Congratulations to studio participants Connie Saems and Felice Mendell for being chosen for the 36^th Annual Winter Juried Show, to be presented at The Art Complex Museum in Duxbury.  The show will be open to the public from February 6 through April 11^th.

Connie Saems received first prize in sculpture for her set of birch trees made of low fire clay, concrete and rebar. Their sizes range from twelve inches to thirty-six inches high, and their intense realism and texture are certainly prize worthy.  Saems’s other ‘set of birches’ was accepted at the Fuller Museum Biennial Juried Member show ending in March. Felice Mendell’s sculpture titled, ‘Connecting’, is made of concrete, steel, copper, stains, pigments and wax. The twelve-inch tall, mixed media sculpture was inspired by a class she took at the Ceramic Program, Office for the Arts at Harvard, which forced her to think about, “Skeleton, Skin and Shelter.” The Gala Opening reception is Saturday, February 6, from 6:00-9:00 pm at The Art Complex Museum, 189 Alden Street, Duxbury.

For tickets and more information, visit the DAA website.

Connie Saems Birch Tree sculpture.

Felice Mendell's 'Connecting'.

View from Fire on the Mountain: Alison Brown ‘84, Sam Bush and Bobby Hicks

The night started with Clint Miller ‘11 doing “Nobody’s Sweetheat” (see video below from previous performance) and then into “House of the Raising Son”. I think they should start casting the Grammy statues for Clint. What a musician.

Then Alison Brown ‘84, Sam Bush and Bobby Hicks came on. Sam described it as music or musicians on fly. “We haven’t worked on this together. We know a lot of songs.. we’re just not sure we know the same songs!” Then the jam began.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to get close enough to get video or even really hear the music well. It was a nice setting for a show but way too small. About 50 of us enjoyed from outside the Thompson Room.

"Traveling to a Black Hole" by Ingrid Becker, 2006

The other day, the Harvard Arts Beat was hanging in Jefferson Laboratory waiting to talk with Professor Lisa Randall about an OFA event on Feb. 24 . While waiting, we delighted in looking at “Traveling to a Black Hole,” a painting by Ingrid Becker. The provenance is as follows: Harvard’s Professor Andrew Strominger — in the Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature – received the painting as a gift from Ingrid Becker, mother of his two post-docs Katrin and Melanie Becker, both of whom now teach at Texas A&M University. If you look closely (apologies for the iPhone quality), you can see the image of Strominger riding in the hot air balloon.  We’re told by a reliable source (Strominger’s staff support Nancy Partridge) that it’s a good likeness to the physics prof.

The presence of art in the halls of science: We like that. It makes us feel brane-y. Check out the other character featured in Becker’s work. Can any art about physics afford to leave him out? That’s one of the questions we’ll be asking Professor Randall and composer Hector Parra later this month. Science and art. Talk about energy.

Detail and a bust of Einstein next to "Traveling to a Black Hole."

By Alisha Ramos

I was a Clay All Night skeptic. How could playing with clay…all night…be considered fun? I was so wrong. Clay All Night was a really fun experience that I got to enjoy with all my roommates. To be able to make use of Harvard’s ceramic studio (which I didn’t even know existed before this!) is a great opportunity, even if you’re not an expert at making ceramics. There’s just so much energy and fun at Clay All Night — the music is great, the food is great, and it’s even better if you go with a bunch of friends.

I also met many people I’ve never seen before, and hanging out with new people and sharing the sometimes silly experience was fun. I ended up making a somewhat deformed sculpture of a frog while many of my friends worked on the wheel to make things like plates, pots, and mugs. Many of them said being on the wheel felt really relaxing. Whatever your skill level is or whatever you want to make (or not make), you’re guaranteed to have a good time at Clay All Night!

Harvard Undergraduates enjoy food, clay, friends and music.

Local choreographer and Dance Program instructor Jodi Leigh Allen speaks about her choreographic background, and the story behind her work “Breathe,” which she will re-stage for Dancers’ Viewpointe 10.

When/how did you start choreographing?
I began choreographing in my B.F.A. dance program at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia.  We had many choreography classes to craft and hone our creative spirit.  We studied everything from Improvisation to Music Theory/Composition to Solo and Group Choreography classes.  It was my first introduction in how to build movement phrases that would help to construct a whole piece and convey what you as the choreographer wanted to say within that piece.  I was also introduced to and challenged by the book The Art of Making Dances by Doris Humphrey, which I believe every young choreographer should read from cover to cover.  Choreography has been a creative outlet for me to express my life’s journey throughout the years.  I now feel that I am beginning to create pieces that express my individual viewpoints as a movement storyteller and a visual problem solver that incorporates an engaging physicality on stage.

Harvard students perform Jodi Leigh Allen's "Breathe" in 2003.

How did this piece (Breathe) originally come about?
Breathe was created in 2003 when I was asked to choreograph a piece for Dancers’ Viewpointe III at Harvard University.  I remember wanting to choreograph a piece that challenged me as a choreographer mentally, as well as challenging the performers physically.  Breathe was structured around a suspended apparatus that cut the stage space in half.  This apparatus was also a way for the dancers to use the space that we as performers rarely get to investigate, the fly space – a space where we cannot jump or get to unless elevated.  Breathe was my conception of trying to get to another place or space but always feeling trapped or held back by something, namely the pole, in order to move ahead.

What is different about re-staging it this time?
The re-staging of Breathe in 2010 will be significantly different from when the piece was premiered in 2003.  I will have a smaller cast of new dancers with a more intricate investigation into the meaning of coming full circle in one’s life.

What are the unique benefits and challenges of working with Harvard students?
Working with Harvard students has been a unique experience as they bring a certain professionalism and intelligence to the creative process between the choreographer and dancer.  I have always worked with students here at Harvard that would bring a unique personality and physicality to my work.  Harvard students are challenged by pushing the boundaries of physicality and structure to its limit, and these students have always been eager to take that leap of faith with me and my work throughout the years.

Anything else you’d like to add?
For my piece, I am looking for dancers with a strong modern/ballet technique that liked to be challenged both mentally and physically.

If you were strolling down Mt. Auburn Street near the Office for the Arts over the last few weeks, you may have heard the singing voices of Dunster House Opera performers rehearsing Benjamin Britten’s comic opera “Albert Herring.” If not — and even if so! — you can hear the actual opera in performance 8:30 p.m. Feb, 5, 6, 7, 12 & 13 at Dunster House Dining Hall.  

Although Britten quotes several composers in the score, the wacky storyline of his chamber opera is reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas. The scene is May Day, but the town is lamenting a lack of virginal girls to take the Queen of the May throne. So why not have a King of the May? And Albert Herring, the young grocery clerk, is just the man for the job.

Until he’s not.

Britten wrote “Albert Herring” (1947) as a companion piece to the more tragic “Rape of Lucretia” (1946) and worked with lyricist Eric Crozier to adapt Guy de Maupassant’s “Le Rosier de Madame Husson” to an English village.

Scott Lozier (no relation to Crozier), OFA videographer and arts editor, listened at his desk to the opera rehearsals. Every day. For several weeks. Then he grabbed his camera and filmed the musicians at work. “What’s going on?” one character asks of another. Check out Scott’s video to find out. Look what happens to Albert when he tries to apologize to a group of angry women. It ain’t pretty. And yet, it’s beautiful. But don’t take our word for it. For tickets, click here.

In January 2009, physics concentrator Merritt Moore ‘11 traveled to Boise, ID, where leading U.S. choreographer Trey McIntyre created an original solo for her, to be performed later this spring at “Dancers’ Viewpointe 10.” She reflects on this creative experience, and what made this particular trip so special for her.

In preparation for whatever dance moves Trey McIntyre might throw at me at the end of January, I spent my entire winter break training with the National Ballet of China in Beijing and The Universal Ballet Company in Seoul. I thought the hardcore Communist Chinese training regime as well as the intense Korean program would brace me for anything–even the intense scrutiny of a choreographer/artistic director creating a new work directly on me. Little did I know.

Merritt Moore '11 performing her original choreography for the Harvard Ballet Company in 2008.

When I danced professionally with the Zurich Ballet Company and performed as a guest artist with Alonzo King Lines Ballet on a tour of Italy last year, the pieces I performed were works created for dancers years ago. Performing works by William Forsythe, Jiri Kylian, and other world-class choreographers was exciting, but nothing matches the thrill of having a choreographer in that league create a piece directly on a dancer.

So you can imagine my excitement when I found out that the OFA Dance Program commissioned Trey McIntyre to create an original solo on me. It is like having the best designer from Ferrari custom-make a car for you. Nowadays, even for the best dancers in the world’s major companies, it is very rare that something is choreographed on them. Trey McIntyre is one of today’s most sought-after choreographers.  He has created works for the best companies in the world such as the American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet, and Moscow Ballet Theater. And I, a physics concentrator at Harvard, get an original solo set on me.

So what made working with Trey so much more intense than the hours that I spent in China and Korea training? Trey forced me to explore unconventional and exigent ideas of movement. Most companies demand traditionally-defined technical perfection, and oddly there is something very comforting about striving for this established ideal. But Trey had me explore terrifying boundaries that were unfamiliar and challenging; this, of course, turned out to be the most rewarding. It made me realize why the creative process is so crucial to development. Textbooks can give you information, give you a step-by-step formulaic method of finding a solution, but the creative process forces one to break boundaries, and dare to be uniquely excellent, not cookie-cutter perfect.

There was a moment late in second piece of Morris on Mozart where the music and dance were so good that I suddenly realized I hadn’t been paying attention. I heard every note and saw most every move, but I hadn’t been actively paying attention. I had been lulled into a dream. I was taken to another level. Morris on Mozart at the Opera House was that good. If you missed this show, Alvin Ailey comes in April.

Morris on Mozart was in three pieces: Eleven, Double, Twenty-seven.

The opening was a stunning tableau. The dancers were silhouetted against a drop straight from Franz Kline. The canvas was off-white with three huge black brush strokes. As if a giant dancer had brushed against the canvas.

Opening sequence from Morris on Mozart

Eleven: Piano Concerto No.11 in F Major. Almost entirely female dancers.

Double: Piano Sonata in D Major for two pianos. Just the male dancers.

Twenty-seven: Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major. Morris brings the two previous pieces together with both the women and the men.

Movement 2 from Morris on Mozart

Hearing live music makes me wonder why I never listen to Mozart at home. Why? Because it’s just not the same. Not as good or as immediate. Morris always works with live music. It makes the performance better.

After the show I saw two young dancers I knew from Harvard on T. I barely recognized them bundled up from the cold. I asked them what they thought. That smile that young people get when they can’t contain the joy at what they’d experienced came across them. “Beautiful. The definition of beautiful dance,” they both told me.

Thanks to Celebrity Series from bring Mark Morris to Boston!

Photos Courtesy of Celebrity Series

Starting with Endgame: Four Acts by Calla Videt

Editor’s note: Last fall, Calla Videt ‘09 worked on a professional production of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame with Complicite, an ensemble theater company in London. This week, Harvard Arts Beat is running Videt’s four-part behind-the-scenes series about her experiences. You can read the introduction HERE. Today’s installment is ACT IV, the final post of the series.

Act IV: Endgames

4:30 pm: Short tea break. Refueled with biscuits, we return to sugar-plums and the idea of tension from the morning. Mark and Simon McBurney begin to play while attached together by a string. The string replaces the bamboos from the morning exercise and seems to simultaneously express both need and power. It brings out a new tension emanating from the center of the space. “There are threads here and there, always in the story,” Simon says. Perhaps he means it in two senses, with these literal physical ‘threads’ exposing nonliteral thematic connections in the text.

 We turn to Nagg listening to Hamm’s story, also with string between the two actors. Simon demonstrates how Nagg’s act of listening can change the tension in space. The string slacks and tightens. Slacks and tightens.

It’s almost the end of the day. We’ve come to the end of the story. We return to the question that began the morning. “What the hell happens next?” Simon asks. The most Beckettian of all questions thus far.

 6 pm: Time to break for the day. Throughout rehearsal, a clock ticks fluidly in the background—a nod to Beckett but also as a constant reminder that the show must open in two short weeks. But, all in all, things are pretty relaxed.

 All the games played and questions asked are little doorways of revelation. Such is the rationale behind the French word for rehearsal—“repetition.” For, through a series of repetitions, comes a series of variations. In a way, our rehearsals are a way of understanding the infinite number of ways we might proceed from moment to moment so that when it goes in front of an audience, one iteration might emerge for that night alone. The next night, another—with one thing preserved: the spirit of play.

While Beckett can sometimes appear somewhat serious on the surface, there’s a comedic edge to of his work and a dark pleasure in his pain. Similarly, amidst rigorous attention to the work, there is constant mischief afoot in the room of a Complicite rehearsal. “Will you all please stand up. Please—stand up!” Simon beckons us all to stand. A possible impromptu game? We all obediently rise to our feet. Long Pause. The face of Franz Stangl stares down from the wall. With a sly grin, Simon continues, “You see?” he cheekily demonstrates the idea, “Power.”

Ah, good. Another game. We, the duped players, sit back down.

Here’s more about Calla Videt and about Complicite.
Here’s the Harvard Gazette story about Calla Videt’s senior project The Space Between, which was performed last year at Harvard.