existence. Billed as a “journal of creative ideas,” Image combined essays, poetry, short stories and even one-act plays with illustration, photography, graphic design, sculpture and painting. Its editors hoped the magazine would “act as a catalyst for the transference of images and, thereby, serve as a gadfly to lethargic intellects.” By the late 1960s, Image had been selected to participate in a cultural exchange exhibition with the Soviet Union, and had appeared in Art Direction Magazine, a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts biennial show, and the Art Directors Show in New York.

Richmond Arts Magazine (1970s–’90s)

Through three decades, Richmond Arts Magazine captured the changing face and rising ambitions of the School of the Arts in the late 20th century. Like Image, it welcomed thought-provoking essays on pertinent issues, but the topics covered by faculty and students hewed more closely to the concerns of the art world. What was the future of photography? How does a theatrical performance change is different rooms and venues? In these pages, the VCUarts community took charge of these academic conversations. In its later issues, Richmond Arts Magazine was sometimes published with spiral bindings and loose pages distributed in folded packaging.

Poictesme/Pwatem (2000s–present)

Poictesme began life as Millennium, a student anthology primarily comprised of literature. In 2006, it was renamed after the fictional medieval French province “Poictesme,” which appeared in the novels of writer and VCU Libraries namesake James Branch Cabell. Since then, the annual publication has curated the work of fiction writers, poets, photographers, painters and sculptors in an anthology that can inspire, provoke, frighten and ignite readers’ imaginations. A chapbook companion known as Rabble has occasionally followed the flagship magazine.

Pwatem accepts work from all undergraduate majors at VCU. Check out the submission guidelines on their website.

You can also visit the Pwatem website to read archival issues from 2005 to 2018.

Explore selections from past issues of Image and Richmond Arts Magazine with the Flickr album below.

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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Guadalupe Maravilla, assistant professor of sculpture, is the recipient of a prestigious fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Maravilla creates performances, drawings, videos and sculptures that examine both his personal displacement as a Salvadoran American immigrant, as well as the shifting landscapes and settlements of indigenous peoples.

Maravilla has exhibited his work at major international venues, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bronx Museum, El Museo Del Barrio, MARTE in El Salvador, and Central America Biennial X in Costa Rica. He has previously been the recipient of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship, Dedalus Foundation Grant and the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation Award.

The Guggenheim Foundation receives approximately 3,000 applications per year; only about 175 are selected for the award.

Learn more about Guadalupe Maravilla.

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Dear students, faculty and staff,

Thank you to everyone who participated in the recent VCUarts climate survey. This is the first step toward a comprehensive assessment of our campus climate. You can find a brief summary of the results in the attached document.

The dean and I will be supporting and working with others to implement lasting positive change in our culture for everyone. As always, we look forward to any comments or feedback you would like to share related to this ongoing work. As a reminder, the VCUHelpline is a place where concerns can be shared any time of any day, you can remain anonymous, and you will receive a response. More details about how this works are available here.

We look forward to continuing our work together in reinforcing our values, building up and evolving our community, and keeping VCUarts that welcoming, kind and creative space of which we can all be proud.

Sincerely,

Holly Alford
Director of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity | School of the Arts
Associate Professor | Department of Fashion Design and Merchandising

and

Shawn Brixey
Dean | VCU 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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After decades in production, Satan & Adam, a documentary about a pair of Harlem street musicians who achieved brief fame before falling apart, will finally premiere in theaters on April 12. Matt Wallin, communication arts professor, shot key sequences for the film over the course of nearly 20 years. He’s worked on blockbuster films such as Hellboy, Constantine and Watchmen, and is co-host of the VFX Show podcast.

Wallin met Satan & Adam director V. Scott Balcerek while they were working at George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic in the early ’90s, and the two became fast friends.

“We’re the same age,” says Wallin. “So me and him and some other guys [at ILM] would all hang out and go get lunch.”

Balcerek soon asked Wallin to help him work on a new film project, citing the 1988 U2 documentary Rattle & Hum as inspiration. In the U2 doc and its accompanying album, the blues duo Sterling Magee and Adam Gussow—also known as Mr. Satan and Adam—perform their song “Freedom for My People.” Magee and Gussow were well-known performers on the streets of Harlem, but their inclusion on the multiplatinum-selling soundtrack boosted their popularity. Balcerek wanted to learn more about them, and Wallin joined him in tracking down the musicians in New York City.

Armed with a 16mm camera, Wallin had the opportunity to shoot footage of Mr. Satan on a street corner performing, interacting with passerby and showing off artwork.

But Balcerek left ILM soon after to work on other projects, and Satan and Adam fell by the wayside. Wallin assumed his footage would go unused until decades later.

“We’ve always stayed in touch over the years,” says Wallin. “We followed each other’s trajectories and called each other for advice. At one point, Scott called and asked if I could go down to Tampa, Florida, to see Mr. Satan. Years and years later, he was still working on this film. He finally decided he wanted to finish it.”

This second opportunity allowed Balcerek and Wallen a chance to film the musical duo at a different stage in their careers. Mr. Satan had disappeared from Harlem during the film’s protracted production, making his reunion with Adam a dramatic third act in the documentary.

“I wouldn’t have imagined Scott would have thought it would take 20 years to make the film,” says Wallin, “but it’s a better film for it. It becomes a much more compelling portrait of this artist, this musician, in a way that it would not have otherwise. And for me, even though I’ve shot footage for Björk and Madonna, it was cool to have the opportunity to shoot stuff with a friend. I never thought it would see the light of day, but it’s finished, it’s coming out and I have a credit in the movie.”

Learn more about Satan and Adam, and where you can catch a showing.

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In 1708 Gallery, the shattered plinth of Jefferson Davis’ Monument Avenue statue lies in chunks on the floor. Green kudzu vines crawl over the fluted column and slither up the walls, reclaiming the ruins for nature.

The plinth, of course, is a scale replica, and the vines artificial. But as viewers look closer at the broad quilted leaves sprouting from the vines, they’ll see stories and photos of LGBTQ+ people from across the South. Written on leaf after leaf are tales of coming out, first dates, marriages, advice, encouragement, names and identities, alongside images gathered from archives throughout the South.

“Where the statue is a fallen granite thing, the vines represent this vivacious growth, this certain kind of southern queer tenacity,” says Aaron McIntosh (MFA ’10), assistant professor of craft and creator of the Invasive Queer Kudzu project.

Kudzu was an inspired choice for McIntosh, who began organizing public workshops to create the leaves four years ago. While the ubiquitous Japanese plant is considered an invasive species in the Southern U.S., he sees a powerful social metaphor in its hardiness and exponential growth.

“The project is also about rethinking kudzu,” he says, “and the weird xenophobic thoughts people have toward kudzu.”

Kudzu “growing” in McIntosh’s 1708 Gallery exhibition.

Like the vine, McIntosh hopes the project “connects different generations of queer people and different geographies of queer people across the south.”

McIntosh’s installation follows a long tradition of artist-driven exhibitions at 1708 Gallery, with art that addresses and anticipates the gaze of the Richmond community. It’s a personal project with a strong political statement that would be difficult to mount in a larger venue that might exert tighter control over what an artist chooses to show to the public—especially if they want to address a sensitive subject like the Jefferson Davis monument.

“Part of 1708 Gallery’s mission is to be able to present work that is otherwise not able to be shown,” says curator Park Myers. “It’s allowing the artist to fully develop a project for this space, and promoting conversations that can’t be had in state-run fine arts institutions.”

1708 Gallery got its start in 1978, when VCUarts painting professor Gerald Donato backed out of an upcoming show at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The museum, objecting to the content in some of his artwork, had chosen to remove certain pieces from their exhibition.

Donato was frustrated. But upon commiserating with fellow faculty who also felt their freedom of expression had been stifled, he and his colleagues decided to take action. They would found their own gallery, originally located at 1708 E Broad St, where the artists were given primary creative control.

The list of 1708 Gallery’s co-founders forms an incredible cross-section of VCUarts faculty and alumni, including Joe Seipel, dean emeritus; Richard Carlyon (BFA ’63); Tom Chenoweth (MFA ’80); Heather Holden; Davi Het Hompson; Sharon Lawless (BFA ’74); Harold North (MFA ’67) and Morris Yarowski.

“We will always be artist-focused,” says Emily Smith, executive director, who worked at large art museums before coming to 1708 Gallery. “It’s really important to have a space for artists who are just coming out of graduate school—or even for undergrads and those who, like Aaron, are a bit further along in their careers. This is the platform for them right now.”

1708 Gallery provides more then just an exhibition space—they also lend significant financial and production support to their artists. Its presence creates a crucial first-step for newly minted VCUarts graduates to elevate their careers, and the close proximity between 1708 Gallery and the School of the Arts has ensured that the roots of both institutions remain intertwined.

“Our steady foot-traffic, the folks who come to everything, are VCUarts students,” says Smith. “That’s the core.”

But ultimately, she notes, the goal of the gallery is to broaden community access to the arts. To that end, Invasive Queer Kudzu isn’t just a show; a “picnic series” is also incorporated, with workshops and artist talks held among the debris of Davis’ statue as if it were a public park. It’s an initiative made possible through this unique, artist-led space.

“The mayor has a commission about the status of Confederate monuments,” says Myers, “but they’re not able to have the kind of conversations that Aaron’s bringing in every Saturday. The history of 1708 Gallery has a lot to do with establishing conversations around the artwork and bringing it into the public sphere in a way that couldn’t be done elsewhere.”

Lead image: Aaron McIntosh, Invasive: Jefferson Davis, 2018, 30 x 40 inches.

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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30 years ago, the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing were answered with a military assault that claimed the lives of thousands of Chinese students. During the six-week demonstration, protestors erected a 33-foot-high monument—a woman holding a torch—known as the Goddess of Democracy.

When news of the killings reached Richmond, VCU students rushed to show their support. Artists on campus and across the city sculpted their own Goddess of Democracy just six days after the original was torn down in China. It lived on the lawn outside the University Student Commons.

On the 30th anniversary of the project, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reached out to the students who had devoted themselves to the memorial.

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Kristin Caskey, fashion and middle Of broad professor, earned her BSS in fashion design from Cornell College in 1984. Since then, she’s earned a BFA from Parsons School of Design and an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and led mOb Studio through the development of large-scale projects like General Demotion/General Devotion.

Cornell reached out to their alumna to learn more about her work at VCUarts.

This Cornell art alumna’s community is Richmond, Virginia, where she teaches courses focused on fashion design, drawing and design theory, and runs an interdisciplinary design studio open to students at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).

As part of the team at the interdisciplinary mOb Studio, Caskey looks at community-engaged design as a way to provide solutions to individuals, institutions, and others by providing access to high-quality design.

“Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy and the national conversation has moved all of us to own up to our inherent biases, privileges, and complicity in an ongoing system which has yet to provide real equity and justice for all our citizens,” Caskey says.

Read more at Cornell’s News Center.

Lead image: mOb students and faculty on Monument Ave.

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Corin Hewitt, associate professor of sculpture, will debut a new exhibition on June 15 hosted concurrently at the Institute for Contemporary Art and at his personal studio in the Fan district. Titled “Shadows Are to Shade,” Hewitt’s show will pair an archaeological dig site at his Richmond home with immersive mock trenches at the ICA. Both components of the show invite viewers to join the artist in his investigation into the life of his home’s previous landowner.

“While grounded in one place and its specific histories of life and labor, ‘Shadows Are To Shade’ unfolds into what we might think of as alternate universes that Corin Hewitt reveals through excavation, layering and doubling across the two presentation sites,” said ICA Chief Curator Stephanie Smith. “It’s an ambitious work. As a new institution still exploring how best to connect with our communities, we are proud to produce this project with an internationally known artist, VCUarts colleague and neighbor.”

“Hewitt’s home/studio excavations will provide the public with the rare opportunity to experience the transformation of a private space into a living artwork, adding to the arts ecology of the city and contributing to a long history of American artists of the 1970s and ’80s that have converted private production spaces into sites for exhibitions,” said Amber Esseiva, assistant curator at the ICA.

Learn more about “Shadows Are to Shade” at VCU News.

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In JT LeRoy, actress Kristen Stewart portrays VCUarts sculpture alum Savannah Knoop (MFA ’16), who assumed the public persona and pen name of author Laura Albert in the early 2000s. Knoop, under the guise of teenage fiction author JT LeRoy, engaged fans through interviews and book signings, even fooling celebrities such as Madonna and Courtney Love.

The film, directed by Justin Kelly, premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival and will see a wide release by Universal Pictures on Friday, April 26. Vanity Fair interviewed Knoop about their role in the movie’s production last September.

Watch the trailer for JT LeRoy below.

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Antonio García, professor and director of jazz studies at VCUarts Music, has served as a music application review panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts. Though García was appointed by then-NEA Chair Jane Chu and has served in his capacity since May 2018, panelists were required to keep their identities confidential until the announcement of the grant winners this year. The panel ultimately recommended awarding $3,320,000 in grants across 137 music organizations.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to have served the arts community in the United States in this way,” says García.

García served alongside fellow panelists Amy Bormet, the executive director of the Washington Women in Jazz Festival in Cheverly, Md.; Darrell L Grant, professor of music and associate director of the School of Music and Theater at Portland State University in Portland, Ore.;  Roosevelt Griffin, president and CEO of the Griffin Institute of Performing Arts in Matteson, Ill.; Yoko Miwa, associate professor of piano at Berklee College of Music in Brighton, Mass.; and Claiborne Ray, retired deputy obituary editor of The New York Times.

To see the full list of grants, visit the NEA website.

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VCU News highlighted two VCUarts students during VCU Research Weeks (April 5-26), a celebration of student research that has been made possible by VCU’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, the Department of Biology, the Division for Community Engagement and faculty support. Caroline Meyers, a double major in sculpture and art history, and Richard Albright, a jazz guitar major, were interviewed about their pioneering research.

Meyers has devoted her studies to the life of Marilyn Stokstad, an influential art historian who made significant feminist contributions to her field. But she doesn’t just want her project to culminate in a paper; she’s also preparing a multimedia exhibition that presents her findings in a more tactile and experiential manner.

“From the get-go, I didn’t want the final product of this to be a paper,” Meyers said of her Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program fellowship project. “I want to have it be an object or a performance or something that can exist in the real world. And that’s where exhibition-making came in because I thought that was a perfect place between a perfect meeting of art, historical research and object-making and that it is an awesome academic organization of objects.”

Read more about Meyers’ research.

Albright says that, while he spent his first year at VCUarts exclusively focusing on jazz, classical guitar and music theory, his interest in the sciences was piqued through exposure to the many different disciplines across the university. He’s since picked up a second major in biology that led to a summer studying a gene linked to Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Although seemingly disparate, both disciplines complement and improve the skills of the other, he said.

“So one of my favorite things to do is to just be at home in my room and write music. It’s a really fulfilling process, just sitting there, being creative and writing what comes to mind,” Albright said. “It’s similar to thinking about new methods or questions I could ask about research. Writing a thesis or research article is similar to composing music.”

Read more about Albright’s research.

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As comic book characters continue to capture imaginations and sell out cinemas the world over, they’ve become a popular subject of research among arts and literary scholars. Thea Cheuk, communications arts junior, will lend a critical eye to the most famous sidekick since Dr. Watson when they present their original research on Robin, the “boy wonder,” at VCU’s graduate and undergraduate research symposiums April 23 and 24.

For nearly 80 years, Dick Grayson has taken on the mantle of Robin the alongside “the world’s greatest detective,” Batman. “Queer Eye for the Hero Guy: Exploring Dick Grayson’s Sexuality” will examine the ways in which Cheuk—who also studies gender, sexuality and women’s studies—argues Robin has been “subtextually coded queer” since his 1940 debut.

“There are a lot of parallels between superheroes and closeted queer people,” Cheuk said. “They are hiding themselves except in certain situations. They use costuming to release their true selves into the world. They have this alter ego. And I found that was true when looking at the old comics of Batman and Robin.”

Cheuk began by examining Grayson’s early relationships with other characters.

“The way he is visually and narratively presented helped shore up Batman’s masculinity,” Cheuk said. “Batman is covered head to toe in body armor. And you have Robin wearing this essentially feminine outfit—very short shorts, flashlight bright colors, blaring that his presence is here.

“He’s also kidnapped a lot, and plays this damsel in distress role. Batman doesn’t have a solid love interest—you have a couple women but they come in and out. And when they do, Robin becomes very distressed at the idea of Batman’s attention being split from him, which is indicative of some queer themes.”

Read more about Cheuk’s research at VCU News.

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Shawn Brixey, dean of VCUarts, was among the venerated speakers who visited the school’s Doha, Qatar, campus this month, which included fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg and fashion entrepreneur Dame Natalie Massenet. They were joined by David Linley, Earl of Snowdon, Marta Kuzma, first female dean of Yale School of Art, and Rosanne Somerson, president of Rhode Island School of Design.

The talks were moderated by Kimberly Guthrie, interim chair of fashion design at VCUarts Qatar.

World famous fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, who created the iconic wrap dress, gave a talk at VCUarts Qatar’s Atrium as part of the #QatarCreates series of events to celebrate the opening of the National Museum of Qatar.

She also met with faculty and students from VCUarts Qatar’s fashion design program where she answered their questions and gave them advice about the fashion industry. She talked about what inspired her to create and who her influences were when she was starting out.

“The most important relationship in life is the one you have with yourself” she told the audience at the Atrium, “and as long as you have that, and you own it, you make a mistake, own it, face it, deal with it. Your imperfections, all your imperfections, they become assets.”

Read more at The Peninsula.

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The Menuhin Competition, the leading international violin contest for young musicians, will be held in Richmond, Va., next year via a partnership between VCU, the Richmond Symphony, Commonwealth Public Broadcasting (WCVE), and the University of Richmond. The “Olympics of the violin” announced their list of jurors today on Twitter, in addition to opening applications for performers.

Jurors for the 2020 competition include Menuhin chair Pamela Frank, who has performed with orchestras in New York, Chicago, Berlin and Zurich; vice chair Joji Hattori, who won the 1989 competition; and Soyoung Yoon, former winner and regular partner of the touring Korean Chamber Orchestra.

See the full list on the competition website.

Students of any nationality who are under the age of 22 may apply. Read more about the application rules and deadlines.

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The 37th annual Smithsonian Craft Show includes the work of 120 artists across every major discipline of contemporary craft and design. This year’s show will feature Craft/Material Studies alumnus Sean Donlan (BFA ’12) among its many exhibitors.

This is Donlan’s first year at the craft show. The artist uses flameworking to shape glass into vibrant, reflective teapots. In his artist statement, he explains his relationship with the iconic form.

The teapot became a symbol in my eyes, one that could be recognized by all people. Throughout history teapots have be used as a canvas for expression through its maker or utilizer. This makes the teapot a greater symbol—one that can connect everyone on the principle of taking a moment to wind down, interact, tell stories, or internally reflect.

Through April 28, visitors and collectors can stop by the show at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, to appreciate or purchase one-of-a-kind creations.

Learn more about the show at the Smithsonian website.

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MK Abadoo, assistant professor in the department of dance and choreography, uses the art of interpretive dance to unravel racism in Richmond, a critical setting across the long history of the slave trade and segregation. Ahead of Abadoo’s latest performance, “This Ground,” set to premiere later this summer, RVA Mag reached out to her to learn more about her training and inspirations.

Trained in modern dance and influenced in Ghana, Abadoo describes her dance style as postmodern, with West African techniques.

“The dances that I choreograph and create, they must exist within a clear framework of the communities they are created with, for, about, by and where they are performed,” she said.

Abadoo showcases these techniques in one of her projects: LOCS, in which a person’s dreadlocks unravel onstage. Using several feet of hair, Abadoo explains the importance of hair and identity. The unraveling represents a richer understanding of oneself.

Abadoo is a trainer with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, a collective of anti-racist educators and organizers based out of New Orleans who are committed to social transformation and undoing racism. Partnering with people all over the world, Abadoo works with other trainers teaching workshops on how to undo racism and engage in community-based organizing.

Read more about Abadoo at RVA Mag.

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To the VCUarts community,

For universities and art schools, the month of May always marks a season of exuberant emotion and endless possibilities.

This is often the message we hear from our commencement speakers, as they share words of wisdom about being an artist, and being human. In the past, we’ve heard from alumni like design entrepreneur Bobby Martin, Jr. (BFA ’99), multi-instrumentalist Michael Hearst (BM ’95), actor Jason Butler Harner (BFA ’92), and local nonprofit owner Ashley Hawkins (BFA ’07). They have urged us to “take some time to breathe,” to “be firm and be kind” and reminded our graduates that “you don’t just gild the lily; you cast it from gold.”

This year, I am excited to hear from California-based artist Elizabeth Turk when she delivers the commencement address to our graduates. Turk, a MacArthur Fellow, is known for her exquisite marble sculptures that draw from intricate organic forms and the rhythmic lines of nature. Her insight and experience will be inspiring to the Class of 2019 and their loved ones.

The final weeks of the spring semester are also the culmination of years of academic and life lessons. Our students have been deep in the work of final exams, senior recitals, exhibition openings and project submissions. Every day I traverse our campus and witness their talents on full display through paintings and sculptures, product demonstrations and public performances, films, digital designs and thoughtful analyses. These students are deeply supported by our devoted faculty and staff, and their collective effort unites our community in the shared pursuit of creative excellence.

But above all, May offers a moment to celebrate the extraordinary achievements of our graduates. These artists, designers, innovators, performers and scholars will soon be joining the global VCUarts alumni family, which will be enriched by their inclusion. Just as I enjoy hearing from our alumni as they chart new creative frontiers, I can’t wait to see all that lies ahead for our graduates as they begin the next chapter of their lives, and their lifelong relationship with VCUarts.

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

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The annual senior project concert is a chance to showcase four years of growth and experience in both dance and choreography. Len Foyle, a graduating dance major, used the capstone project as an opportunity to explore how they could “queer” dance practices and the rehearsal process.

Here, Foyle talks about how that experience inspired an evolving understanding of the relationship between performers, choreographers, and the audience.

Tell us about your senior capstone project.
This work explores what it means to queer space, to queer relationships, and to queer the structures of practice and process—all of the ways that you can apply queerness to norms that already exist. I’ve been playing a lot with how I can queer my relationship to the dancers, and with how the rehearsals are set up.

A lot of it is rooted in my own identity. But I wouldn’t say it’s about my story and my personal experience. But certainly, I’ve been thinking a lot about the binaries that naturally exist within space and relationships and society.

What does it mean to queer your process?
A lot of times it comes down to working more collaboratively with the dancers, rather than enforcing my vision upon them in an authoritative way. I see what they need, how they’re feeling, keep the communication lines open, and make sure it’s a more dynamic, multifaceted process. I wanted to establish a relationship before any of that and establish a place where the dancers could be vulnerable, and where I could be vulnerable.

One thing that developed was what we called the pleasure puddle. It was loosely inspired by some choreographers I worked with in London. Half the class laid on the ground and the other half came and laid on top of them. That duet evolved into this sharing of weight and then asking for and willingness to give pleasure. It comes down to reading bodies, feeling when somebody is leaning into a point of contact, or when somebody is wedging their way underneath you because they want the weight of your body, and tuning into that.

How did this experience then shape the rehearsals?
There are a lot of very intimate moments in the piece and I think if [dancers] aren’t comfortable being in physical contact with each other and having those kinds of connections, it’s not possible to make that authentic. It looks awkward.

There are a lot of parts in the piece where there’s nose-to-nose contact, or where they’re rolling around with each other in very twisted positions. Those moments came out of the pleasure puddle and the kinds of touch that were generated. It fed so wonderfully and directly into what was ultimately created.

How did you queer the interaction with the audience during the performance?
Already within the theater, there’s this binary of audience and onstage, and there’s an expectation that the audience will come in and be a passive recipient. They can sit back and let it wash over them. I very specifically did not want that to be the case. I wanted there to be some implication and some discomfort and some jarring. I’m using lights directed at the audience and the dancers will interact with the audience, making eye contact with them. I wanted to break down all of those binaries, tease them apart and find that grey area in between.

Where do you hope this experience will lead after you graduate?
I think this is a roadmap for my life work. The piece is limited to 10 minutes; I feel like it needs to be a 45-minute, evening-length performance. There have been certain elements that I’ve wanted to add in, or that I haven’t been able to develop and explore as fully as I wanted to. Questions have come up through this process that are maybe unrelated to the specific focus of this work, but I can re-contextualize and put into a new piece of work.

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