| NEWS RELEASE |
|
Office of External Communications |
Houston, TX 77204-5017 Fax: 713.743.8199 |
|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
Contact: Contact:
Mike Emery |
|
|
“Collaboration Among the Arts” Course Blends Talents of Artists, Actors, Musicians and Writers HOUSTON, April 14, 2005 – A bold experiment is taking place at the University of Houston, but it isn’t being conducted in a research lab. Instead, a selection of UH’s most talented student artists, actors, writers and musicians are participating in a new arts program that combines their respective talents. This spring, the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts launched its inaugural course, “Collaboration Among the Arts,” fusing the creative energies of both graduate and undergraduate students from UH’s School of Art, School of Theatre, Moores School of Music and Creative Writing Program. Faculty members representing each of these programs are guiding students as they undertake group projects that intermingle their respective disciplines. The projects are scheduled to be performed for the public the first week of May. The course is reflective of the collaborative arts mission of the Mitchell Center. Funded by a $20 million grant from George and Cynthia Woods Mitchell, the center is driven by the collective forces of UH’s Blaffer Gallery, the Creative Writing Program and the schools of art, music and theatre. “This class immerses these students in different aspects of the arts,” said Rob Smith, professor of composition and theory in the Moores School of Music and one of the professors teaching the class. “Understanding the language and methodology of the different artistic disciplines will influence their future works and the way they interpret the world around them. When an artist lives and breathes only within a certain field, it can be quite limiting.” In addition to Smith, the other UH faculty members teaching the Mitchell Center’s “Collaboration” course are Nick Flynn, assistant professor of English; Karyn Olivier, assistant professor of art; and Jonathan Middents, associate professor of theater. To prepare the students for their end-of-semester group projects, the Mitchell Center brought in two visiting artists. The husband and wife team of Terry Allen and Jo Harvey Allen arrived earlier this semester and have been working with the student groups and discussing the process of collaborative arts with them. The Allens will also stage the first performance sponsored by the center, “DUGOUT III: Warboy (and the backboard blues),” April 29 – 30 in the Lyndall Finley Wortham Theatre. “DUGOUT III” is a musical theater piece reflecting Terry Allen’s boyhood in Texas. This will be the first time “DUGOUT III” will be performed in Houston. Terry Allen’s companion art exhibition, “Stories From DUGOUT,” will also make its Houston debut with a reception at 7 p.m. April 15 in the Blaffer Gallery and remain on view through June 11. The exhibition is presented by the gallery through the support of Charles Butt and additional funding from Marilyn Oshman. Both “Stories from DUGOUT” and “DUGOUT III” are loosely based on Terry Allen’s family in Lubbock, Texas. Assisting with “DUGOUT III” are guest musicians Richard Bowden and Lloyd Maines. “Having the Allens involved with the class and the center was a brilliant move,” said graduate art student Anthony Shumate, who is in the “Collaboration” course. “There’s been great give-and-take between the students and the visiting artists.” Terry Allen himself exemplifies the course’s collaborative concept. A singer, songwriter, artist and dramatist, he personifies the class’ mission of crossing the boundaries that separate artistic genres. “One thing that happens at universities is that students are tied to their own turf, so they rarely encounter peers in other programs or departments,” he said. “A class like this helps students understand that the impulse to create is a common urge no matter what their discipline is.” As Terry Allen prepares the “DUGOUT” exhibit and performance, the Mitchell Center’s students are busily polishing their own group works. Concepts for the four student projects include a theater presentation based on the myth of Prometheus in which an artificial body is assembled, then deconstructed; a translation of the self through dance; and artistic interpretations of people observed by a group’s various members. “The students in these groups have been very open in terms of listening to what each other has to say,” Smith said. “A visual artist will interpret something much differently than a musician or an actor does. In instances like this, the musician or actor will then see that there are other ways of arriving at a particular solution, and vice-versa.” The Mitchell Center officially broke ground on November 9, 2004. A $4.5 million renovation to the building housing the Wortham Theatre and School of Theatre is expected to wrap in September. Once completed, the entire facility will be officially renamed the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts. Both the Wortham Theatre and School of Theatre will be housed in this building. “The collaborative nature of the arts has not really occurred in the city. It’s happened from time to time, but not very much in terms of a real united front, and that’s what we’re after,” said Sidney Berger, Director of the School of Theatre and the first Executive Director of the Mitchell Center for the Arts. “This center will have a profound impact on the local arts community and will establish both UH and the City of Houston as even greater contributors to the nation’s cultural life.” For more information about the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston, visit http://www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom/centerforarts/ or http://www.class.uh.edu/mitchellcenter/. About the University of Houston For more information about UH visit the university’s ‘Newsroom’ at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom. |
||