UNITED ARTISTS: UH’S MITCHELL CENTER
UNIFYING STUDENT ARTS
“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
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research
and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research centers
and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate,
civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university
in the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and
service with more than 35,000 students.
For more information about UH visit
the universitys Newsroom at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.
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