Happenings and celebrations in the School of Theatre and Dance!
Our production of Rent re-opens tonight and tickets are going fast! Call 330-672-2497. The cast and designers have done an outstanding job and the show is a “must see.”
Dance Performance and Dance Education BFA auditions for students entering fall semester, 2010 will be Saturday, November 14. See our website at www.theatre.kent.edu for information.
Musical Theatre BFA Auditions are Friday and Saturday, November 13-14. Download an application packet from our website.
The rest of the semester is packed with projects and student productions that include Six Characters in Search of an Author November 19-22, directed by Katherine Burke, presentations by students from Playwriting courses and student a production of Assassins.
One of our alums, Kaitlyn Black, starred in a recent episode of “Cold Case” on television. Great job, Kaitlyn!
--Cindy Stillings (Director, School of Theatre and Dance)
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Blogs vs. Advertising
Everyone should check out this excellent piece over at Greg Sandow's blog on artsjournal.com. (For those of you who don't know who Greg is, he's a music critic, composer, teacher, and and audience relations consultant for several classical music organizations.) Most of what he says about music can be directly applied to our efforts in the School of Theatre and Dance, but there are a couple passages that particularly struck me.
Regarding the use of student blogs as recruiting tools for universities:
--Bill Sallak (Asst. Prof./Dance Music Director/Moderator)
Regarding the use of student blogs as recruiting tools for universities:
"[H]igh school students trust these blogs. They want to know what various colleges are really like. That's how they decide where they want to go. And who better to tell them, than students already there?(snip)
Some schools resist this, though. They want to control their message. They want prospective students to have the school's own official view of itself. This, the piece seems to say, is a losing strategy. The students see through the official message, and want something more authentic, something that feels more like the truth.
"[Y]ou can't use new technologies -- or at least not use them to their full potential -- without embracing the new culture. If you're on Twitter, you can't (as I've said before) just send out tiny press releases, as so many classical music organizations do. Your tweets can't be anonymous. And it's not enough to give them a tiny bit of ersatz sparkle, by saying things ("Hey, today is Mahler's birthday!") that you've manufactured because you think they might be fetching, even though you yourself don't even care about them much. Your tweets need to come from an actual person, and say things that this person cares about.Students entering college today have spent their entire lives immersed in sophisticated advertising, and can distinguish advertising from other forms of communication very quickly. Blogs (like this one) can provide a window into the School of T&D experience that advertising cannot. Not to say that our advertising is somehow less honest, but it is a fundamentally different form of communication than what can be done here.
--Bill Sallak (Asst. Prof./Dance Music Director/Moderator)
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Excellent Motivational Video from Katherine Burke
Theatre instructor Katherine Burke posted a link to this video on Facebook; it deserves to be shared in as wide a forum as possible. It's short but powerful. Enjoy!
--Bill Sallak (Asst. Prof./Dance Music Director/Moderator)
--Bill Sallak (Asst. Prof./Dance Music Director/Moderator)
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Presentations and Powerpoint
Students in the Modern I dance class are preparing class presentations on important figures in early modern dance. As part of their presentation, they are required to prepare a Powerpoint presentation. We've all seen good Powerpoint presentations, and we've all seen bad ones, and the experience of sitting through a bad one should be enough motivation to prepare a good one-- unless inflicting that sort of punishment is part of your goal.
There is one overarching guideline that appears almost anywhere someone offers advice about using Powerpoint, and you've probably all seen it before:
DON'T READ YOUR SLIDES.
If you're reading your slides during the presentation, your attention is away from where it needs to be: your audience. Not only will your audience notice right away that you're not looking at them, but you'll also look like someone who can't give the presentation without consulting giant wall-sized projected cue cards, i.e., like someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.
The problem with this one guideline is that it doesn't give you ideas for what you should do; it only gives you one more thing to not do. What are some affirmative corollaries that will actually give you ways to help prepare for the presentation?
1) There's no substitute for knowing what you're talking about.
You don't have to be the world's foremost expert on whatever-it-is. You do have to be able to get your big ideas across and make your salient points without looking over your shoulder.
You also don't have to memorize everything, but if you need notecards, keep them small and simple, and hold on to them. Your slides are not for you, they're for your audience.
2) Create a final summary slide: a bullet list of your main concepts.
Boiling your presentation down to a list of bullet points will make you clarify your ideas, and clarity is as important here as content. A great way to practice your presentation is to make your final summary slide, and rehearse your presentation using only that slide. Do that a couple of times, and pretty soon the main idea will trigger all of the little sub-ideas buried in it, and you can talk to your audience instead of over your shoulder.
3) Watch your slide presentation without talking.
If all of your content is contained in your slides, then either each slide has too many words or you have too many slides. By themselves, your slides should be woefully inadequate for the presentation, which is good-- you're going to fill in the gaps by speaking. This leads to...
3a) If a lot of people ask you for your slides, that means they contain too much information.
A lot of this comes from an excellent blog post over at Rands In Repose, which is one of my favorite blogs. The author is a software engineer, so while he's not involved in the arts per se, he gives (and sees) enough Powerpoints to have very clear ideas about what makes them effective or not. My favorite suggestion of his is to Invoke A Disaster. It's worth checking out.
--Bill Sallak (Asst. Prof./Dance Music Director/Moderator)
There is one overarching guideline that appears almost anywhere someone offers advice about using Powerpoint, and you've probably all seen it before:
DON'T READ YOUR SLIDES.
If you're reading your slides during the presentation, your attention is away from where it needs to be: your audience. Not only will your audience notice right away that you're not looking at them, but you'll also look like someone who can't give the presentation without consulting giant wall-sized projected cue cards, i.e., like someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.
The problem with this one guideline is that it doesn't give you ideas for what you should do; it only gives you one more thing to not do. What are some affirmative corollaries that will actually give you ways to help prepare for the presentation?
1) There's no substitute for knowing what you're talking about.
You don't have to be the world's foremost expert on whatever-it-is. You do have to be able to get your big ideas across and make your salient points without looking over your shoulder.
You also don't have to memorize everything, but if you need notecards, keep them small and simple, and hold on to them. Your slides are not for you, they're for your audience.
2) Create a final summary slide: a bullet list of your main concepts.
Boiling your presentation down to a list of bullet points will make you clarify your ideas, and clarity is as important here as content. A great way to practice your presentation is to make your final summary slide, and rehearse your presentation using only that slide. Do that a couple of times, and pretty soon the main idea will trigger all of the little sub-ideas buried in it, and you can talk to your audience instead of over your shoulder.
3) Watch your slide presentation without talking.
If all of your content is contained in your slides, then either each slide has too many words or you have too many slides. By themselves, your slides should be woefully inadequate for the presentation, which is good-- you're going to fill in the gaps by speaking. This leads to...
3a) If a lot of people ask you for your slides, that means they contain too much information.
A lot of this comes from an excellent blog post over at Rands In Repose, which is one of my favorite blogs. The author is a software engineer, so while he's not involved in the arts per se, he gives (and sees) enough Powerpoints to have very clear ideas about what makes them effective or not. My favorite suggestion of his is to Invoke A Disaster. It's worth checking out.
--Bill Sallak (Asst. Prof./Dance Music Director/Moderator)
Monday, September 14, 2009
Tony-Winning Alum Returns for Visit
John Moauro, a 2007 Graduate of KSU School of Theatre & Dance, who has been performing with the Broadway production of HAIR will be here September 21 from 12:30 pm to 2:10 pm in Room D205. This will be a question and answer session.
Anyone is welcome to attend.
The Broadway production of Hair won the Best Revival Award, and our own John Moauro was part of the cast.
Please join us if you can.
Anyone is welcome to attend.
The Broadway production of Hair won the Best Revival Award, and our own John Moauro was part of the cast.
Please join us if you can.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Recent CD Releases
From the Department of Self-Promotion:
A CD release is a special event, representing the culmination of lots of work from many people. It's also a moment with some gravity-- you're sending a piece of your work out into a world that may be appreciative, critical, or indifferent in turn. I got to experience it twice recently...
The first album is from a trio I was part of back in Phoenix. The group is called Easy Worship Operator, and the album is called what looks like air. We're an electroacoustic free improvisation group-- we each play an assortment of acoustic instruments, but they're all fed into a computer that gently shapes (or mangles) the sounds into something else entirely. We played lots of small gallery venues and festivals throughout Arizona, but when I joined the KSU faculty in October 2008, we weren't sure how (or even if) we could make the group continue. Happily, we recorded the album this past May, and I spent a good deal of the summer mixing it and getting it ready for release. You can stream the whole thing (for free!) and download it at easyworshipoperator.bandcamp.com. That page also has a link to purchase the album on CD from our Kunaki site. (Anyone interested in great ways to release music on the Internet without tangling with record labels would be well-served to check out bandcamp.com and Kunaki.com.) The tracks are all improvised with no overdubs, and range from gently ambient to pretty violent. Any dance students looking for music for choreography might want to check it out...hint hint...
The second album is the New World Records release of the complete Links Series of Vibraphone Essays by Stuart Smith. Stuart has been teaching for several decades at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, and is a leading American experimental composer. There are 11 Links; I recorded Links No. 3 last January in Baltimore. Working with Stuart was amazing, and his wife and publisher Sylvia is equally dedicated and talented. The 2-CD set was released last Tuesday; my copy should be arriving any day now, and I can't wait to hear it. The collection of other performers on the disc is impressive (I'm especially chuffed to be right next to Steven Schick, who recorded Links No. 4), and every element of production, from what I can see at this point, is top-notch. You can find out more about the album (and read Steven Schick's excellent liner notes) here.
I'm writing this from Phoenix, AZ; in two days, my doctoral foreign language test at ASU will be finished, and I'll be heading back to Kent. See you all soon!
--Bill Sallak (Assistant Professor/Dance Music Director/Moderator)
A CD release is a special event, representing the culmination of lots of work from many people. It's also a moment with some gravity-- you're sending a piece of your work out into a world that may be appreciative, critical, or indifferent in turn. I got to experience it twice recently...
The first album is from a trio I was part of back in Phoenix. The group is called Easy Worship Operator, and the album is called what looks like air. We're an electroacoustic free improvisation group-- we each play an assortment of acoustic instruments, but they're all fed into a computer that gently shapes (or mangles) the sounds into something else entirely. We played lots of small gallery venues and festivals throughout Arizona, but when I joined the KSU faculty in October 2008, we weren't sure how (or even if) we could make the group continue. Happily, we recorded the album this past May, and I spent a good deal of the summer mixing it and getting it ready for release. You can stream the whole thing (for free!) and download it at easyworshipoperator.bandcamp.com. That page also has a link to purchase the album on CD from our Kunaki site. (Anyone interested in great ways to release music on the Internet without tangling with record labels would be well-served to check out bandcamp.com and Kunaki.com.) The tracks are all improvised with no overdubs, and range from gently ambient to pretty violent. Any dance students looking for music for choreography might want to check it out...hint hint...
The second album is the New World Records release of the complete Links Series of Vibraphone Essays by Stuart Smith. Stuart has been teaching for several decades at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, and is a leading American experimental composer. There are 11 Links; I recorded Links No. 3 last January in Baltimore. Working with Stuart was amazing, and his wife and publisher Sylvia is equally dedicated and talented. The 2-CD set was released last Tuesday; my copy should be arriving any day now, and I can't wait to hear it. The collection of other performers on the disc is impressive (I'm especially chuffed to be right next to Steven Schick, who recorded Links No. 4), and every element of production, from what I can see at this point, is top-notch. You can find out more about the album (and read Steven Schick's excellent liner notes) here.
I'm writing this from Phoenix, AZ; in two days, my doctoral foreign language test at ASU will be finished, and I'll be heading back to Kent. See you all soon!
--Bill Sallak (Assistant Professor/Dance Music Director/Moderator)
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Kent Dance Ensemble: Prospect & Refuge
This morning I had my first rehearsal with the Kent Dance Ensemble. We are working on a piece called Prospect & Refuge: Stray. Ultimately, it is an evening-length, modular, site-specific dancework for film and stage. I began the project in the spring with Verb Ballets as part of a works-in-progress performance the Cleveland-based company commissioned from nine local choreographers. At the request of KDE Artistic Director Kim Karpanty, I am continuing to expand on the work with the ensemble. My professional company, Antaeus Dance, will premiere the dancework in the spring on 2010. Select modules will be presented between now and then, including Stray which will be completed and performed first by KDE.
Rehearsal went well and I was pleased with how much ground we covered this morning. There are twelve dancers total. This is a larger group than I normally work with and comprises an even number of performers. I do not care for even numbers. I like odd numbers because they are imbalanced, usually leave one person out, and lend themselves to further asymmetry. When we left this morning I had four tidy groups of three. I will have to fix that. But, I digress...
The dancers were willing to try anything and we spent the morning working out the opening sequence, some basic lifts, and the set up for the next section. They are a jovial group, though not at the cost of focus, and asked lots of questions, forcing me to be clear about the work. I spoke to them at the beginning about my interest in the HOW of the dance versus the WHY. I anticipate that one will illuminate the other in the course of our work together.
KDE will present Prospect & Refuge: Stray, a module of formally staged choreography, April 9-11, 2010 in E. Turner Stump Theatre as part of the company's annual concert. Unfortunately, I cannot take the dancers on location to explore site-specific material with Antaeus Dance; but they will leave an indelible mark on the work with Stray. For more information about the piece at large, please visit my blog at AntaeusDance.blogspot.com.
Prospect & Refuge: Come see what's inside with KDE
Photo by Joan Meggitt
Check back here from regular updates on the work!
--Joan Meggitt (Visiting Assistant Professor, Dance Division)
Rehearsal went well and I was pleased with how much ground we covered this morning. There are twelve dancers total. This is a larger group than I normally work with and comprises an even number of performers. I do not care for even numbers. I like odd numbers because they are imbalanced, usually leave one person out, and lend themselves to further asymmetry. When we left this morning I had four tidy groups of three. I will have to fix that. But, I digress...
The dancers were willing to try anything and we spent the morning working out the opening sequence, some basic lifts, and the set up for the next section. They are a jovial group, though not at the cost of focus, and asked lots of questions, forcing me to be clear about the work. I spoke to them at the beginning about my interest in the HOW of the dance versus the WHY. I anticipate that one will illuminate the other in the course of our work together.
KDE will present Prospect & Refuge: Stray, a module of formally staged choreography, April 9-11, 2010 in E. Turner Stump Theatre as part of the company's annual concert. Unfortunately, I cannot take the dancers on location to explore site-specific material with Antaeus Dance; but they will leave an indelible mark on the work with Stray. For more information about the piece at large, please visit my blog at AntaeusDance.blogspot.com.
Prospect & Refuge: Come see what's inside with KDE
Photo by Joan Meggitt
Check back here from regular updates on the work!
--Joan Meggitt (Visiting Assistant Professor, Dance Division)
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