As we approach the two-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder and America’s racial reckoning, I have been reflecting on the strides that we as a College have made and the work that still lies ahead. Two years ago, I wrote, “The voices that have until now been unheard or silenced and the issues that have until now been ignored or dismissed are now front of center as we look at our College.” So, what tangible results have our efforts produced, and what work lies ahead?
In striving for equity, we are reassessing the social and economic barriers to the arts that exist for many young people. The School of Music’s new concentrations in popular music and technology within the BM degree in Performance and jazz education within the BM degree in Music Education are aimed at attracting those who experience music as more than classical. And the School of Dance’s curriculum in jazz dance draws on the West African roots of this Black American art form rather than ballet as a foundation.
We have also sought to ensure that all students are treated with dignity and respect. This has necessitated careful listening to our BIPOC students and alumni and making changes so that our curricula and programming are inclusive. The School of Art faculty has fundamentally rethought its history curriculum away from the periodization of white male artists to diverse cross-cultural connections, and the School of Theatre has moved beyond the tokenism of an annual Black play to seasons of inclusive programming.
Beginning in 2019, we made a commitment to diversify our faculty and staff and implemented a new set of hiring procedures. All faculty search committees include student members and a member of our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee. By training committees on how to run an unbiased search and by ensuring that applicant pools are diverse, in less than three years, BIPOC faculty have grown from 14.6% to 17.8% and underrepresented staff from 0% to 13%. Our work has just begun, and we are continuing to evaluate our policies in order to reach where we want to
be by 2025.
But despite such progress, more work must be done. The Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee is sponsoring an all-College workshop this spring on recognizing and obliterating microaggressions, which continue to demean those in our community. I welcome suggestions from you on ways that we can strive to make the arts accessible to all. By working together, we can create a culturally inclusive, safe, and responsive arts community in our collective fight for justice and equity.
Sincerely,
bruce d. mcclung, Dean
College of Visual and Performing Arts
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EDI COMMITTEE LAUNCHES MICROSITE |
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The College of Visual and Performing Arts’ microsite dedicated to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion is maintained by the EDI Committee whose mission is to “identify, analyze, and remediate structural inequities in our College, our various disciplines, and academia in general—inequities that may impede students, faculty, staff, and society as a whole from maximizing their artistic, professional, and personal potential and making their authentic contributions to the arts and to society.” Read more about the CVPA EDI Committee’s work here.
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“AMPLIFY: BLACK VOICES FESTIVAL OF GREATER GREENSBORO”
CREATES STAGE FOR STUDENT ARTIVISTS IN APRIL
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The School of Theatre’s Fall 2021 production of The Julies: A Kinda Sorta Adaptation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie by Calley N. Anderson. Photo credit Becky VanderVeen.
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“I think people’s eyes are open, and they’re more willing to engage. I also think that these young people are not willing to let people disengage. I think we’ve moved away from the concept of colorblindness and thinking it doesn’t matter who’s teaching or who’s in the room. It does matter who’s on stage, the material that we’re reading matters. The voices at the table matter.”
—Natalie Sowell, Director of the School of Theatre and co-organizer of “Amplify: Black Voices Festival of Greater Greensboro,” which begins on April 8th.
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“BLACK IDENTITIES ON THE OPERATIC STAGE” SYMPOSIUM THIS MONTH SPOTLIGHTS AN AMERICAN ART FORM |
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Rhiannon Giddens (“Bess”) with Thomas Cannon (“Porgy”) under the direction of Everett McCorvey during rehearsal of Greensboro Opera’s production of Porgy and Bess. Photo credit Martin Kane.
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“With its compelling narratives, staging, music, and, above all, beautiful singing, the power of opera to move our souls is unparalleled among the arts. When this rich medium is deployed to carry socially progressive messages, as in Nkeiru Okoye’s opera Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed That Line to Freedom or Terence Blanchard’s Champion, you have to be pretty damn resistant not to take those messages to heart.”
—Elizabeth Keathley, Professor of Historical Musicology and organizer of “Black Identities on the Operatic Stage: A Symposium with Music,” which will be held on March 26th.
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EXHIBITION EXPLORES CONCEPTS OF BLACKNESS THROUGH
THE EYES OF CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
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Duane Cyrus at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art. Photo credit Terri Relos. |
“We divided the exhibition into four different themes. There was vision, lens, corporeal, and the Resistance Project. Vision is about a different type of Blackness—Afro-futurism, a Black imaginative. Lens is an idea for us of current moment. Of course, that includes Black Lives Matter and the pandemic, so we selected works we felt were a look at what’s happening now. Corporeal looks at our bodies in the range of the beauties we can be and not just one type, certainly not the Eurocentric version of what Blackness could be but a range of who we are. The Resistance Project highlights Black women artists, scholars, and activists.
You’ll notice not everything is about trauma. It’s certainly something we need to speak to, but it’s not all about that.”
—Duane Cyrus, Professor of Dance and Guest Curator of “Black@Intersection,” which runs through April 17th.
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“HERE’S MY STORY” GIVES A VOICE TO THE VOICELESS |
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Bailey Wingler, project manager of “Here’s My Story” at one of the installations in Salisbury, NC.
Photo credit Terri Relos.
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“The goal of the project is to show how diversity makes a community better. How it makes us stronger, more resilient. This project has changed me completely, and I hope it will change our community for the better.”
—Bailey Winger (’18 BFA Studio Art) and Project Manager for “Here’s My Story.”
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Heather Lambert (’21 MM and ’18 BM Violin Performance) has been named Assistant Concertmaster of the Asheville Symphony.
Jordan Speas (’21 BFA Acting) made his New York City debut with a performance in “Boy Bands vs. Girl Groups,” a battle of the bands at Feinstein’s 54 Below.
Bethany Uhler Thompson (’20 DMA and ’17 MM Performance) has started a strings program for incarcerated youth at Chatham Youth Development Center in North Carolina. Read more here.
Bailey Wingler (’18 BFA Studio Art) has begun teaching at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College in Advertising and Graphic Design. Her position as an Adjunct Professor is in addition to her roles as Assistant to the Executive Director of Transfer & University Partnerships and Assistant to the Dept. of Art & Design.
Jennie Savage (’17 Arts Administration, ’12 BA Art History and Museum Studies) has been named Programs Director of Forge Greensboro.
Jesse Darden (’08 BM Voice Performance) recently made his Lincoln Center Theatre debut as an ensemble member in the opera Intimate Apparel directed by Bartlett Sher. The production, running through March 6th, is part of The Met/LCT Opera/Musical Theater Commissioning Program.
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Alumni News & Notes are compiled from self-submissions
and from the University’s news clip service.
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Next Stop: Los Angeles | March 6, 2022 @ 12:00–2:00PM
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FACULTY/STAFF NEWS & NOTES
Guy Capuzzo (Professor of Music Theory) and his co-author Sonia Archer-Capuzzo (Clinical Assistant Professor, School of Education) are featured in the latest UNCG Research Magazine in an article about their book Metaldata, a biography of heavy metal resources. Read the article here.
Duane Cyrus (Professor of Dance) produced a dance residency on the topic of Juneteenth Awareness and the Arts at Penn-Griffin School for the Arts in High Point, NC, working with three School of Dance alumni. Maria-Elena Surprenant (’13 BA Dance Studies) is the Grants Curator with Guilford County Schools, which provided support through its Lyceum Grant; Amelia Byrd (’14 MFA Dance) is the dance instructor at Penn-Griffin; and Jurne Smith (’20 BFA Dance), teaching artist with Theatre of Movement, wrote the lessons and led the residency. Cyrus was also recently featured in the Greensboro News & Record, recalling his experience in the London cast of the musical The Lion King. Read the article here.
Maranda DeBusk (Assistant Professor of Lighting Design) received an award from the UNCG Scholars’ Travel Fund to serve as co-coordinator panelist at the Design South: Lighting and a committee member for the Keynote Emerging Artists of Promise at the Southeastern Theatre Conference in Memphis.
Mark Engebretson (Professor of Composition) and Steve Stusek (Professor of Saxophone) recently performed at UNCG as members of the Red Clay Saxophone Quartet, comprised of Engebretson, Stusek, Susan Fancher, and Laurent Estoppey, premiering the new work Hedera composed by James Paul Sain, a professor at the University of Florida.
Dan Hale (Visiting Assistant Professor of Animation) has animated still images created by renowned photojournalist Larry Fink that are used in a short documentary on activist and artist Ben Morea. The film We Want a Total Revolution is part of an exhibition titled “The Mask Never Lies” running through May 1st at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània in Barcelona, Spain.
Elizabeth Perrill (Professor of Art History) received a Faculty Research Award for “Ceramics Demonstrations Research and At-Risk Archives Needs Assessment.” Perrill’s primary research areas include South African contemporary art, Southern African ceramics, Zimbabwean stone sculpture, and African curatorial histories.
Joan Titus (Associate Professor of Musicology) curated a roundtable for Musicology Now titled “Sounds of Social Justice.” Musicology Now recently released a second contribution on indigenous artists’ responses to the music in Peter Pan by scholar Victoria Lyndsey Levine. Musicology Now is an online platform of the American Musicological Society devoted to sounds, words, and ideas; and Titus is a member of its Editorial Board. Read more here.
Andrew Willis has organized a three-day festival at the Sigal Music Museum in Greenville South Carolina March 10th-12th.. Called "Keys to the Sigal," the festival celebrates the museum's extraordinary collection of historical keyboard instruments through concerts, lectures and lecture-recitals. UNCG School of Music graduate students Robin Morace, Stephanie Schmidt, Patricia Garcia Gil, and Jonathan Simmons are among the performing artists. Get more detail and register here.
Faculty/Staff News & Notes are compiled from self-submissions
and from the University’s news clip service.
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In Memoriam:
Professor Emeritus John Gamble
Professor Emeritus John Gamble passed away on the evening of his 79th birthday.
Gamble was Professor and Head of the Department of Dance at UNCG from 1985 until 1993 where he developed the BFA and MFA degree programs. He retired from UNCG as Professor Emeritus in January 2012. Highlights from his UNCG career include a Senior Faculty Research Grant in 1990, a North Carolina Arts Council Choreographic Fellowship in 1991, being selected as a Pew Foundation Community Entrepreneur 1998–2000, receiving the UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2006, and the NC Dance Alliance Annual Award in 2007. He chaired UNCG’s Faculty Senate from 2010 to 2011. Prior to UNCG, Gamble taught at Temple University (1975–1985) where he chaired the Department of Dance. Read more here.
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UNC GREENSBORO CONCERT AND LECTURE SERIES |
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The 2021–2022 UCLS season concludes with Daveed Diggs, from the original cast of Broadway’s Hamilton and television’s Black-ish; Metropolitan Museum of Art Associate Curator Denise Murrell; and Cuban dance company Malpaso, known as one of the most exciting contemporary dance companies touring today. |
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Season Subscriptions are also on sale now for the 2022–2023 season, which includes Winston Duke, star of the blockbuster Marvel Studios movie Black Panther; violinist Joshua Bell, one of the most celebrated musicians of our time; Urban Bush Women, a dance company whose works weave contemporary dance, music, and text with history, culture, and spiritual traditions of the African Diaspora; The Indigo Girls, a folk-rock duo that has been the voice of a generation since its beginnings in Atlanta, which will be accompanied by the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra; and Seraph Brass, a dynamic ensemble drawing from a roster of America’s top female brass players. The series also includes a free artist talk with Shaun Leonardo.
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CLOSING SPOTLIGHT
Connie Prater (Business Officer) retired from the School of Theatre on February 28th after forty-three years of invaluable service, which resulted in her beloved nickname of “Drama Mama” for generations of theatre students. Theatre faculty, staff, and students turned out for her retirement party to wish her well.
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The College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA) e-Newsletter is published eight times a year in September, October, November, December, February, March, April, and May.
The Newsletter is emailed to CVPA alumni, faculty, staff, students, patrons, and donors. Please feel free to forward your copy, and anyone who would like their name to be added to our distribution list can contact us via uncgarts@uncg.edu.
The e-Newsletter is edited by Terri Relos, Director of External Relations. Archived issues can be found in the “News” section of the CVPA website. To submit Alumni News & Notes, please use this form. For Faculty/Staff News & Notes, use this form.
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100 McIver St, Greensboro, NC 27412-5010
Tel: 336-334-5789
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