Category Archives: Fine Arts

School of Theatre Arts to Present Tartuffe

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The Illinois Wesleyan University School of Theatre Arts will present Tartuffe, a play by renowned 17th century French playwright Molière, with translation by Richard Wilbur. Performances will take place at McPherson Theatre (2 Ames Plaza East, Bloomington) at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 14 to Saturday, Feb. 18, with a matinee at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 19.

Tickets will be available for purchase Monday, Feb. 6. General admission ticket prices range from $10 for performances Tuesday through Thursday, and the matinee on Sunday, to $12 for performances Friday and Saturday. Senior citizens receive a $1 discount off the general admission price and students may purchase tickets for $2 with a valid Illinois Wesleyan ID.

First staged in Versailles in 1664 and composed of almost 2,000 rhyming couplets, the play follows the story of a man, Orgon, and his mother who take in the apparently pious Tartuffe. Orgon’s family, however, is not convinced by Tartuffe’s feigned righteousness. Determined to reveal Tartuffe for the fraud that he is, a plan is set to entrap him by exposing his lust for Orgon’s wife Elmire.

Artists Explore Motivation and Mystery of Inspiration

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Many consider inspiration to be the phenomenon that both motivates the artist and serves as the greatest intrigue of their work. Artist Ginia A. Davis explains, “The soul of art is inspiration.”

At Illinois Wesleyan University, two professors and two students were posed the question, “What inspires you?” The answers from School of Art Director Miles Bair, Professor of Art Kevin Strandberg, as well as art students Leeya Jackson class of ‘13 and Riley Blindt class of ‘13, revealed surprising similarities.

Bair has painted for more than 40 years and teaches painting, art foundations and art theory and criticism. “There have been multiple inspirations in my development as a painter,” said Bair. “During the past 15 to 20 years my artwork has focused on landscapes and nature.”

For Bair, the woods are a great source of inspiration. “Any time I run out of ideas in the studio I head for places like Wisconsin, the Appalachian mountains, anywhere that’s green.” He then takes photographs of these places to capture a mood to communicate in his work.

Bair prefers to make artwork based upon what he has seen and added to with his imagination, rather than painting exact replicas of his photographs. “My winter paintings are created entirely from imagination. I just imagine what places would look like with snow and work from there.”

McPherson Theatre to Present The Children’s Hour

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The Illinois Wesleyan School of Theatre Arts will present the 1930s drama The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman. Performances will take place Tuesday, Sept 27 until Saturday, Oct. 1 at 8 p.m. A matinee performance will be held Sunday, Oct. 2 at 2 p.m. All shows will take place in the University’s McPherson Theatre (2 Ames Plaza East, Bloomington).

First staged on Broadway in 1934, The Children’s Hour takes place at an all-girls boarding school run by two women, Karen Wright and Martha Dobie. When Mary Tilford, one of the young school attendants, runs away and does not wish to return, she convinces her grandmother that the two headmistresses are engaged in a love affair. Her secret spreads throughout the school and community, destroying the lives and reputations of Karen and Martha. Under the direction of IWU Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Thomas Quinn, the cast and crew of The Children’s Hour work to address the fierce potential of secrets kept not only from others, but from ourselves as well.

Guest Scholar to Speak on Music and Culture in Contemporary Taiwan

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.—Illinois Wesleyan University will welcome Department of Education (DoE) Guest Scholar and Professor Tracy Kwei-Liang Ho to campus for a 10-day program beginning Tuesday, Sept. 6 and ending Friday, Sept. 16.

During the event, Ho, from the Department of Music at Taipei Municipal University of Education in Taiwan, Republic of China (R.O.C.), is scheduled to speak at a School of Music convocation on Sept. 8 from 4-5 p.m. in Westbrook Auditorium of Presser Hall (1210 Park St., Bloomington). Ho will also deliver a public presentation on Sept. 13 from 7-8 p.m. in Stevenson Hall (203 Beecher St., Bloomington), room 103 with adjunct professor Kelly Huo’s class. Ho will speak on Music and Culture in Contemporary Taiwan.

The event is supported by a Title V DoE grant, which was awarded to IWU as a result of the concerted efforts of Teodora Amoloza, professor of sociology, Thomas Lutze, professor of history and Sonja Fritzsche, associate professor of German and Eastern European Studies.

A United States citizen since 2002, Ho received a doctor of music education degree from Teachers College, Columbia University in New York, a master of music from Brooklyn College, The City University of New York and a bachelor of music degree from National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, Taiwan.

Improv Group Alumni Find Their Way in Hollywood

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – For more than a decade, Illinois Wesleyan students have been able to duck into the Underground – down the steps from the DugOut in the Memorial Center – for a weekly laugh with the student improvisational group Jm7*. When it started, the group was a sounding board, an outlet and a bonding experience for the early members. It also gave several of them the confidence to take on Hollywood after graduation.

Three of the first members of Jm7* shared their stories of what the group meant to them, and how the lessons of those early days helped them traverse the wilds of LA as a young actor.

The beginning

Jm7* started as a sketch group in 1997 with Scott Powers ’00, Mike Rich ’00 and Sam Kenny ’99. “Mike and Sam were roommates and brought me in,” said Powers, a theater and history double major. The trio performed all over campus before settling into the black-box theater, known as the Phoenix, just off of the Underground. Weekly performances included sketches written by the trio, who gave themselves the name Joker McGee and the 7 Lousy Good for Nothings, or Jm7*. The summer of 1998, Powers and Kenny attended the Improv Olympics in Chicago. When they returned to IWU in the fall, they incorporated improvisation into the performances. “As I began to write and direct more plays, the sketches took a back seat to improv, which takes less prep work. Eventually the sketches fell away altogether in favor of improv,” said Powers.

Jackson Wins Art Scholarship to Study in Florence

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan sophomore art major Leeya Jackson recently received the Studio Arts Center International (SACI) Consortium scholarship. Worth $11,800, the award will allow Jackson to study abroad at SACI in Florence, Italy for the Fall 2011 semester.

SACI is a U.S. not-for-profit university art and design program. The organization has awarded $79,000 in scholarships to students studying at SACI in the upcoming semester. Jackson was selected as the consortium scholar based on her submitted artwork, including Self-portrait in Acrylic (pictured).

Jackson is most excited for the SACI art conservation course, where she will learn to repair Renaissance art. She will also take an art history course, which makes frequent trips to Italy’s many museums. “I am also looking forward to being immersed in Florentine culture and exercising my Italian skills,” she said.

Dance Concert Explores Homelessness

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – A new dance concert at Illinois Wesleyan University strives to capture the struggles and emotions of being homeless, transforming an IWU faculty member’s interviews of homeless men into expressive dance.

The concert, titled The Monkey Trail, will run from Tuesday, April 5 to Sunday, April 10 in the McPherson Theatre (2 Ames Plaza East, Bloomington). Performances will be at 8 p.m. April 5-9, and 2 p.m. April 10. Tickets for the weekday and Sunday concerts are $10 for the general public, $9 for seniors and $2 for Illinois Wesleyan students, faculty and staff. Tickets for the Friday and Saturday performances are $12 for the general public, $11 for seniors and $2 for student, faculty and staff. Contact the McPherson Box Office at (309) 556-3232 or online at www.iwu.edu/theatre. Canned food goods and donations will be collected at the door to benefit the local Home Sweet Home Mission.

The idea for the concert began several years ago, and culminated when Illinois Wesleyan Associate Professor of Theatre Arts and Coordinator of Dance Program Jean Kerr spent last summer interviewing homeless people at two shelters in St. Louis. Working with a transitional housing program, Kerr also led the men in workshops of dance and movement as part of the community collabARTive project. “After recovering from a feeling of ‘Who me? Dance?,’ these men experienced the constructs and confounds of dance and movement,” said Kerr, who videotaped the workshops and interviews, pieces of which will appear in the dance performance. “It allows real life to overlap what is on stage.”

Muriello Receives David Nott Scholarship

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University senior Joseph Muriello, a voice major and art studio minor from Oak Park, Ill., received the David Nott Collegiate Choir Scholarship at the group’s annual home concert on March 22.

Muriello said he was honored to receive the award for his dedication to the choir. “Throughout the three years I’ve been a part of the Collegiate Choir, it’s never felt like work,” he said, “Having the privilege to make such phenomenal music is a life-fulfilling reward.”

The David Nott Scholar is selected by the Collegiate Choir Director J. Scott Ferguson and in consultation with the Director of the School of Music Mario Pelusi.

The award honors the legacy of the late David Nott, professor emeritus of voice and former director of choral activity at IWU.

Trombone Choir to Perform in Tribute to Retiring Professor

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – In what might be a scene from a famed Broadway musical, a choir of trombones will descend upon Illinois Wesleyan University this April for a performance that will round out a yearlong tribute to Professor of Music Tom Streeter.

Streeter, who founded the Illinois Wesleyan Jazz Program 40 years ago, plans to retire in May. Several activities throughout the year have celebrated his contributions to the University, with the final event being an all-trombone alumni choir concert slated for 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 15 at Westbrook Auditorium of Presser Hall (1210 N. Park St., Bloomington).

Deciding to feature trombones for the concert was an easy choice for Streeter. He has been playing the instrument for more than 50 years. “It’s just such a wonderful sound,” said Streeter. “There’s nothing prettier than a bunch of trombones playing together. People might be surprised, because it’s such a mellow and very pleasing sound.”

McGowan Poetry Comes to Life in Reading, Music

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – “Speak poems or be silent” declared Illinois Wesleyan University Emeritus Professor of English James McGowan in his poem “Prefatory.”

More than 50 years of McGowan’s poetry was honored last week with an afternoon reading of his works titled “Poems in Five Decades: A Retrospective.” Sponsored by the English Department, the event enabled McGowan to choose some of his favorite poems to read. Later that evening, in a special tribute at the New Music Café, Professor of Music David Vayo debuted a suite he composed titled “Sandpails,” based on several of McGowan’s poems.

“Words have a certain music to them,” said McGowan. “Whatever the poem, whatever the imagery, it is the sounds that really reverberate in my mind. The two are intricately connected.”

McGowan, who retired from Illinois Wesleyan in 2000, has been writing poetry since the 1960s, and spent 20 years teaching it to IWU students. He has worked together with Vayo for years. The seeds of the suite Vayo composed stemmed from an invitation in 2003 to visit McGowan’s classroom. “I wanted to talk to the students about the connection between music and poems. David is very good at improvising,” said McGowan. “You can present him with a poem and he’ll just go for it.”

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