On Campus – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Tue, 27 Feb 2024 05:57:29 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-DailyIcon-CardinalRed.png?w=32 On Campus – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 A spoonful of magic: Stanford Light Opera revives ‘Mary Poppins’ https://stanforddaily.com/2024/02/26/stanford-light-operas-mary-poppins/ https://stanforddaily.com/2024/02/26/stanford-light-operas-mary-poppins/#respond Tue, 27 Feb 2024 05:57:16 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1243518 Charlotte Kearns writes about the magic, musicality and merriment in "Mary Poppins," produced by Stanford Light Opera Company.

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Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.

The Stanford Light Opera Company’s production of “Mary Poppins” delighted audiences with a fresh and vibrant take on the beloved classic at Dinkelspiel Auditorium this weekend. 

The Light Opera Company, a student-led theater organization, presented three enchanting performances amid its annual showcase. The show, based on the P. L. Travers’ book series and Disney movie adaptions, tells the story of a whimsical nanny’s transformative impact on the Banks family, through extraordinary adventures and lessons.

Running for three hours, the show is a commitment, but it is one that pays off due to its continuous entertainment value.

Under the adept direction of Liam Fay M.S. ’25, the production struck a balance between honoring the original material and injecting humorous moments that resonated with contemporary audiences. Fay’s directorial note emphasized that theater is meant to be fun, a sentiment that this production embodies from start to finish. 

The musical numbers were the production’s heart and soul. “Step in Time” was an electrifying tap number that showcased the cast’s synchronicity and stamina. Equally exciting was the inventive choreography in “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” which brought whimsy and playfulness to the stage as dancers spelled out the compound word. 

Despite missing the flying Mary Poppins moment that is a staple of most Mary Poppins’ productions, the show dazzled its audience with several sleight-of-hand tricks that kept the story’s magic alive.

The scene where Mary Poppins pulled out oversized items from her seemingly small carpet bag elicited gasps and applause. The clever staging of a kite flying gracefully across the stage brought a delightful outdoor freedom and joy into the auditorium, while showcasing the creative ingenuity behind the production. 

Sarah Lewis ’24, in the titular role, embodied the magical nanny with grace and charisma — every moment she was on stage was enchanting. Her sweet voice filled the theater, inspiring everyone to tap their feet to popular songs from the musical, like “A Spoonful of Sugar” and “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.”

Her counterpart Bert, played by Henry Cargill ’26, also provided a standout performance. Cargill’s authentic Cockney accent and commendable dance prowess added a dynamic layer to the production. Lewis and Cargill’s chemistry and joy onstage was contagious.  

Sanjana Khurana ’26 was also notable in her role as Winifred Banks, bringing depth and warmth to the maternal character. The clarity and emotional range in Khurana’s phenomenal vocal performance also captivated the audience.

Members of the ensemble also deserve high praise for seamless transitions between roles: from spoons to toys to chimney sweeps. This versatile group of performers adeptly navigated the choreography and scene changes, ensuring a smooth and cohesive narrative flow that tied long show together.

The production’s lighthearted yet polished execution, coupled with standout vocal performances, created an engaging experience. The scenic design and lighting, particularly during “Step in Time,” created a visual spectacle that complemented the performances. This production of “Mary Poppins” was not merely a show, but an immersive journey into a world where whimsy and childlike wonder reign supreme.

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‘Let my word take action’: Transformative feminist narratives at TAPS https://stanforddaily.com/2024/02/13/let-my-word-take-action-transformative-feminist-narratives-at-taps/ https://stanforddaily.com/2024/02/13/let-my-word-take-action-transformative-feminist-narratives-at-taps/#respond Tue, 13 Feb 2024 09:24:08 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1242399 Charlotte Kearns reviews Stanford TAPS graduate repertory shows "Foundations of Feminism" and "Women of Sand."

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Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.

This year’s Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) Graduate Repertory season consisted of three works directed by second-year Ph.D. students Yutsha Dahal, Connor Lifson and María Zurita Ontiveros. 

I attended the Feb. 9 performance at the Nitery Theater, which featured Dahal’s and Ontiveros’ plays, and was immersed in a world of feminism, activism and solidarity. Lifson’s production, “Omelas,” had been performed at the Nitery the week prior. 

The evening began with “Foundations of Feminism: The Poetics of Curiopathy As A Manifestation of the Sisterhood Zeitgeist In Feministological Nepali Archivism,” written and directed by Dahal.

With its long-winded title and witty script, “Foundations of Feminism” served as a playful satire about the esoteric and sometimes ostentatious nature of feminist academia.

The performance followed Sahana (Giovanna F Jiang ‘26) and Parijat (Margarita Jamero ‘24), two young Nepalese women, as they explored their feminist identity and its various manifestations throughout the history of Nepal. 

Jiang and Jamero shined as they transformed from friends to academics to protestors, weaving their various roles into an homage to the lost identities and stories of the women they embodied. I was impressed by the versatility that the actors displayed, as well as their ability to transition between scenes and vignettes in a fluid and engaging manner.

In an interview with third-year Ph.D. student Marina Johnson, Dahal discussed how she drew inspiration for her production from the “Feminist Memory Project” collection at the Nepal Picture Library, a digital photo archive that explores the feminist movement in Nepal. By incorporating photos from Nepalese women’s personal albums, the play weaves together a rich tapestry of history and individuality.

The play’s conclusion was marked by a poignant moment when Jiang and Jamero, out-of-character, shared how their own personal feminist identities were shaped through the stories and photographs of their inspirational mothers.

On the back of the production’s program, there was a QR code that audience members could use to submit their own photos to a Google Drive, fostering continued dialogue on solidarity and increased representation.

The actors connected advocacy in the past and present, in nearby homes and distant regions, as they mentioned the hundreds of students who had defended the pro-Palestine sit-in in White Plaza the night prior, following the University’s ban on protest encampments. 

Dahal’s piece on activism and thoughtful dialogue seamlessly transitioned into the second play of the night, “Women of Sand: Testimonies of Women in Ciudad Juárez.” The play, which was directed by Ontiveros and written by Humberto Robles, discussed equally heavy topics and encouraged audience members to take action. 

This documentary theater piece, originally written in 2000, explored the femicide crisis in Mexico through testimonials from family members, journalists and activists. The cast of five used poetry, music, prayer, vignettes and shadow-puppetry to passionately advocate for social justice and the women of Juárez.

“Women of Sand” is not for the faint of heart. Actors described the harsh realities of femicide, sexual assaults and mutilation with raw authenticity and explicit language. At the play’s climax, Chetanya Pandey ’27 delivered a gut-wrenching and nauseating monologue that depicted the torture of a woman in a linear progression, from beginning to end.

The costumes and set were equally powerful, with actors wearing purple bandanas in support of “The Purple Revolution,” a movement against Mexico’s nationwide femicide epidemic. Posters of missing women were displayed at the back of the stage, emphasizing an alarming statistic. Today, 10 women are murdered in Mexico every day. When the play was written in 2000, that number was two.

Despite varying executions and text, both “Foundations of Feminism” and “Women of Sand” served as valuable educational tools for audiences, offering a window to the past while navigating contemporary complexities. These productions encouraged dialogue about frequently glossed over topics regarding feminism in an international context, providing hope and strength to persevere in times of grief and adversity.

In light of current global circumstances, I thank Dahal and Ontiveros for staging these impactful productions and highlighting the intersections between activism on campus and the narratives presented in these plays.

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Jane Fonda and Bill McKibben urge University divestment from fossil fuels https://stanforddaily.com/2023/11/08/jane-fonda-and-bill-mckibben-urge-university-divestment-from-fossil-fuels/ https://stanforddaily.com/2023/11/08/jane-fonda-and-bill-mckibben-urge-university-divestment-from-fossil-fuels/#respond Wed, 08 Nov 2023 10:07:51 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1236171 What brought an actor, a writer and an investor to dedicate their lives to combatting climate change? A talk on Monday painted a dire picture of climate change while offering humor and hope.

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What led an actor, a writer and an investor to dedicate their lives to combatting climate change? Jane Fonda, Tom Steyer and Bill McKibben shared personal insights from their diverging backgrounds in a Monday talk that emphasized the importance of climate activism and the economic benefits of clean energy. 

The speakers gathered for the climate-focused installment of adjunct professor James Steyer’s one-unit speaker series, EDUC 64: “Shaping America’s Future: Exploring the Key Issues on Our Path to the 2024 Elections.”

The speakers made frequent reference to Stanford’s role in climate change. McKibben criticized the University’s refusal to divest from fossil fuels: “It is a disgrace that Stanford continues to try to profit from the end of the world.”

A journalist and activist, McKibben was born in Palo Alto and now teaches at Middlebury College. He wrote “The End of Nature,” a landmark book on climate change, in 1989. He also founded 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, and Third Act, an organization that encourages people over 60 to participate in climate activism. 

McKibben also criticized the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative for “greenwashing” the world’s “most dangerous” industry. 

McKibben also called on tenured professors to put their position “to good use,” calling them “the most bulletproof people in the entire world.”

Jane Fonda emotes while speaking, eyes wide and fingers splayed.
Jane Fonda speaking at Monday’s event. Fonda’s fellow speakers and audience members remarked on her ability to make climate communication compelling. (Photo: ANANYA NAVALE/The Stanford Daily)

Fonda, who has a long history of political engagement and wrote the 2020 book “What Can I Do? The Path From Climate Despair to Action,” was optimistic about the power of student activism at Stanford. She encouraged students to “rise up” for divestment and “lead the way” in opposing an upcoming California referendum. The 2024 referendum would reverse SB 1137, a law that prevents oil and gas drilling near homes, hospitals and schools.

The speakers disagreed on the Biden administration’s response to climate change. While Fonda said that Biden’s climate response has been lacking compared to his campaign promises, Tom Steyer felt “much more positive,” citing the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as an “amazing” step for US climate leadership. 

McKibben said Biden’s approval of an oil drilling project in Willow, Alaska was “brutal and stupid.” 

The speakers also highlighted the importance of voting, citing Stanford’s low voter participation in the 2016 election. Fonda emphasized the need to vote out climate deniers and put “climate champions” on the ballot, a goal that she supports through the Jane Fonda Climate PAC

Tom Steyer, James Steyer’s brother, focused more on the economics of combating climate change. Tom Steyer worked as an investor before moving to philanthropy and climate advocacy, in addition to a brief presidential campaign in 2020. 

While climate statistics are “shockingly horrible,” Tom Steyer said, “We actually are in a position to win this.” He pointed to scientific advances and the current adoption of clean energy and electric vehicles.

Tom Steyer said that clean energy must “win in the marketplace” by providing better, cheaper products. He argued that fossil fuels look cheap due to subsidies, but clean energy is more affordable in the long run.

Both Tom Steyer and McKibben championed the potential of solar panels, which McKibben called a “water into wine miracle” for affordable clean energy. They see solar panels as the obvious front-runner to supply the world’s energy, impeded only by fossil fuel companies that are lobbying government officials. 

“Don’t sleep with any guys who don’t hate fossil fuels,” Fonda said.

Evan Engel J.D. ’24, one of the course’s TA’s, commended Fonda’s “incredible energy.” While many of the course’s talks are about high-level, conceptual ideas, Monday’s talk felt “tangible” and “immediately impactful,” Engel said.

Several audience members found the talk relevant to their work. 

“One of the things that was an ‘aha’ moment for me was when they were talking about how to talk to people about climate,” said Kim Sponem, ​​CEO of Summit Credit Union and member of Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV), referring to Tom Steyer’s comments on communicating with climate deniers. Tom Steyer recommended emphasizing the monetary costs of digging more fossil fuels each month as opposed to a long-lasting solar panel.

“I think what we heard today is clearly an urgency” for climate action, said Martin Rohner, GABV’s executive director. “If we’re not able to demonstrate that there’s a business model in it, or that it’s affordable to the average consumer, we’re not going to be able to achieve change and at the speed that we need it.”

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Cantor Arts Center seeks new start with Director Veronica Roberts https://stanforddaily.com/2022/08/22/cantor-arts-center-seeks-new-start-with-director-veronica-roberts/ https://stanforddaily.com/2022/08/22/cantor-arts-center-seeks-new-start-with-director-veronica-roberts/#respond Tue, 23 Aug 2022 05:19:30 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1206732 Newly hired Cantor director Veronica Roberts details her background with and future vision for the Arts Center.

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It is fitting that the opening of “The Faces of Ruth Asawa” at the Cantor Arts Center on July 6 coincided with the arrival of a new face for the museum’s leadership.

Rewind two years: In 2020, an article in The Daily revealed a challenging work environment at the Cantor Arts Center. In that year alone, 25% of the staff left the museum, reducing the total workforce to only 40 people. Those who remained felt overwhelmed by the demanding work. One former employee said that they “cannot emphasize enough that the timelines that they had us working on were not museum-standard.”

Last April, the University announced its decision to hire Veronica Roberts as the John and Jill Freidenrich Director at the Cantor Arts Center. Since then, Roberts — who brings a wealth of experience to the role — has been righting the ship and transforming the museum’s culture.

Roberts credits her grandmother, a former Stanford Museum docent, for instilling her love of the arts over the years.

“She was really my art travel companion and what I remember most was going through the galleries together and just her love of Rodin,” Roberts said. “We would always hear about Al Elsen as if he was like a relative… [He was] the Stanford faculty member who was responsible for the building of the Rodin collection.”

A San Francisco local, Roberts enjoyed living in such an artistic community. Growing up, she spent a lot of time visiting numerous museums and watching plays. She felt it was a gift to be raised in such a cosmopolitan city that allowed her to enjoy world-class art and culture.

Roberts recognizes the legacy challenges facing The Cantor Arts Center: “I think it’s been a rocky few years at the museum, there’s been a lot of turnover, and it’s been hard for everyone with the pandemic. So, I’m also eager to create a positive work environment for everyone.” 

Hiring full-time staff is a priority at this early stage of her tenure. She feels the museum should fill open positions because “we can’t dream too big until we have a few more feet on the ground.” Currently, Cantor is interviewing for the Director of Academic and Public Programs, as well as the Director of Marketing and Communication.

Jamil Hellu, an artist and Photographer Lecturer in the Art and Art History Department, met Roberts before she started the new role.

“It was one of the most memorable and inspiring studio visits I’ve ever had,” Hellu said. “She is extraordinarily insightful and shares enlightening perspectives about art with a great sense of ease and generosity while being meticulously curious and diligent.” 

Roberts stated that one reason she took the position was her excitement for Stanford’s Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI) and her admiration for AAAI Co-directors Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander and Marci Kwon. “It’s bigger than shows and acquisitions,” said Roberts, citing her desire to move the field as a whole forward. “It’s also about research and scholarship.”

Kwon, an assistant professor of art history, is optimistic about the museum’s direction as she looks to the future. The AAAI plans to “continue to generate exhibitions and publications about Asian American artists that will expand and transform our knowledge about their work,” she said. They will also keep fostering ties with Asian American communities across the Bay Area, she added.

Creating more diversity in the Cantor collections is another important priority: Kwon said that her classes will utilize the full scope of the museums’ offerings. She also explains, “Art history is best learned in front of our objects of study, but this can be a struggle with historically underrepresented artists.” She added, “Under Veronica’s leadership, the Cantor will become a hub of interdisciplinary inquiry where students and faculty from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines can learn.”

Roberts sees opportunities to expand diversity at the museum, too. “I think women are still so underrepresented in collections in general. So I do think that that’s an area that needs so much more love and attention. It’s going to take a long time to kind of right that ship,” she said.

The new arrivals also include Deborah Cullinan, who was recently tapped to serve as vice president for the arts. The recent hires are “beyond exciting” for the arts at Stanford, Alexander said. “With them on board, we are entering a new era, where the arts will occupy an even more central and vital role on campus and the community at large.”

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Golden Spike Studios’ sold-out debut screening reveals the labor of love in student film production https://stanforddaily.com/2021/10/31/golden-spike-studios-sold-out-debut-screening-reveals-the-labor-of-love-in-student-film-production/ https://stanforddaily.com/2021/10/31/golden-spike-studios-sold-out-debut-screening-reveals-the-labor-of-love-in-student-film-production/#respond Mon, 01 Nov 2021 03:57:55 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1186964 Golden Spike Studios' debut "Halloscreening" showed two films, "Nasty Habit" and "Boys Will Be Boys," both produced during the pandemic. The members involved discussed the effort and dedication behind student film production with limited resources.

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“It’s like the film students are reclaiming Oshman,” said one eager attendee Thursday night at Golden Spike Studios’ sold-out debut “Halloscreening” at McMurtry’s Oshman Hall. Golden Spike Studios is Stanford’s only production company, run entirely by undergraduates. It was founded by Lore Vazquez Olivera ’22, Sofia Monroy ’22 and Zachary Lo ’22 just before the pandemic, making Thursday’s screening feel like the grand opening its founders never got. 

The student films shown in the Halloween-themed double feature were Golden Spike Studios’ first ever productions. Olivera’s horror short “Nasty Habit” screened first, followed by Regan Lavin’s ’22 dramedy “Boys Will Be Boys.”

Olivera originally wrote her horror short “Nasty Habit” as an assignment in Senior Lecturer Adam Tobin’s course FILMPROD 104: Intermediate Screenwriting, in which students were instructed to write a five-page script with one setting and two characters. In line with her creative interest in female relationships, Olivera wrote her script about two sisters trying to come to terms with their mother’s death. According to Monroy, though “Nasty Habit” and “Boys Will Be Boys” were both filmed under quarantine restrictions, the former enjoyed marginally more cinematographic freedom as a scaled-down on-campus production, whereas the latter was filmed and produced completely remotely. 

“It was nice to get to be in person again with friends, but it was a very small crew,” writer and co-star Olivera said about filming “Nasty Habit” in the question-and-answer session following the screening. “Usually on a film set you have like 20 people doing all sorts of things, and this was a team of six people. Sometimes I was holding like bouncers, mixing buckets of blood the night before or doing my own makeup. But I think that’s part of the beauty of student filmmaking: everybody gets to do everything.” 

In a behind-the-scenes Instagram video that showed the making of “Nasty Habit,” director Monroy concurred with Olivera’s description of student filmmaking. 

“Student film is very scrappy — you kind of have to come up with solutions on the fly,” Monroy said. “There’s never one right answer. We don’t have all the tech in the world, so it’s just about how we come together as a team.” In the case of “Nasty Habit,” coming together as a team looked like co-star Rachel Portillo M.A. ’22 closing a door with her feet while lying on the floor for a special effects-style shot, and Monroy coating Olivera’s costume dress in so much fake blood that it stood on its own by the end of the eight-hour filming day. 

Olivera also spoke about her unique situation of being both a writer and an actress on production: “As a writer, you imagine these things, and then when I was actually there on set, covered in blood for 16 hours, I was just like, ‘Damn, this writer really wasn’t thinking!’” Olivera emphasized that watching her peers work together to make her vision come to life was a deeply humbling experience. 

The final product, “Nasty Habits,” was an emotive film tactfully laced with psychological horror. In one particular scene, the two sisters Lexie and Alma, played by Olivera and Portillo, share a cathartic embrace in their mutual recognition of their overwhelming grief. However, the scene shifts in affect when older sister Alma pulls her hand back from Lexie’s hair and finds it dripping with blood. This moment is as jarring for Alma as it is for viewers, yet her enduring resolve to help Lexie — despite Lexie’s ambiguous crime — is a shrewd commentary on the sanctity of sisterhood. 

As Monroy reflects, “Even though it’s a horror film, it’s fundamentally about love and the lengths to which we will go for people we love.” 

Although “Boys Will Be Boys” was filmed drastically differently — via a legion of simultaneous Zoom rooms and lengthy post-production — its creation too was a labor of love. The phrase “This film was shot entirely remotely” was displayed during the short film’s end credits longer than any individual names, like a triumphant declaration of the production team’s collective effort. 

The “Boys Will Be Boys” logline reads, “Seeking catharsis after a particularly nasty break-up, a college student and her two best friends use Zoom as an opportunity to go undercover in a frat to expose the secrets that lie within.” The unique filmmaking process, which cast member Ahmad Koya ’24 compared to “making a YouTube video,” consisted of cast members filming themselves in their own quarantine locations, directors screen-recording over Zoom and editors shooting TikToks.

Lavin, who wrote, directed and starred in “Boys Will Be Boys,” confessed when introducing her film, “The logline was actually also my inspiration for the film. After a really bad breakup, I wrote this.” Lavin’s personal investment was evident in her compelling performance and others’ descriptions of her approach to directing. She conducted one-on-one meetings with every actor to ensure their comfort with their roles and was ready at the drop of a hat to film B-Roll as post-production got into full swing. 

Others, including Olivera and “Boys Will Be Boys” editor Eugene Ko ’23, affirmed the dedication of the film’s cast and crew, saying every one of their members “was giving their best” and “had to be really diligent in making this possible.” 

All in all, the quirky film — with its Riot grrrl-esque score, hot pink hues and hyperspecific moments of Gen-Z comedy like muted Zoom monologues and Siri interruptions — certainly pleased its audience. Given its technical limitations, “Boys Will Be Boys” is an entertaining watch with profound and timely commentary on gender privilege. 

As Golden Spike Studios board member Ben Schwartz ’22 said during the screening event, “It’s already hard to put together a student production company” given University clubs’ limited resources and Stanford’s relatively small film community. Yet Olivera, Monroy, Lo and others have successfully done so during a pandemic that fundamentally disrupted film production. Golden Spike Studios’ passion and dedication shone through at their first of many screenings.

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Dedicated to democracy: Filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson discusses documentary ‘Tonsler Park’ https://stanforddaily.com/2021/10/24/dedicated-to-democracy-filmmaker-kevin-jerome-everson-discusses-documentary-tonsler-park/ https://stanforddaily.com/2021/10/24/dedicated-to-democracy-filmmaker-kevin-jerome-everson-discusses-documentary-tonsler-park/#respond Mon, 25 Oct 2021 03:22:10 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1186681 Filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson discusses the making of "Tonsler Park," his documentary on Black poll workers upholding the democratic process on election day in Charlottesville, Va. 

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The Department of Art & Art History hosted a film screening of “Tonsler Park” (2017) on Oct. 21, followed by a discussion with filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson, which was facilitated by film and media studies associate professor Pavle Levi. The black-and-white 16mm film portrays Black poll workers upholding the democratic process on Nov. 8, 2016 in Charlottesville, Va. 

The documentary follows poll workers’ tedious and repetitive labor, highlighting their dedication to upholding civic duty. The audience watches the meaningful work of Charlottesville poll workers as they collect ballots, verify identification, distribute stickers and assist voters. 

“I like the minor character. I like making the invisible visible,” Everson said. “When you go to the grocery store, you don’t remember the checkout people, but I do, because these people are working hard. People always work hard, and a lot of people just don’t notice labor. They take labor for granted.”

In the film, the camera rests upon poll workers completing mundane tasks like filling out paperwork for minutes at a time, forcing the viewer to slow down and understand the effort and work that individuals undergo to serve our democracy.

“Everson’s cinema is the cinema of the people: of everyday folk, typically the working class, and their lived experiences,” Levi said. “Labor is explored in Kevin’s films as simultaneously a function of the human agent; a performance involving effort, skill and talent; and as an impersonal and automated process.”

Everson was inspired to create “Tonsler Park” after reflecting upon the long history of voter suppression in the United States. He recalls living in Cleveland, Ohio and encountering a tow truck waiting outside the polling station during school board elections. Because prospective voters had dirty license plates, they would avoid driving to the polls out of fear of towing, discouraging voter turnout. 

“I remember seeing these older Black females out there trying to shoo away the tow truck drivers so people can vote,” Everson said. “These were the points of departure I was thinking about. I made films about labor before, but I wanted to start making films about civil servants.” 

After moving to Charlottesville and seeing his voting poll in the Tonsler Park area of the city, Everson observed the poll’s Black workers and wanted to create a film centering their work as civil servants in American democracy.

“When I look through the viewfinder, I look at the backstory of these individuals,” Everson said. “We were stolen to get here, and now we get to protect what we think.” 

When asked about the meaning of filming this work during the notable 2016 election, Everson made it clear that this documentary is not meant to be a specific commentary on the events of that year. 

“It’s not the election, it’s an election,” Everson said, explaining that the film is intentionally timeless in its depictions of the long-standing labor of Black workers upholding democracy.

And yet, the context of 2016 is still meaningful, as Everson filmed this piece on Black democracy in Charlottesville just a year before the 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist rally in the same city. 

Everson described the workers’ reactions to being included in the film. Much to the audience’s amusement, he explained that some of the people featured in his films don’t even watch the finished products. 

“I’m not that self-centered thinking I’m the most important thing that happened to them that day,” Everson said. “I did have a screening in Charlottesville, and I don’t think none of the employees came, because it was two o’clock in the afternoon and people were at work.” 

Production-wise, Levi asked Everson about the distinct formal choices he made when creating the film. In response, Everson explained that he started shooting with telephoto lenses when producing “Tonsler Park” to “flatten the space” after previously using wide angle lenses. Some stylistic decisions, like the black-and-white format, occurred due to simple logistics as Everson could not scout out the lighting of all his settings prior to filming.

Everson’s “approach to filming avoids naive, supposedly anti-formal observationalism, but neither is it assertively explanatory,” Levi said. “It’s a cinema that persists in occupying the intersection of experience and structure.” 

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Roble Arts Gym reopens after long COVID-19 hiatus https://stanforddaily.com/2021/09/30/roble-arts-gym-reopens/ https://stanforddaily.com/2021/09/30/roble-arts-gym-reopens/#respond Fri, 01 Oct 2021 02:53:12 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1184643 The goal of the space, according to Claudia Dorn, manager of resources and community at the Office of the Vice President for the Arts, is to promote a peer-to-peer organization and make the arts gym a fully student-run space. 

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The Roble Arts Gym, a creative space for students on campus, has invited students to come back to the space, as COVID-19 restrictions loosen on campus.

Stepping into the gym, students are welcomed by their peers at the front desk. The goal of the space, according to Claudia Dorn, manager of resources and community at the Office of the Vice President for the Arts, is to promote a peer-to-peer organization and make the arts gym fully student-run.

With everything in the gym designed to ensure social distancing, students can enter a safe place for exploration and experimentation, engage in new creative skills and find friends in the community.

At the front of the arts gym is the messy arts space, also known as the “heart of the arts gym,” an area created when the gym opened in 2016 due to high demand by students who needed access to painting studios on campus. It has since become a space adaptable to any kind of hands-on messiness that students want to explore.

“The messy art space is a hands-on creative space for painting, drawing and modeling,” Dorn said. “This includes anything you need for class, for a private project or just to experiment with subjects that you haven’t done before.”

Another unique feature of the messy arts space is that it supplies many tools for student artists, ranging from acrylic paint to canvases — all provided by the gym free of charge.

“If you haven’t done any painting before and you want to try it, we are the space to do it,” Dorn said. “We don’t judge — we just want people to come in and enjoy [themselves], find the creative community, talk with people and engage with the arts and each other.”

At the back of the gym is a dance studio — but not any ordinary dance studio. This multi-use area can be transformed into a meeting room, presentation room and screening room. The studio is equipped with a full light and sound system, projector, screen and movable mirrors.

“I like to think of this space as kind of like a multi-studio. Pretty much any creative take you have, any creative urge you want to explore,” said Tyler Eaglebabel Brooks, a student engagement associate. “This is a very flexible space that has a lot of capacity for all of those things and can easily adjust to students’ needs.”

Next to the dance studio, the music room serves as a rehearsal space, providing students with access to instruments such as an electric keyboard, drum kit and guitar. There is also a vocal recording booth where students can record podcasts, sing or bring in smaller instruments to use in recordings.

Creativity takes the front seat with 3D printing in the gym. Here, users can rapidly test new ideas and designs any time they want. As with other items in the gym, the staff are always there to get students up to speed.

“Now that I’m able to mess around with the 3D printer on my own, I’ve gotten a ton more experience with CAD software,” said Julian Quevedo, an undergraduate physics major who regularly uses the gym. “I’m working on some designs for my summer research, and the art gym has allowed me to quickly prototype new ideas without boundaries.”

One of the most exciting parts of the gym is the virtual reality room. The Roble Arts Gym teamed up with a student group, Stanford XR, to bring Virtual Reality to students who had not experienced it. Stanford XR has office hours in the Gym’s VR space, where students can learn the process of setting up and playing VR games.

“Stanford XR creates game nights as a playful approach to virtual reality,” Dorn said. “It’s fine if anybody wants to do it for their stress relief — which is great. We love it, other students might come and say they can use it for their studies and really want to explore it more — that is great as well. We welcome all.”

In the fall when all undergraduate students are expected to be back on campus, Brooks said the gym is looking forward to having in-person student workshops. Three to four times each quarter, students hold these workshops, including painting, henna tattoos, dancing and music, allowing them to share their creative passions with others.

Asked how the Roble Arts Gym contributes to Stanford and its values, Brooks said, “Stanford really walks the walk in terms of being an interdisciplinary school. Similar in values, the Roble Arts Gym is an interdisciplinary space and that is the air in this room.”

The gym, she added, “has the power to be a space that is the center of the student arts community at Stanford.”

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Live music returns to Stanford with Philharmonia performance on Meyer Green https://stanforddaily.com/2021/05/23/live-music-returns-to-stanford-with-stanford-philharmonia-performance-on-meyer-green/ https://stanforddaily.com/2021/05/23/live-music-returns-to-stanford-with-stanford-philharmonia-performance-on-meyer-green/#respond Mon, 24 May 2021 02:32:51 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1182859 On May 19, 2021, the Stanford Philharmonia performed its first in-person concert in 14 months, drawing hundreds of students and faculty to Meyer Green.

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In March 2020, the Stanford Philharmonia (SP) played what would become its final concert of the 2019-20 season. With that performance, Stanford’s orchestras ventured into an indefinite hiatus from live, in-person music. Last Wednesday, over 14 months later, SP provided the second bookend to this interregnum with a free outdoor concert on Meyer Green.

Evidently, the past year’s lack of live orchestral music did not go unnoticed in the community. Hundreds of students and faculty flooded Meyer lawn, quickly outnumbering the two dozen or so chairs set up for the event. On makeshift windbreaker blankets, many with dinner in hand, audience members sat and listened to an hour and a half of gorgeous orchestral works that ranged from the Baroque period to the 20th century. Though the performance was not without some technical mishaps — wind and sheet music were natural enemies — its emotional potency was clearly communicated, and its importance for Stanford’s music department cannot be overstated.

Live music returns to Stanford with Philharmonia performance on Meyer Green
Photo courtesy of Steve Castillo and the Stanford Music Department

SP’s rehearsal process, as orchestra director Paul Phillips attests, was no cakewalk. “String players are used to sitting together, two musicians per stand. Sitting apart, one per stand, felt strange at first. The physical distance between the musicians made it much harder to play together, and it took a couple of weeks playing like that before we got used to it and began to play together in a more comfortable, natural way,” he said. 

The concert featured works from Florence Price and William Grant Still, two Black composers that Phillips noted as “being rediscovered” in the wake of last summer’s Black Lives Matter Protests. The program also included Elgar’s “Sospiri,” Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings and the Vivaldi Concerto for Two Cellos, performed by faculty soloists Christopher Costanza and Stephen Harrison. Phillips also took the event as an opportunity to honor the orchestra’s graduating seniors (all class of 2021): Tony Kim, Carling Hank, Hannah Mueller, Andre Turati, Martin Altenburg, Carson Conley, Erik Roise, Grace Mueller, Bryant Huang, Meilinda Sun and Daphne Guo. 

Live music returns to Stanford with Philharmonia performance on Meyer Green
Photo courtesy of Steve Castillo and the Stanford Music Department

The choice of Meyer Green as a performance location resulted in some technical difficulties. Cello soloist Stephen Harrison recalled the unpredictability of playing outdoors: “The one rehearsal we had outside, it was 89 degrees … so they moved the concert to 6 p.m., little knowing the wind would be worse!” 

The soloists and many audience members noted the high frequency of unwanted interruptions at the outdoor venue. In addition to the wind and some faulty microphones, the clock tower rang five times during SP’s performance. But Costanza felt very fortunate to be able to perform again: “It’s awfully exciting to have a live audience out there to look at and play for. You feel energy coming from them, you feel engagement; you can’t get that from playing for a video camera!” Some students, like Amanda Koong ’21, even enjoyed the location. “The concert was super fun — I love this venue! I think that they should continue to do it here,” she said. 

For many, this concert was their first experience listening to Stanford Orchestras. Graduate student Matthew Henderson had “attending a live performance” on his to-do list of on-campus experiences: “This is the first event I’ve been able to actually come to in-person, which is why I was so excited. So many things have been shut down. And I’m not the only one — it seems like there’s a ton of people who want to go to events like this, and now’s the time when we can finally attend them.” 

Elóra Henderson J.D. ’23 expressed a similar sentiment: “I’m elated; I’m over the moon. It’s one thing to have the concert, but it’s also really great to see everyone who came. I honestly wasn’t expecting a lot of people to be here, just because I haven’t seen so many people in one space [in so long].” Geophysics PhD student Julio Frigerio, who attended with his partner and children, marked the concert as a “new horizon.” “It was a special moment, and it’s going be in our memories forever,” Frigerio said.  

Live music returns to Stanford with Philharmonia performance on Meyer Green
Photo courtesy of Steve Castillo and the Stanford Music Department

The future seems bright for the Stanford Orchestras, Phillips said. “Performing this concert has given everyone who was there — either as a performer or audience member — the feeling that we’re getting through the pandemic and getting much closer to returning to normal life. I’m hoping that Stanford Philharmonia and the Stanford Symphony Orchestra will be able to return to normal this fall, with woodwinds, brass and percussion able to play once again with us.” The concert brought with it hope, humor and one of the clearest signs yet that Stanford campus will soon be full of life again. 

In an earlier version of this article, the list of graduating seniors included Kevin Jung and excluded Meilinda Sun and Daphne Guo. The Daily regrets this error.

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Remembering Black lives through ‘Say Their Names — No More Names’ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/09/10/remembering-black-lives-through-say-their-names-no-more-names/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/09/10/remembering-black-lives-through-say-their-names-no-more-names/#respond Thu, 10 Sep 2020 17:32:07 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1172057 On the morning of Sept. 4, a small group of library staff gathered near the Bing Wing entrance of Cecil H. Green Library to watch a large, black-and-white banner unfurled over the west-face of the building. The installation of the banner marked the opening of Green Library’s “Say Their Names —No More Names” exhibit, a project spearheaded by Felicia Smith, the Head of Learning and Outreach at Stanford Libraries.

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On the morning of Sept. 4, a small group of library staff gathered near the Bing Wing entrance of Cecil H. Green Library to watch a large, black-and-white banner unfurled over the west-face of the building. The banner, designed by Kelly Fields, the Information Editor at Stanford Libraries, reads, “know justice, know peace” — a play on words, using a common protest chant. The banner’s installation marked the opening of Green Library’s “Say Their Names — No More Names” exhibit, a project spearheaded by Felicia Smith, the head of Learning and Outreach at Stanford Libraries. For around 12 minutes, Fields and Smith addressed their colleagues and hundreds of virtual viewers watching Facebook Live.

“It was really gratifying to see a Black Lives Matter symbol that large hanging up on the library … I wish there’d been something like that when I was a graduate student there,” said Harriett Jernigan, a lecturer in PWR, who proofread the exhibit’s text, which was written by Smith.

“Let these names — and the too many other names — kickstart your pursuit to know justice and to know peace,” Smith said to the audience as sign installers hoisted the banner higher and higher toward the sky. 

“This is fabulous. I’m getting emotional watching alone — I can imagine the impact on students, staff, faculty and families walking through campus,” Eric Abrams, the chief inclusion officer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, commented through the chat feature.

“Say Their Names — No More Names” remembers the victims of police brutality and racist violence, displaying names, stories and photos — some well-known, others not. The exhibit is organized into three parts: “3 T’s (Systemic Racism),” “330 Names” and “65 Stories.” “3 T’s (Systemic Racism)” studies three historical examples of institutional violence perpetrated against Black Americans, such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. “330 Names” is a non-exhaustive list of victims, ranging from the early 20th century to the present, and “65 Stories” is an in-depth look at some of them.  “Say Their Names — No More Names” features diverse stories within the Black community, including those of underrepresented groups like transgender and gender non-conforming people who are often excluded from discussions about racial justice.

“As a library system, it is part of our core values to always strive to be better, and do more in building research collections that include, represent and preserve all perspectives, including those from underrepresented communities, so that scholars, students, public policy figures and ordinary citizens might learn, debate and ultimately take corrective action through peaceful means,” Michael Keller, Vice Provost for University Libraries, told Stanford News.

The goal of “Say Their Names — No More Names” is to advocate for racial equity while remembering the victims of structural racism.

“In other exhibits, what you see are demonstrations of what happened to a person and who did it to them,” said Jernigan. “This exhibit is more about not just explaining what happened to that person but also who that person was, how they were loved, how they were understood outside of the context of their trauma and their murder.”

“Say Their Names — No More Names” is a concrete action, on the part of Stanford Libraries, demonstrating their support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The exhibit exists both online and in person. On the library’s website, one can view text and photos curated by Smith and her co-workers. Within the library, informational posters cover the glass walls on the first floor of the East Wing, and the pillars that frame the grand staircase in the West Wing. On the paneled windows of the director’s office, victims’ names overlay the glass panes. Throughout the exhibit, there are reminders of those for whom it was made.

In her bio, Smith describes librarians as “keepers of the light and protectors of our shared memories.” Through research and conversations with some of the victims’ families, Smith tapped into individual memories to build a fuller, deeper collective memory of those lost. In an interview with The Daily, she recalled speaking with Stephon Clark’s mother, and how that conversation informed his story in the exhibit.

Between the exhibit’s premier and this article’s publication, the livestream of the banner installation, which is still available on Stanford Libraries’ Facebook timeline, has been viewed over 3,000 times.

“I know a lot of Black staff on campus who were watching this, and when I sent out that announcement, the press release, I got such an overwhelming response from the Black staff, saying, like, ‘Thank you for seeing me,’” said Smith. “It seems to me that … a lot of Black staff feel that the University [doesn’t] see us … I just think that message needs to be conveyed to the administration — that the steps they’ve taken are appreciated but … they [Black staff] need more support.”

Contact Chasity Hale at chashale ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Black FLI Stanford sophomores weigh in on ‘What’s Big’ in new podcast https://stanforddaily.com/2020/08/19/black-fli-stanford-sophomores-weigh-in-on-whats-big-in-new-podcast/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/08/19/black-fli-stanford-sophomores-weigh-in-on-whats-big-in-new-podcast/#respond Thu, 20 Aug 2020 02:40:23 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1171242 From the moment they hit record, the lively personalities of the 2020 podcast “What’s Big, Sweetie?” break down everything from COVID-19 and quarantine activities to their experiences at Stanford as young Black FLI (first-generation and/or low income) women — the topics often appear boundless.

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From the moment they hit record, the lively personalities of the 2020 podcast “What’s Big, Sweetie?” break down everything from COVID-19 and quarantine activities to their experiences at Stanford as young Black FLI (first-generation and/or low income) women — the topics often appear boundless. Take, for instance, episode two, where you can tune into Linda Denson ’23 and Tyah-Amoy Roberts ’23 discussing “Dat Rona,” TikTok fame and Stanford’s purse: “Regarding our podcast name, if you’re wondering ‘What’s Big?,’ it’s Stanford’s endowment,” Roberts joked. “Precisely,” Denson added.

Coated in a layer of light mockery and straightforward analysis, all eight episodes of the podcast are uniquely entertaining and informative on FLI experiences, popular culture and, well, what’s deemed “Big.” Hitting it off as Ujamaa House residents their freshman year, the duo’s affinity for cracking jokes alongside some coaxing from friends inspired collaboration on a new level. 

“We were always together, which is why everybody would always ask us to do a podcast. If you’d see me, you’d see Linda, and if you’d see Linda, you saw Tyah, and we were always making jokes,” Roberts told The Daily.

Though they only recorded one episode in person prior to campus evacuations and remote instruction, the co-hosts were quick to rekindle their efforts from afar, launching the pilot in mid-March. Each over-the-phone recording session in this period has helped bridge their physical gap — Denson is a New Orleans native, and Roberts, originally from Florida, lives in the Bahamas. 

“The day I got back home, I was so bored, and I was missing everything, so I was like, ‘I guess I’ll just drop [the first episode], and then I’ll force Tyah to talk to me,’” Denson admitted. “She’s right — I don’t like being on the phone. So she was like, ‘This is how I’m gonna make her talk,’” Roberts laughed.  

This sense of humor holds both a cold and witty dynamic that pervades each discussion: In episode three, as the co-hosts consider Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s health status and the prospect of Trump filling Supreme Court seats with Republicans if he were to be reelected, Roberts jests, saying, “It’s vote Blue [in November] or get your tubes tied, at this point.” 

Riding on infectious jokes like this, the “What’s Big, Sweetie?” following has grown notably with time. Not only has the pair’s audience flooded them with verbal encouragement, but some listeners have bolstered their work monetarily. After receiving Venmo payments following the release of their two initial episodes, the duo’s podcast morphed into both an outlet for honest comedy and minor cash flow. “I thought it was great; I wasn’t expecting people to actually listen to [us] because I always feel like we’re talking into a void. So I was like, ‘Oh my gosh … maybe I should think more about what I say since people are actually listening now,’” Roberts said. “But I was really excited to get Venmo requests because that’s always nice as a FLI student. I was [also] excited to hear that people were interested in what two FLI Black women had to say, especially since it was very clear very early on that we were not holding our tongues about anything in particular.” 

Unrestricted language is what makes “What’s Big, Sweetie?” a standout, and it comes organically to both Roberts and Denson with the support of those surrounding them. “There are people in place, whether that be like upperclassmen, people that I see as mentors or professors that I could name, who just would not have it if Stanford [had] backlash about our podcast, and so it’s things like that motivate me to keep saying exactly what it is that I mean,” Roberts reflected. “There obviously are going to be people who don’t like what we say, and my parents warn me all the time of that, [but] I simply am not listening. I know that I’ve gotten this far in life, and I got to Stanford, by not holding my tongue. This is just the space that I occupy, and I’m going to keep doing that regardless.”

The duo’s unfiltered voices also propelled the podcast’s primary surge after they recorded a reaction to a racist incident within Stanford’s faculty in late April. The subject of this episode, a guest lecturer addressing a virtual comparative studies in race and ethnicity (CSRE) class, casually said the N-word while quoting famed hip hop group N.W.A. After pinpointing a tweet describing the affair, the pair weighed in, peppering their remarks with a sharp humor. “We have the class recording because it’s corona; the Zoom lectures are recorded.” Denson said. “We have receipts,” Roberts tossed in. “You’re on camera, babe. Smile!” Denson added. 

These quips augment and often define the podcast, but each episode holds its fair share of serious discussion as well. Touching on a breadth of topics, from Black liberation and politics to misogynoir and colorism, Denson and Roberts bear blunt honesty in their comments, regardless of who may be listening. Off the bat in their pilot, Denson recalls joking that “What’s Big, Sweetie?” is a “Black woman’s podcast,” but its audience has greatly expanded from there. 

“We have one listener somewhere out in Germany who just watches and listens to every podcast, so shout out to that listener, because we’re international because of them and them only,” Roberts smirked. “But in general, yeah, we’ve expanded: At first, I think it was just Black women who were listening to us, but we’ve been having a lot of talks generally in the Stanford Black community about listening to women and being more receptive to arguments that are going to make you uncomfortable, so I think a lot of different people have been tuning in because of those conversations. It seems like many are coming to our podcast with the intention to learn, and I think that that is a very beautiful thing — I hope that we’re teaching them something.”

Though those engaging with the podcast may identify with various genders and races, neither Roberts nor Denson feel a need to acclimate their words, for such candid discourse “offers the most opportunity for learning,” according to Roberts. 

“In general, it is ineffective to tailor Blackness to a different audience. I just have to give you my experience, and you learn from it or you don’t,” she said. “This podcast is just me genuinely talking to Linda, Black woman to Black woman, because that is the most effective way — one, for Black women to feel validated and to know that people are thinking the same thing that they’re thinking. And two, that is the most authentic way to hear a genuine opinion — I can’t tailor it to make a man feel better. I can’t tailor it to make a white woman feel better. I can’t tailor it to make a non-Black person of color feel better because that’s not the truth: The truth is what I’m giving to you raw as a first-generation, low-income Black woman.”

To Denson, this unique lens afforded by the pair makes the podcast both amusing and didactic, but can also help listeners recognize their distinct life experiences. “To me, it was always about hoping that people understand that the things that may come up to them [in] an Instagram story … are the [realities] of a lot of Black women. This is the state of our lives, to exist under a society that is so evasively engaged in misogynoir… So if people can hear something new or realize that this is real and have this issue feminized, that’s all I would want. I think that’s [already] happened because some of our most loyal supporters are non-Black people and men, and those people are genuinely here for the ride, and are here to be educated.”  

Though the podcast’s accessible nature is convenient for sequestered listeners affected by ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, uncertainty looms over when Roberts and Denson may record in person again. Regardless, the two have new intentions as the fall quarter rolls in: “The plan is for ‘What’s Big, Sweetie?’ to become a digital media production collective, which is a fancy way to say there’s going to be multiple personalities across multiple series across multiple platforms all under the ‘What’s Big, Sweetie?’ name,” Denson said. 

The duo is already carving out this new path — the growing collective reportedly has 10 members now — and both Denson and Roberts hope “What’s Big, Sweetie?” will “share some resources, skills and an audience with other Black women so that we can all make authentic content,” according to Denson.

“At the heart of what we’re doing is showcasing Black women and how we feel authentically and how we walk in the world,” she remarked.

“What’s Big, Sweetie?” can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor and several other podcast platforms.

Contact Nicole Johnson at nicole.djohnson ‘at’ comcast.net.

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Amid COVID-19, performing arts clubs plan for an uncertain future https://stanforddaily.com/2020/08/18/amid-covid-19-performing-arts-clubs-plan-for-an-uncertain-future/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/08/18/amid-covid-19-performing-arts-clubs-plan-for-an-uncertain-future/#respond Wed, 19 Aug 2020 05:00:56 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1171091 Here are some plans for digital performances from a few performing arts clubs for fall quarter.

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Last spring quarter, many performing arts clubs faced the challenge of adapting to the new COVID-19 restrictions. They were unable to continue in-person performances, shows and competitions. Club leaders had to improvise with how they would proceed: Some clubs shifted to virtual performances, while others could only have rehearsals. 

When planning for this upcoming school year, club leaders have more knowledge about adapting their performances to COVID-19 restrictions from their experiences during spring quarter. Performing arts clubs had been preparing based on the since altered plan wherein on-campus housing would be provided for half of undergraduate students each quarter and large social gatherings would not be permitted. Especially since the most recent announcement that the University will not invite first-year, sophomore and transfer undergraduate students to reside on campus in the fall, many clubs plan to make their performances and shows digital. Here are some plans from a few performing arts clubs for fall quarter.

The Stanford Mendicants

The Mendicants are Stanford’s first a cappella group, consisting of all-male members. The group has existed for 57 years, so it is no surprise that they managed to continue with the limitations of COVID-19 during the spring and will also continue performing during the fall. 

Ryland Pampush ’21, president of the Mendicants, told The Daily, “We wouldn’t be able to sing live — we would have to be pre-recorded and edited together. We hope to do two to three virtual shows — maybe that’s a fall, winter and spring show — and a few virtual gigs for individual clients.”

Because all of the shows will be virtual, he is hoping that “any member who is able and willing to participate, whether they are on campus at a given time or not, should be able to be part of performances.”

However, the experience of a virtual a cappella performance is not the same as one in person, making it more difficult to attract an audience. Pampush said, “People are just less likely to attend something virtually, and especially with a cappella, I think there’s something special about experiencing it in person.”

The Mendicants have a few different ideas to garner an audience, such as “putting together a show for just family and friends of the Mendicants, partnering with Stanford to publicize the Mendicants to the undergraduate student body as a whole or working with the Stanford Alumni Association to engage with alumni since Stanford Homecoming Reunion is canceled.”

The Mendicants typically participate in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA), but it is unclear whether the competition will continue this year.

Stanford Counterpoint

Counterpoint is Stanford’s first all-female a cappella group, and like the Mendicants, the club plans to have a limited number of performances, most likely not in person. Hannah Prausnitz-Weinbaum ’22, last year’s music director of Counterpoint, said, “From what I’ve heard, a lot of the performance venues don’t have enough airflow or space for social distancing to really make outdoor performances possible.”

The group does not have plans that are set in stone for this year, as the University’s guidelines for student groups will play a large role in determining how performances will continue. Prausnitz-Weinbaum added, “I definitely hope that the University comes out with more specific guidelines soon.”

She mentioned that a lot of performing arts club leaders are not focused on performances yet, as they are still trying to come up with a plan for auditions and recruitment.

Despite this uncertainty, the leaders of Counterpoint have ruled out live performances on Zoom as an alternative to in-person performances, as it is hard for members of the group to sing in unison due to lagging audio. “I would guess that most performances will be in the form of releasing recordings and people watching them on their own,” said Prausnitz-Weinbaum.

Unlike the Mendicants, Counterpoint does not participate in the ICCA, so competitions are not an area of concern for them.

Common Origins

Common Origins is a non-audition urban dance group that participates in a show at the end of each quarter. The group typically hosts the first quarterly show, “Breaking Ground,” and invites other dance groups to perform as well.

Common Origins will be unable to host “Breaking Ground” this fall due to COVID-19 restrictions, and does not anticipate performing in-person any time soon. Michelle Xu ’22, next year’s co-president and choreographer for the group, said, “The school sent out an email about how large social gatherings are not going to be allowed, and since a lot of dance members won’t be on campus, there’s a slim chance that we are actually going to have shows in the near future.”

The group leaders are discussing possible alternatives to shows, such as putting together videos of their team members dancing, but they have not finalized any alternatives yet. The group will base their decisions off of the University’s continued updates since everything is still in flux.

Spoken Word Collective

Spoken Word Collective is, as the name suggests, a club where students deliver spoken word poetry at open mics, performances and quarterly shows. 

To address the issue of students living off campus and in different timezones, Darnell Carson ’21, co-director of the club, usually holds open mics at 4 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on Fridays.  

He is “accounting mostly for people in the States because they were most of the attendees of open mics in the first place.”

The group has been able to successfully continue open mics virtually, although they will not be in person until it is safe to do so. Carson said, “We don’t feel the impetus to rush doing in-person events at the cost of other people’s health.”

For this reason, future quarterly shows will be digital. Since last quarter’s show was cancelled, the club “didn’t really have a chance to figure out … [shows] logistically,” so the exact format has not been decided yet. 

He explained that they could be held as a Zoom webinar so that members can speak as viewers use the chat feature to react. They could also be streamed on Youtube or Facebook.

Although students prefer in-person performing arts events over digital versions, Carson offers hope that after the pandemic ends, “people will be very excited to go to performing arts events … [because the] arts have been really giving people the escape they need” during this time.

Contact Mira Ravi at mira.ravi6 ‘at’ gmail.com. 

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Stanford on Youtube https://stanforddaily.com/2020/07/22/stanford-on-youtube/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/07/22/stanford-on-youtube/#respond Wed, 22 Jul 2020 08:43:37 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1170261 Stanford YouTubers make their insights into day-to-day life at Stanford or even how admissions officers evaluated their applications freely available on the internet, a tool that proves more accessible than other avenues students use to maneuver the admissions process. Not every high schooler has access to SAT tutoring or a private college counselor, but many of them are on social media.

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Vlogging, a colloquialized mash-up of the words ‘video’ and ‘blog,’ refers to a type of video where a creator documents their day-to-day life. It’s become a rapidly popular section of the internet, perhaps a reflection of younger internet users’ appreciation for relatability rather than celebrity in figures they follow.

The video format has become an industry in its own right. Popular YouTube vlogger Emma Chamberlain makes an estimated $1.4 million per year from ad revenue on her videos. While other prominent YouTubers script and heavily edit their videos, Chamberlain and other vloggers intend to show their daily lives exactly as they are.

The world of college vlogging is an even more specific internet niche in which college students and rising freshmen chronicle their lives at university and provide insight into the sometimes daunting college admissions process. On this platform viewers gain insight from the perspective of someone they can identify with more personally than the older alumni or college representatives who court prospective students.

“With any new or unfamiliar experience, it is exciting to get a glimpse of it. It is even more resonant when you, as a viewer, can relate to this creator,” said human biology major Marlon Washington ’22 of Moments with Marlon on YouTube. 

After COVID-19 hit, students were sent home from campus at the tail-end of winter quarter. Stanford cancelled in-person tours for potential students and their families as well as Stanford Admit Weekend  in April. These closures came shortly after students were admitted in late March. As a result, the internet quickly became the only outlet where interested students could engage with the Stanford community. 

The clearest example of real Stanford life was to be found on, well, YouTube.

Students at elite schools have found massive success on Youtube, with examples including Sienna Santer at Harvard University and Elliot Choy at Vanderbilt University. Santer’s channel has amassed 402,000 subscribers and over 26 million views across her videos. Choy has 725,000 subscribers, and his videos have accumulated over 50 million views. While these channels include content beyond the scope of college vlogging, both Santer and Choy’s most viewed videos — A Day in the Life of a Harvard Student and Giving Harvard Students an iPhone 11 If They Can Answer This Question — center around the college experience.

Stanford plays host to a number of its own college YouTube channels where students document their lives at the university, provide advice to younger students, demystify the admissions process and more. Some of the widely recognized channels include Katherine Waissbluth ’22’s The Kath Path and Arpi Park ’22’s eponymous channel, with more than 61,000 and 238,000 subscribers, respectively. 

Park began making college-related videos in the fall of 2018, shortly after the start of his freshman year, with the intention of helping younger students better understand college application essays. 

“In hindsight, it was naive of me to think I knew enough to provide meaningful advice,” Park said, but his videos reading his essays and sharing his test scores and high school extracurriculars garnered nearly 1.5 million views combined.

As his channel grew, Park continued creating a wider breadth of content including comedy and satire. Viewers, particularly those outside the Stanford community, increasingly began turning to him and channels like his to try to get to know the university. Even in the pandemic-less world of years past, interested high schoolers and prospective freshmen turned to the internet to get a glimpse of college life. 

“[Park] made the application process seem very relaxed rather than stressful. He inspired me to get creative on the essays because he answered the questions in pretty unorthodox ways,” wrote incoming freshman Robert Castaneros. “After I got in, I watched the Kath Path a lot so I could learn more about the campus vibe and culture.” 

Art Practice major Dyllen Nellis ’23 (imdyllen on YouTube) was once one of these students herself and watched Waissbluth’s videos during her senior year of high school. As a college freshman on YouTube, Nellis finds now herself on the other end of this relationship. 

“When Stanford released who got admitted to their class of ’24, I did get a lot of DMs saying ‘Hey, I got in, thank you so much, I watched your videos!’” Nellis said. “It’s crazy that I helped [them] because I did the same thing, like I watched the Kath Path. Once I got admitted I sent her a DM. Now it’s so funny that I’m that person on the other side of it.”

While viewers might be searching for a general idea of what Stanford is like, for these college YouTubers, their experience is inherently personal.

“I just try to show myself. I don’t think I have the authority to decide what a typical Stanford student is, nor do I have the authority to portray the perspectives of other people,” Park said. 

Immersive design student Cyan D’Anjou ’22 (Cyan D’Anjou on YouTube) echoed this sentiment. 

“I think that at its core, everyone is trying to portray their own personal experiences as accurately as possible,” she wrote in an email to the Daily.

D’Anjou, like Nellis, focuses on the experience of an arts student at Stanford. Nellis “didn’t know what the art scene was like” at Stanford when she was applying, and “wanted to make videos that showed that side” of the school.

As each of these Stanford vloggers documents their personal Stanford experience on Youtube, the cumulative depiction of the university on the internet grows. 

“The more YouTubers begin to make videos, the more diverse representation in experiences there will be for new students to be able to relate to,” D’Anjou wrote.

Viewers’ ability to identify with these college vloggers in some regard — a shared sense of humor, a comparable high school course load or a similar upbringing — makes the intimidating and sometimes exclusionary college admissions process feel a little more accessible. Stanford YouTubers make their insights into day-to-day life at Stanford or even how admissions officers evaluated their applications freely available on the internet, a tool that proves more accessible than other avenues students use to maneuver the admissions process. Not every high schooler has access to SAT tutoring or a private college counselor, but many of them are on social media.

“I think that the college admissions process is inherently a system catering to those with more privilege,” D’Anjou wrote. “I have a lot of privilege myself to have all of these different experiences relating to the process to share with people. Social media can play a part in either leveling those differences, or in heightening them.”

“I hope that I can contribute to helping make this journey more equitable in small ways by offering some kinds of advice or perspectives or a view of student life, expectations without the viewer having to spend anything monetary,” she added. 

This sentiment extends to international applicants as well, whose high schools’ systems and classes vary from those of American schools. 

“I’m not from the US but your videos are really motivating, it’s kind of a dream of mine to get into [university] there and I’ve been looking into the process and stumbled across your channel. Your videos are really inspiring!!” read a comment on Iris Fu ’23’s video, Top 5 At-home Extracurricular Activities for College Applications

In light of pandemic-induced closures, Stanford’s admissions team launched Stanford Engage as a hub of virtual opportunities for those outside the Stanford community to learn about the university. These include representative-led Virtual Visits, self-guided virtual tours and virtual appointments available on request.

However, the way Stanford exists on the internet right now depends largely on the outputs of its own students, on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Youtube. 

While the campus remains closed, interacting with students themselves is “the closest you’re going to get” to understanding the culture of the university, Nellis said. 

“In that case, yeah, watch the videos.”

Contact Sariah Hossain at sariah.hossain19 ‘at’ gmail.com.

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‘Devised at Dink’: Producer Chloe Chow ’23 on revamping Gaieties 2020 to open-air sketch comedy https://stanforddaily.com/2020/07/17/devised-at-dink-producer-chloe-chow-23-on-revamping-gaieties-2020-to-open-air-sketch-comedy/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/07/17/devised-at-dink-producer-chloe-chow-23-on-revamping-gaieties-2020-to-open-air-sketch-comedy/#respond Fri, 17 Jul 2020 19:24:09 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1170225 The Daily met with this year’s producer Chloe Chow ’23 over Zoom to discuss the future of Gaieties 2020, and behind-the-scenes details on the original script, Chow’s experience as a Producer during the pandemic and on uncharted territory for this year’s Gaieties company.

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The debut of the “Re-Approaching Stanford” Newsletter in student inboxes this summer produced a clarion call for beloved Stanford fall-quarter traditions to either adapt or face cancellation. One such tradition is Gaieties, an original completely student-written, composed and performed musical produced by Ram’s Head Theatrical Society. In the past, it has been an outlet to poke fun at how absurd life can get on the Stanford campus and showcase the ridiculousness of Stanford students while rallying the student body against their rival, Berkeley, as they prepare to face off in their yearly football game, the “Big Game.” With origins that date back to 1911, Gaieties has evolved into a large-scale musical with a singular, cohesive storyline that follows a group of freshmen who must work together to defeat their rival’s mascot, the Cal Berkeley Bear. However, as a result of ongoing circumstances due to the coronavirus pandemic, the production team of Gaieties 2020 has been forced to revise their initial plans of going through with a traditional form of Gaieties. Instead, as announced in an email sent to the Ram’s Head company last Friday July 10, Gaieties 2020 is looking to return to the original format of the show as a series of individual, sketch-style acts without a set theme tying them together. 

The Daily met with this year’s producer Chloe Chow ’23 over Zoom to discuss the future of Gaieties 2020, and behind-the-scenes details on the original script, Chow’s experience as a Producer during the pandemic and on uncharted territory for this year’s Gaieties company. 

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity and length. 

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Why did you want to join Gaieties 2020? 

Chloe Chow (CC): This past fall, I had the fortune to be one of the freshmen heroes of Gaieties 2019 and perform on stage. I think that, because with Gaieties we audition people the very first week of school, this really is your community from the second that you step on campus and you want to be involved in the theater scene. For me, I auditioned kind of by mistake, and I didn’t know what I was getting into. But I think that if I didn’t have Gaieties, I wouldn’t have felt like I found my place at Stanford because Gaieties very much inducts this new group of theater freshmen into the theater scene. Stanford isn’t very well known for theater, but I just fell in love with the whole community aspect. I love socializing and I’m somewhat extroverted, so I wanted to be able to create that new community aspect in Gaieties 2020, and that’s why I applied for producer. I also wanted to be involved in Gaieties 2020 because I think that obviously 2020, before the pandemic hit, was going to be a pretty momentous year.

Gaieties has, in the past, embodied a lot of racism and really bad meaning within it and being a person of color and a minority within this theater scene and America in general, I wanted to make sure voices on campus were being heard. And I think that doesn’t just come from being a cast member. It comes from the very start, from hiring your writers to shaping what the script is going to be about because Gaieties is completely student-written and composed. So hiring a diverse, creative production team and casting diverse people really needs to come from the back door where you can ensure that you have a handle on everything that’s going on. Not necessarily like a dictatorship, but just enough to be aware that things are flowing in the right direction. 

TSD: What was your role on staff in this production, and when were you hired? 

CC: I was hired back in late February, so it’s been about five months. As the producer, I’m the very first person hired on to the process. I am in charge of hiring our head writers, who write the script, and our composer and lyricist, who write and compose the music. From there, I help the head writers hire writers to create the writing team. I am the messenger, the liaison between the writing team and our Ram’s Head Board of Directors. I also helped assemble our Creative Advisory Board (CAB), which is a separate group of students from the writing team who make sure that no jokes are too offensive, that the script is coherent and makes sense. I deliver the script to the Board of Directors, to CAB and am also in charge of hiring a bunch of the production staff like our production manager, our director, our stage manager, choreographer, vocal director, just like everybody. And then from there, what my job this summer was supposed to be was budgeting, for planning just the money aspect around Gaieties and setting up a rehearsal schedule. So that’s generally what the producer does. Then later, I’d work on marketing, but that hasn’t come yet, obviously. So yeah, that’s generally what the producer does. It’s kind of a lot of tasks, but so far, it hasn’t been too many tasks because of COVID.

TSD: How much work did you accomplish for your position before it was decided that the show in its intended form should be postponed for next year? 

CC: Yeah, intended is the keyword here. Coming out of March, when we were all sent home, I still had the mindset of like, “Oh, we’re going to have Gaieties maintain this musical for; we don’t know what September is going to look like, what November when Gaieties performance is going to look like. So we should just keep on working towards the end goal of putting on a regular musical assuming that everything is possible.” And then the [Stanford] email [on June 3 from President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Provost Persis Drell] came saying that they’re only going to have two classes [on-campus] per quarter. So that starts changing stuff a bit. And then the email that completely changed things up was when they said that only freshmen and sophomores are gonna be on campus in the fall and summer and then all the upperclassmen are going to be on campus during the winter and spring. But up until [last week on Tuesday, July 7] when I sent an update to [the Rams Head company], the work that had been done was that we had hired quite a bit of the design and production staff, and we had gotten a final draft of the script. So we do have a finalized story that’s going to be performed [next year for] Gaieties 2021. It just hasn’t gone through like the final touches but that was where we were on the timeline, assuming that we were going to be putting on a regular musical. 

TSD: How did the pandemic and Stanford’s virtual spring quarter impact your work-life balance on this show? 

We got sent home the week before winter quarter ended, so the script hadn’t been written yet. We had just hired our writers, and I did all my interviews with the writers and the Creative Advisory Board in person. But then we got sent home, and my work-life balance was skewed a lot. I was working a lot on Gaieties during the virtual spring quarter because I was interviewing and creating applications, reviewing applications for the production team and the design team. And that’s what I was doing during the majority of spring quarter as well as editing the script. It wasn’t terrible, because I would have been doing a lot of that stuff on my computer anyway, but doing zoom interviews was very time-consuming. Again, there’s nothing you can do since it had to be done, and I enjoyed getting to know people over Zoom. So it wasn’t really a setback.

TSD: How have the Black Lives Matter protests in response to police brutality and anti-blackness impact your production process? 

CC: That’s hard to say because I can’t speak for any one of our team members because I think that we all experienced the Black Lives Matter movement and the whole anti-cop protest very differently. I told my head writers that it was okay to put a pause on the scriptwriting for the two or three weeks that the Black Lives Matter movement was really taking flight back in late May. I think that in order to fully engage in your art, you need to be cleansed of other stresses in your life, and in order to be cleansed of other stresses in your life, it’s okay to say no to doing art for a moment. Social justice right now definitely takes greater priority than putting on Gaieties. In comparison to this whole national movement, Gaieties is nothing, and I’d much rather have my team members either be out there protesting or signing petitions, raising money to donate, taking care of their own mental health and emotional health instead of stressing over meeting a deadline. I think that moving the script next year was honestly probably a better choice [than] rushing it and getting it done by our initial deadline [National Tax Day, June 15] because I don’t want our writers to feel stressed in any capacity. We did consider integrating the Black Lives Matter movement messages into our script but because it’s not being performed this year, we want to make sure the script stays relevant to whatever is happening next year. The script hasn’t really reflected any of the recent events that have been going on because it has been put on pause.

TSD: How did Stanford’s Re-Approaching communications impact the production process? 

CC: I have to admit I was very, very, very stressed for the entire four months that we were kept in the dark. It was really stressful because of all the responses that I thought Stanford could send out to their students planning for fall quarter, them saying, “Oh, we’re gonna have half capacity” was the last thing I expected. It’s really hard to plan a show when half the people that you’re expecting to be in the show just aren’t there and you also didn’t know who was going to be there. 

I sent out an email to the entire company saying “Hey, I’m going to host a town hall because I think that so many people have worked on this that it is unfair for me as a single person to make a decision.” We had about 20 people from our Gaieties company out of, I think, 40 people attend [a town hall], and we had a really good conversation around options for Gaieties. One of them being we could do Gaieties completely on Zoom. We could do a regular musical, but film it, and then we could put it on at Frost Amphitheater and have a movie under the stars and allow people to social distance. Another option we had is to do Gaieties as a movie where, rather than do it in a theater, we film using the campus as our backdrop. Another option that we had was to just not do Gaieties at all and save the script for next year. So then I sent out the Google form with all the options, people voted, and the most popular option was to do a musical-style Gaieties and record it and put it on as a movie. But after they said that only freshmen and sophomores are going to be on campus [during the Autumn quarter], and obviously COVID cases are rising in California, SoCal especially, and Florida, Alabama, etc., we figured that social distancing protocols probably won’t allow us to put on a regular musical in the Memorial Auditorium. 

I then met with my production team, which is Rebecca Cohen ’21, our production manager, Liam Smith ’23, our stage manager, and Justine Sombilon ’22, our amazing, amazing director. And we talked about all the options on the Google form: A movie would just take up too much time, the social distancing wouldn’t allow for a regular musical and Zoom Gaieties wouldn’t be feasible for the script that we had at the moment. We decided to move the script to next year in order to honor the writers and the original intent of the script and where they want to be performed. [For this year] we decided to return to the original form of Gaieties as a bunch of little, one-acts or sketches people performed that didn’t necessarily have to be interlinked, but would still maintain the whole “We’re going to make fun of Berkeley and we’re going to make fun of Stanford and we’re going to induct all these freshmen into the theater scene. We’d let the people that we cast devise their own Gaieties and then perform it in an open airspace, but it would still maintain the whole community aspect.

TSD: What will the ‘devised Gaieties 2020’ look like? 

CC: Devised theater is where a bunch of people get together and make up their own cooperative story and their own songs. They share it with each other and they help each other edit and refine it, and put it on as their own group project instead of having someone hand [a script, music, and choreography] to them. I really hope that we get a lot of people auditioning because my hope is to have one to three cohorts of students (freshmen and sophomores) each devising their own 25 to 30-minute piece about their experience thus far, if it’s a lot of sophomores, or what they expected Stanford to be or whether they feel like they’re missing out. I feel like one topic that’s going to be very popular is “Who knows what spring quarter feels like?” because none of us have experienced spring quarter or “Screw Greek life, who needs Greek life on Stanford’s campus?” because I think that freshmen and sophomores have a very different idea of what Stanford is than the current juniors and seniors. 

You know where Dinkelspiel is? It’s right across the Student Union. There’s this big cement stage that’s outdoors. I’m hoping to put it on there so people can social distance in the audience but still have a good old time. Logistics are still yet to be figured out. But that’s the vision so far and is what was in the email that I sent out [to the company of Ram’s Head last Friday]. 

What aspects of Gaieties will stay the same, and what will look different? 

I think in terms of what’s going to be the same is community. Community building. We’re still going to try to be a family, to maintain the whole culture of “Gaieties babies, we love you, freshmen.” It’s really hard to say what else can be the same because I think that the fact that we have no script going into Gaieties means that everything is going to be different. What’s going to be vastly different is the fact that there’s no thorough storyline throughout the entire hour to hour-and-a-half production because I’m hoping each cohort is going to have different stories that they’re telling. No one person is going to be “the” freshman hero as I’m hoping that we’ll have multiple freshmen heroes existing in each cohort. Music-wise, there’s going to be music mentorship from our composer Katie Pieschala ‘23. She’s going to be guiding them in how to write songs, what makes for a good Gaieties song and how to integrate story into your lyrics. My choreographer is going to just guide them on general movements since I think that Gaieties choreography has never been too fancy. Like, literally if they just flossed the entire 30 minutes, that could be choreography. If they do fortnite dances, that could be choreography, it’s really up to them. It’s just that we have staff members to help guide their visions, in case [they] need some pushing one way or another. What else could be different? I don’t know how we’re gonna make money because if it’s an outdoor space, you could just walk in and out, and you don’t really need to buy a ticket. I’m hoping people will buy tickets, and I’m still figuring that out.

TSD: Is there a schedule you have already set in place? 

CC: There is a tentative schedule in place. 

TSD: Will juniors and seniors and any other students choosing not to live on campus this fall be able to get involved? If so, how? (virtually, off-campus meetings?)

My plan is to have them offer some sort of one-on-one mentorship to people on campus. They get to help with script advising and editing. If I can find a way to get a projector in Dinkelspiel, I would love to have people off-campus pre-record something, and we can integrate that into our devised pieces.

TSD: What information (if anything) can you disclose about the plot, characters or themes of Gaieties 2021 at this time? 

CC: I don’t know how much I should disclose, but I’ll hint that it incorporates something that the freshmen had in their unique experience of not having Admit Weekend.

TSD: To what extent will Gaieties 2021 be incorporated into the ‘devised Gaieties 2020’? 

None. 

TSD: How does the original Gaieties 2020 script, now Gaieties 2021 script, respond to previous Gaieties? 

CC: We tried to take a more multimedia approach in comparison to previous Gaieties. But we also tried to make it break away from the typical “There’s a freshman that doesn’t feel like they belong at Stanford, but then they find a group of friends, and they have to go and save the day from Berkeley. And then at the end, everybody’s happy and everybody’s at Stanford and ‘oh my god, we love Stanford.’” We tried to take a little more realistic stance and have characters come from not only diverse racial backgrounds but also socioeconomic, family circumstances, taking in[to] account other family members rather than just the admits themselves. We also tried to find other things to poke fun at in our script besides Greek life. I’m very in love with Gaieties 2021; I really wish we could have put it on this year. I think that the story is, I wouldn’t say it’s unique beyond comparison, but it’s definitely not what Gaieties 2019 was about. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen [Gaieties 2020’s] evolution. Probably if people see it, they’ll be like “It was just Gaieties 2019 again,” but I feel like there’s a lot more nuance to this. I think that it potentially, also depending on casting, can speak out to a lot more communities than past Gaieties have.

TSD: You might have the opportunity to work on it next year, right? 

CC: I would love to produce Gaieties 2021, but depending on COVID circumstances, and this is a very personal thing, I really want to travel abroad. Stanford in New York is in the fall, which means I wouldn’t be on campus, which means I can’t produce it, and I don’t know if the Rams Head will let me produce two Gaieties in a row. That would be amazing; I love, love the process. But in like a really bad comparison, I feel like I kind of gave my child up for adoption. To have seen the script since its birth, and I had planned on guiding its vision until its “death,” but I’m going to have to hand it off to somebody who I know I can trust because I’ll be the one hiring them. But to see it take a probably very different form than what we initially intended it to look like, it’s going to be exciting; it’s also going to be sad, but mostly heartening. 

TSD: Any last thoughts? 

Even though we’ve had the unfortunate situation of being stuck in a pandemic, I am really happy with the way that Gaieties is moving forward because, like I said before, “Oh Gaieties 2020, what a cool year, what a cool number for a year, like, it sounds like it’s supposed to be momentous, you know? And it is momentous because I think that we found a Gaieties that is adaptable, accessible and still fun. It still preserves the core nature of Gaieties and the fact that we want to welcome any and all freshmen into the theater scene and show that Stanford can be fun, because I think that Stanford is very nerdy. And also just building communities, which is something that I really, really value because community is what made me feel like I have a chance at belonging at Stanford without dealing with imposter or duck syndrome, and I want to be able to pass it on, no matter the shape or the form of Gaieties. And I know that a lot of freshmen that I’ve talked to already are very excited just being in Gaieties. Granted, this isn’t the Gaieties that they’re expecting, but I still want to deliver. 

But I think that we are making history. In a good way — I hope so, in a bad way, I hope not. But what can you do? You can’t control your circumstances, and I think we’re making the best of it.

Contact Vivian Jiang at jiang.vivian2 ‘at’ gmail.com. 

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The Comeup Collective: Stanford alumni share their experiences as first-generation Black students https://stanforddaily.com/2020/07/15/the-comeup-collective-stanford-alumni-share-their-experiences-as-first-generation-black-students/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/07/15/the-comeup-collective-stanford-alumni-share-their-experiences-as-first-generation-black-students/#respond Thu, 16 Jul 2020 06:42:34 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1170152 Stanford class of 2020 alums Sheck Mulbah, Garry Archbold, Mekhi Jones and Mamadou Diallo launch “The Comeup Collective,” a podcast that follows their journeys navigating the academic and professional world.

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When reflecting on his acceptance into Stanford University, Mekhi Jones ’20 marveled at accomplishing what “felt like a wish.” 

Jones, a first-generation Black student from a single-parent, low-income family, was introduced to the world of computer science through “The Internship,” a 2013 comedy film about two interns vying for a job at Google. 

Since then, Jones dreamed of securing an internship at Google and working a six-figure job as a software engineer. For Jones, Stanford University was the ultimate step in his come up to success.

This past year, Jones, along with fellow Stanford seniors Mamadou Diallo ’20, Sheck Mulbah ’20 and Garry Archbold ’20, launched “The Comeup Collective,” a podcast that follows their journeys through the academic and professional world as first-generation Black students. The four students discuss what it’s like navigating racially different spaces, while maintaining what they refer to as their “hood mentalities.”

Diallo recalled how the podcast was inspired by their “awesome, late-night conversations,” which began the fall quarter of their freshman year. The four bonded over their shared backgrounds, their academic struggles and their big goals for the future. “Let’s just record these conversations,” Diallo proposed, “so we can share our experiences with others.” 

Diallo, the son of Guinean immigrants, was born and raised in Harlem, New York. Like Jones, Diallo was interested in computer science and began to code for the low-income Black and brown people in his community. 

The name “Comeup Collective,” which was thought up by Archbold, embodies “a certain ethos” that Jones recalls wanting to embody. 

“It’s about all of us being on a come up, having big dreams, and actually accomplishing them,” he said.

The name also captures the community aspect of their podcast. “It’s not just us four,” Diallo acknowledged. “It’s for listeners coming up in their own lives.” Archbold, a Science, Technology and Society major, grew up in a low-income neighborhood in Miami as the son of a Nicaraguan immigrant.

In the podcast, the four discuss a variety of topics, including making money, choosing majors and minors, superpowers and interracial dating. Most recently, the four came together to discuss Black Lives Matter. 

From George Floyd’s death to coronavirus, “we had a lot on our minds leading up to us recording,” Jones recalled. “People we knew lost people close to them, [and] we had a lot of energy that allowed us to really dig into topics that personally all affect us as Black men.” The four acknowledged that despite receiving Stanford degrees, they could still face the same dangerous discrimination as Harvard-graduate Christian Cooper did in Central Park.

Despite the gravity of many topics discussed in the podcast, the four manage to keep the mood lighthearted. For Diallo, “humor is our way of talking through these traumatic-ass stories.” 

Diallo remembers making jokes about running out of food stamps and suddenly realizing, “Wow. That’s not funny. But at the same time, it’s hilarious.” Much of the time, however, the topics remain light, along with the mood. “You will find nice jokes, nice gems through every episode,” Jones hints. 

For Mulbah, these lighthearted moments — “the singing moments, the freestyling moments,” — are his favorite part of the podcast. “When we’re podding, it really feels like we’re kinda just hanging out,” Mulbah remarked. Mulbah, a political science and African-American Studies major, was raised by his mother in Harlem, New York after she escaped Liberia during a civil war. 

Although the podcast focuses on the personal journeys of Jones, Diallo, Mulbah and Archbold, the four hosts maintain a strong sense of community and a desire to give back. 

The four had always discussed their desires to help kids who come from similar low-income communities of color, and after securing coveted summer internships and making “a good amount of money” as Diallo recalled, the four decided to create the Comeup Scholars Program. 

Funded by Jones, Diallo, Mulbah, and Archbold using their internship earnings, the Comeup Scholars Program gave money to two high school seniors who embodied the “come-up.”

“Knowing how much people put into us, we wanted to give back to our own community,” Diallo said.

The four plan to continue the Comeup Scholars Program in years to come, hoping to reach students attending a range of universities. Jones remarked, “As our pockets get bigger, the more money we plan to give out.”

Season two of the Comeup Collective will premiere this fall, and will be available on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast streaming services. In once-a-month episodes, listeners can follow Jones, Diallo, Mulbah and Archbold as they leave Stanford and enter the corporate world.  

Contact Nina Iskandarsjach at ninaisk ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Artist Spotlight: Eve La Puma ’20, actor-musician https://stanforddaily.com/2020/06/13/artist-spotlight-eve-la-puma-20-actor-musician/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/06/13/artist-spotlight-eve-la-puma-20-actor-musician/#respond Sun, 14 Jun 2020 02:28:30 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1169420 Eve La Puma '20 majored in TAPS with a minor in music (bassoon performance) and is a highly valued member of the Stanford Arts community. She celebrates her graduation this weekend with the class of 2020 and will be dearly missed.

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To round out a quarter of canceled show reviews and artist spotlights in Arts & Life, I wanted to speak with an extraordinary individual who I’ve technically known about since I walked into Dinkelspiel Auditorium four years ago. Julia “Eve” La Puma ’20 is a multi-talented musician, singer, actress and theater-maker who — though wholly unbeknownst at the time — I saw perform under the baton of Anna Wittstruck at the 2016 Stanford Symphony Orchestra (SSO) Halloween Concert. That concert with its macabre decor and costumed musicians is a quite fitting venue to overlap with someone I would get to know quite well from assistant music-directing Rams Head’s 2019 spring show “The Addams Family” and this year’s Gaieties. With the onset of COVID-19 in March, the musician-actor had to radically-rethink her intended capstone project, which blossomed into a heartwarming suite of her Stanford musical experiences this spring. 

Artist Spotlight: Eve La Puma '20, actor-musician
The promotional graphic for Eve’s joint Senior Recital through the Music Department and TAPS Capstone Project (Photo courtesy of Eve La Puma)

At the end of Week 7 spring quarter, more than 130 people signed onto a Youtube livestream to watch Eve perform her joint bassoon senior recital and Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) capstone project. Her selected repertoire ranged from Vivaldi, Gliére and Mozart chamber pieces to Stephen Sondheim, Alan Menken and Andrew Lippa musical theater numbers and even an original composition, the delightfully meta-theatrical “Bassoon Song.” La Puma made her senior recital a “family affair,” in the literal sense that her family members performed with her and helped stage and record the recital, but also in the figurative sense in that her Stanford family came en masse to support her. During her time at Stanford, La Puma collaborated with a variety of student-artists in TAPS, ITALIC, Rams Head, [wit], SloCo and the music department, which was well-represented by the chat window buzzing with music and theater commentary for the duration of her livestream. 

The opening remarks of her bassoon instructor, Rufus Olivier, set the nostalgic-yet-celebratory tone of the event: “Eve is such a positive person, talented in not only the bassoon but also dancing and acting. During our lessons I would always ask her, ‘How would you sing that? Act that passage out,’ to look for the drama in the music. I wish I could say Eve grew so much as a musician these past four years but she was already mature beyond her age and just ripened.” 

Both Olivier and her voice teacher Kathryne Jennings, prior to “act two” of the concert reflected on how it was such a delight to work with La Puma because of her warmth, strong work-ethic and enthusiasm for performing with, mentoring and creating welcoming spaces for others. I could not help but think back to last spring when I went into the MemAud pit for “The Addams Family” opening night and found paper mache black roses on every music stand wishing every member of the 15-piece band plus the cast and staff “an unhappy opening.” La Puma during her time at Stanford cultivated the warm and fierce agape, a term which Ancient Greeks used to describe the kind of familial, friendly love that binds communities — whether hereditary or chosen  —  together. As a TAPS major and music minor, La Puma also very much embodies the Ancient Greek notion of mousike, which unlike the English term “music” encompasses instrumental music, vocal song and dance. Though La Puma’s virtual recital was incredibly noteworthy in itself, I followed up with her afterward over Zoom to discuss her artistic journey within and without Stanford.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. 

The Stanford Daily (TSD): When did you first start music lessons? Is it something you’ve done for all your life? Why music and theater? Why pursue these things at Stanford? 

Eve La Puma (ELP): Music has always been part of my life. My mom is a composer for musical theater, so, ever since I was a baby, she’d take me along to her rehearsals. She would bring a full backpack of coloring books for me, and I often would play with my sisters in the aisles of the theater. One day I saw a harpist play at church and thought “that instrument looks really cool” but knew it was good to learn piano first so I could then transition over. I started taking piano lessons in first grade and never ended up going over to the harp. In fourth grade, my mom encouraged me to choose an instrument for the school music program that a lot of other people wouldn’t want to play, so I picked the oboe. My school wasn’t going to let me play the oboe, however, because they thought it too advanced particularly since the teachers in the program only were trained in flute, clarinet [and] sax, not double reeds. But I ended up taking oboe lessons the entire summer and joined the class as an oboist. And in seventh grade, I wanted to join the most advanced ensemble at my middle school, but they already had two oboes going into eighth grade. The orchestra conductor was like, “Well if you want to play with us, you’ll have to switch to an instrument we don’t already have.” 

My mom was the one who suggested the bassoon because she had played it a little bit in high school and for one show in college and thought it might be really cool for me to pick it up. I went to high school at Orange County High School for the Arts (OCSA) and studied the bassoon through the instrumental music program, where it eventually became my primary instrument. [In high school], I definitely knew I wanted to pursue the Humanities and the Arts in some way. In my Stanford application I put that I was interested in majoring in English, theater or music. English kind of dropped off the grid, but I needed a little time to take a break from the intense instrumental music education I had in high school. So I ended up focusing on theater and declared a theater major by the end of freshman year, though I continued playing in orchestra and joined the wind quartet.

I then pursued a certificate of music in bassoon performance until this year when they [Stanford] changed the music minor. I found out I already had a music minor under their new rules, so I ended up declaring a music minor, which is nice because now it will be a more official thing. The certificate of music is an audition-based program, and you have to do a recital by the end of senior year. One of the pros of the certificate of music is that it forces you to put in the effort of doing a recital which you might not find the time for otherwise but I wanted to do one regardless. The music minor is great in getting tons of new students involved with the music department. I have so many friends who realized they accidentally have a music minor or just need one more class, which is fantastic, because it shows how many are engaging with the arts even if it’s not their main degree at Stanford. 

TSD: How would you say doing ITALIC your freshman year impacted your sense of what you wanted to do with the performing arts at Stanford? 

ELP: ITALIC is one of those programs that I understood how much of an impact it had on me after I left it. For my entire life I had been funneled through music and theater practice, so I didn’t have a lot of experience with visual art, photography or other art forms. ITALIC was really great because it exposed me to those and gave me a framework for having a conversation about them. One of the things I really appreciated about that program is that it brings together people who have spent significant time in those art practices as well as people who just have an appreciation for them and don’t necessarily make that art themselves because I think bridging the gap between consumers of the art and creators of the art led to some really interesting conversations during that year. Tons of ITALIC people are still friends, and we have a group that has been getting together to play Toontown during quarantine. I loved ITALIC because of the conversations we had and it just made it so easy to go out and engage with the things we were talking about in the real world. I took so much of it for granted, how they would arrange transportation to take us to the opera and pay for it. And now I’m realizing, “Wow, that is incredible that we got to be a part of it.” I highly recommend it. 

TSD: What did you originally plan on doing for your TAPS capstone project and how did the pandemic change that? 

ELP: Yeah, my TAPS capstone had kind of a wild journey. I had originally planned on doing “Fun Home” at the beginning of this year with a couple of other friends and do sort of a joint-capstone like “Next to Normal.” We had everyone we needed, TAPS was like, “This is great!” but then we were denied rights to the show. So then we were like, “Okay, let’s find something else.” We briefly considered “Spelling Bee” and then wanted to do “Heathers” in winter quarter. We got midway through fall quarter and my voice teacher noted that “You haven’t started casting and you don’t have a lot of the positions filled.” The show would have gone up Week 7 this year but because of Gaieties, Brenna [McCulloch ’20] and I wouldn’t be able to get involved until Week 1 winter quarter, which we realized would be insane. Brenna and I signed on to do “Midsummer’s Nights Dream, and we got cast as Helena and Hermia, which was gonna be super fun but then COVID hit, and the show had to be canceled. Brenna made Gaieties her capstone retroactively and I did the recital since voice and bassoon was already what I was going to be working anyway. I view myself as an actor-musician so it felt right to me to have my capstone be something where I got to showcase both of those skills. 

TSD: Do you want to reflect briefly on the music and theater productions you did at Stanford? 

ELP: Yeah, let me just look at my resume just to make sure I have all of them. Here we go! Freshman fall I started off with “The Merchant of Venice” with [wit], a gender-conscious theater company which sadly was crowded about by the sheer amount of theater that happens on campus. But for the first couple years at Stanford they were the ones who I felt the most community with. So I played Antonio in the “Merchant of Venice.” I have a lot of love for that production. We tried to do some really interesting things with a story that is very problematic and hard to tell. I met some of my best friends on that show. And then I was in a TAPS Department show “Disillusion,” which started as a staged reading written by Clay Slang ’18 but ended up becoming a full production in Prosser. I was in the “Wild Party ensemble that spring in my first Rams Head production. The next fall I did “Hamlet” with [wit], and I got to play Polonius, one of my favorite roles at Stanford. 

I actually auditioned for “Chicago” with Rams Head and hadn’t gotten cast so I was in this little rut where I was like, “Can I even do musical theater?” You know, having a little crisis. A week after Chicago auditions, however, I auditioned for TAPS’ “Next to Normal” and the only role that was left open was Dr. Fine and Dr. Madden. I thought “they are not going to cast me because it is traditionally a male role” but after I auditioned the director said, “Great, let’s make it a female role!” And since I’m a contralto, we didn’t have to change the key signature for any of the songs. I did “Dr. Voynich and her children” with [wit] that spring where I played a character named Hannah. I did “A Little Night Music” through the music department and co-produced “Stop Kiss” with [wit] winter quarter and “Addams Family” spring quarter. I actually had not planned on auditioning for “Addams Family” until mid-way through fall quarter because I was like, “You know I didn’t get into “Chicago,” I think I’ll devote all my energy to [wit] this year,” but my friends encouraged me to audition and I was like, “You know why not? It would be fun to do another musical,” and I’m so glad that I did. I also stage-managed the stand-up comedy show “Lighten Up” for my TAPS stage management project at the end of junior year, which was really fun. Music-wise I played with the Stanford Wind Quartet for 2 ½ years — from the end of freshman year through this fall — and was in SSO my freshman year. 

TSD: When did you start planning your capstone in the form that it took as a Youtube livestream? 

ELP: I first started talking about doing a senior recital with Kathryne and Rufus last year as I always knew  I would love to do a half-bassoon, half-voice recital. I have taken bassoon every single quarter since starting at Stanford and voice every quarter since sophomore year. When we knew that we weren’t going to be coming back and that it wouldn’t be possible to do it in person, I had already been working on this [recital] and getting excited about it for so long. But I knew I could call on my family to “Please accompany me!” and they would leap up and help me so there was never a question of whether I would do the recital. As time went on, my family just kept practicing together and we were like, “What if we had Cece play the cello?” What if we had mom play the harpsichord? And the electric piano? Why not?” We’re a very “yes and…” family which made it really exciting. I toyed with the idea of making it live but I got really nervous about WiFi being a problem. And after watching the Worker’s Benefit Cabaret, I realized I really liked how they did the premiere. It was pre-recorded but you’re watching it with people so you keep the communal sense of being in this musical space together. I texted Kaitlyn [Khayat ’21] and Vincent [Nicandro ’20] so many questions — “How do you set this up? How does Youtube work?” — and they were extremely helpful.

TSD: How did you choose your musical theater songs? Had you performed any of those classical pieces before or did you intentionally try to learn any new repertoire for the recital? 

ELP: It was a mix. For “Just Around the Corner,” I thought it would be fun to do a throwback to that show because that was my favorite performing experience as an actor on this campus. There were a couple songs on the program that I had worked on early on with Kathryne in lessons: “Pretty Funny” and “You Can Always Count on Me.” “Pretty Funny” I had a lot of trouble with the first time I performed it. I get really nervous about using both my mix and my head-voice because I’m just so comfortable in the lower, chesty part of my voice. So I wanted to do it again after three years of voice lessons to see how it felt different and easier to do now. And it definitely did, which was very gratifying. “Poor Unfortunate Souls” and “Losing My Mind” I had been working on this year in voice lessons and I felt really great about them and thought it would be fun to throw them into the mix. 

TSD: What’s the story behind your original composition “The Bassoon Song”?  

ELP: I had worked on Goldrich and Heisler’s “Alto’s Lament” in voice lessons before, a hilarious song about how this girl wants to sing the melody-line but always got cast in alto roles. In the middle of the song there’s this breakout moment where she sings a bunch of famous musical theater songs but just the alto line. So it’s like, [Eve breaks out in song]: “the hills are alive with the song of music!” and it’s just so funny. My mom and I got inspired by that and I was like, “What if I did something like that with the bassoon?” I originally planned on making fun of the bassoon the whole time but people make fun of the bassoon all the time. Let’s make fun of the bassoon a little bit but also make it a positive thing, express “look how great the bassoon is!” and “here’s some melodies that you might recognize [such as Peter and the Wolf, Rite of Spring and Fantasia].” I sent lyrics to my mom by the end of fall quarter, three stanzas of complete lyrics plus a bunch of random notes and bassoon jokes about “the spit” or “the stand-up comics.” My mom is a really great composer because she takes the ideas and words the lyricist puts in front of her and crafts them to fit the music she is thinking of and I led her to take the lead. We have discussed doing a nicer recording in the recording studio. I could fix that high D that didn’t want to speak when I debuted the song at my recital. 

TSD: How would you say your bassoon studies inform your theater and dance practice? 

ELP: Strong musical training is helpful with dance just because I can use the rhythm of this is where the down beat, the music is. Music sticks in my brain really easily, better than anything else, so I would associate the dance move with the music that plays with it to help with memorization. I’ve taken a couple dance classes at Stanford, some social dance, which has been really fun because I never worked on that before. Partner dance is challenging in a whole different way. I took “Social Dance” last winter quarter which was also when we were learning the majority of “Addams” so it was the same thing — I was learning how to be a better partner in class and using that to practice with Rio [Padilla-Smith ’19] on the side. I think the times [my music brain] got me in trouble was when in social dance classes I was like, “This is the down beat! This is when we do the move.” But some partners don’t have the musical background so the music is there but they are not really keeping in time with it. It was a great experience to learn how to let go [and] say, “Okay I am doing the follow-position, I’m going to follow you.” It was actually much more fun to let go of that metronomic part of my mind and lean into the moves together in our own time. 

TSD: How did rehearsing for your recital in quarantine give your music new meaning? Did you consider audience reception of your particular song choices? 

ELP: Definitely for “Just Around the Corner.” I talked to Kathryne, asking “is this too morbid?” but we decided that people would associate it with a role I played and I put in a little disclaimer before the song that “I wanted to do this song because I have really fond memories of performing it last spring.”  “Just Around the Corner” was also weird to do at my recital because I was so used to doing it with a full orchestra and ensemble. I felt more pressure to fill in some of the silences that would normally be filled by other stuff. There is the inherent joy of “I’m performing with my mom and I know this song super well which I know so well” though and  I was really happy to call back on the muscle memory to perform with just piano and make it its own thing. One song that ended up resonating with me in a really interesting way that I didn’t expect was “Losing My Mind” because of some of the lyrics. I started thinking about Stanford and having the end of my Stanford experience be off-campus and separate from this entity. Even if it’s not another person, it’s like “I think about you/the coffee cup/I think about you.” That’s how I go through my days: Whatever I’m doing, I’m thinking about Stanford in the back of my head. That helped me approach the song but made performing it a lot more emotional versus other songs that were just lots of fun to perform. 

TSD: To what extent do you think your audience was different than if you had a traditional senior recital back on campus? 

ELP: One nice thing about recording ahead of time was that we were able to have the comments section up while we were watching the video. It made me so happy to see what people were saying on the side, the jokes like, “Don’t applaud between movements.” It helped with that community feel and it was so lovely to see what people were saying. A lot of my Stanford musical theater friends were there as well as a lot of family members who live in Mexico and they sent me a message the day after, “We watched your recital, it was really great.” Many of them would’ve never seen it otherwise because it would be a lot for them to travel up to Northern California. The Zoom reception gradually dwindled down to just my family members and teachers talking, the people who have seen me grow up and encouraged me to pursue music plus my professors who have gotten to be such a significant part of my life. In some ways, it had a larger audience and a larger audience of people really important to me and I think that’s definitely a positive thing to come out of having to do it online. 

TSD: What is your favorite role that you played in a Stanford show?

ELP: Morticia. It’s fun to be a character that’s adored by all the other characters and feel graceful. I think also that the rehearsal staff on that show was just so good. It was fun to be in rehearsal and to stay after rehearsal with other cast members just working “cause we didn’t want to go home.” I love musicals because they challenge me — I get a lot of stage fright about singing — so I felt like it was a real moment of growth for me to do that role and also such a delight to get to play it. The most challenging number was “Secrets” because it goes up into this really high belt and I couldn’t figure out how to place that for a while, which was something I worked on with Camilla Hayashi ’19. “Tango [de Amor]” was a close second cause I never tangoed before and there were a lot of new skills I had to pick up — and in those [stiletto] shoes. One show I had been walking around and I was like, “Kaitlyn, these feel super wobbly, I’m really worried about doing the tango tonight.” She came backstage during Intermission and filed down the ends of my shoes. It was great. Rio, Kaitlyn, everyone was there, being like “alright Eve, you and your shoes will get through the Tango.” 

TSD: Given your strong vocal and orchestral background, did you ever music-direct any shows at Stanford? Who is your favorite music or vocal director you worked with on a show and why? 

ELP: I actually applied for music director or vocal director for Gaieties this year because I was worried about having my evenings full during the week as a Donner RA [resident assistant]. I knew that my skills and experience served me better as a vocal director, however, and I was delighted that was what I ended up doing. I was surprised how much I enjoyed being a teacher to the point where I can see myself crafting an artistic career where vocal directing is very much a part of that. The hardest song to rehearse was “Be Okay” because there were so many harmony parts. Trenton Chang ’20 and Liam Fay ’22 wrote some great harmonies in that show, but training my ear to hear eight different lines and who was off-key was really difficult. My favorite song was “Sandstone Walls” because it was just gorgeous and I loved working with the leads and getting into the nitty-gritty of placement and vowel shape — stuff you don’t  have time for in larger groups. My experience in conducting is mostly through the 9 p.m. Catholic mass, and we occasionally have musicians. So I have conducted both musicians and singers at the same time but certainly not to the level of a full orchestra. One of my absolute favorite music directors that I worked with was Chris Yoon ’19 for SLoCo’s “Phantom of the Opera.” He’s so intentional about the music and knows exactly what he wants and is good at drawing that out of his musicians in a way that is both time-efficient and very kind. 

TSD: What are your next steps you hope to take with making music and theater beyond Stanford? 

ELP: It’s kind of a terrifying time for going into an arts field. I had been planning to just start auditioning for things once I had left school and I had a summer internship working for a theater company in New York but they ended up having to cancel that. It was very sad. Right now, the plan is still to go into the arts. For now, the next year or so I’m gonna have to be doing some internship somewhere probably in a not-arts related field. I want to use the extra time to pick up some other instruments that might be more useful for doubling in pit orchestras. I want to learn some flute, clarinet, saxophone so I can play some more reed books. Musical theater reed books are written for people that play saxophone, bassoon, bass clarinet and stuff like that but right now I only have oboe and bassoon and they usually don’t put those two together in the orchestration. Yeah, I don’t really know what the future will hold but my hope is to someday go to grad school for musical theater and get more specific training in the field. It’s sort of wide open, which is both exhilarating and terrifying. 

Contact Natalie Francis at natfran ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Voices of Canceled Stanford Shows: Producing a concert at the end of the world https://stanforddaily.com/2020/05/08/voices-of-canceled-stanford-shows-producing-a-concert-at-the-end-of-the-world/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/05/08/voices-of-canceled-stanford-shows-producing-a-concert-at-the-end-of-the-world/#respond Fri, 08 May 2020 07:39:21 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1167505 At the time, I had no idea that it would be the last concert I would be able to attend for the foreseeable future, or that I would become so nostalgic for that act of gathering in a large group of friends and strangers.

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On the evening of March 4 in the middle of Week 9, around 100 students gathered at Kairos for an event I had been planning all winter quarter. ‘Indie Nights: An Evening with The Grinns’ was the first show I was able to produce through Stanford Concert Network (SCN). At the time, I had no idea that it would be the last concert I would be able to attend for the foreseeable future, or that I would become so nostalgic for that act of gathering in a large group of friends and strangers. Despite my planning months in advance, the show almost fell apart in the few days leading up to it, between the University’s COVID-19 response and last-minute set changes — a producer’s worst logistical nightmare. Looking back on the experience, I know that the night only was a success thanks to all the help offered by my hardworking, passionate peers in SCN.

Deceptively smooth sailing

SCN has given me the opportunity to create the kind of invigorating, intensely personal music experiences I have always relished as a concert-goer. Before I could even stand up and dance, my parents took me to concerts in a stroller. From small outdoor Bluegrass shows viewed from lawn chairs during hot Georgia summers, to local indie bands playing in grimy bars in Cincinnati, live music has always been in the air I breathe.

At Admit Weekend, I discovered SCN — an entire organization dedicated to organizing, promoting and attending concerts on campus. They had brought an impressive roster of acts to campus across a variety of genres, from Fetty Wap and Post Malone to MGMT and Glass Animals. I decided right then that this group would be a priority for me.

After a year of being mentored by the club’s directors and producers and getting as involved as I could be as a first-year member, I was lucky enough to be elected a producer for the 2019-20 school year. This meant that I was allotted my own slice of the club’s budget and free rein to organize one to two on-campus shows throughout the school year. Of course, all this was to be done under the watchful and necessary guidance of the club’s directors and seasoned producers, for I personally knew almost nothing about all the steps involved in making these things happen.

After going through producer training and researching local indie bands in fall quarter, I reached out to my top two artists over winter break — The Grinns, an indie surf rock five-piece band from Orange County, and High Sunn, a bedroom pop group from San Mateo, led by prolific young songwriter Justin Cheromiah. Both bands agreed to play my show, so I was able to book an exciting double-headliner. My friend and favorite student musician Jacob Eisenach ’22 agreed to open the show with his band eisenach, which I knew would draw a crowd of his student friends and fans, even on a Wednesday night in Week 9.

Many long email chains later, I had the venue reserved and the acts officially booked, and it was only the end of January. It felt like the hardest part was done. February consisted of making sure I would have all the people I needed the day of the show, for things like lighting, tech, hospitality and photography. As the date of the show approached two weeks out, I tapped into the social media influence of SCN members to market the event to the general student body. Enough of my friends assured me they would come that I slowly gained confidence that there would be a crowd, and the show wouldn’t flop.

A week before the show, everything was in place — or so I thought. I knew that various unexpected problems would arise in planning any show, but with the coronavirus pandemic on the horizon, this show ended up throwing me more curveballs than I ever imagined possible.

A series of crises averted

Monday, March 2, two days before the show

As I was checking my morning email, I received a message from Justin of High Sunn, informing me that he sadly would not be able to make his set due to a pressing family emergency. I was very dismayed that I wouldn’t be able to have such a talented and young Bay Area artist at my show, who I had really been looking forward to seeing live, but family absolutely comes first. I could bring High Sunn to campus hopefully at a later date. It seemed like dumb luck at this point that I had booked two headliners, when most shows of this size only have one. The Grinns with eisenach opening would still make a great set, and I did not have to scramble to replace a headliner in two days or cancel the show. Sad news, but not crisis-inducing.

Tuesday, March 3, the day before the show

I received the first of what would become a continuous stream of stress-inducing emails from the University concerning COVID-19, which we are all too familiar with now. It announced that all gatherings of 150 or more people on campus were banned, effective the next day, March 4. The day of my show! This put me in a panic — I wracked my brain for the official capacity of Kairos we had stated in the contract, which I believe was 150 people exactly. Would the show be canceled? Even if it happened, would anyone come now in light of this news?

Later that evening at our club meeting, the directors informed me they had gotten official approval from the administration for my show at Kairos to go on, though they had to make the sad announcement that Loveapalooza with Jean Deaux that Saturday was canceled. Crisis averted, barely.

Wednesday, March 4, the day of the show

The directors told me to clear my schedule, as I would need to be on call all day for anything that might come up. I thought this was surely an exaggeration. It was not.

I woke up to a text from my student opener Eisenach, telling me that he had come down with an illness and likely would not be well enough to perform his set by the evening. 

This was crushing news — Eisenach’s live sets are always an absolute blast, and I knew many people were planning on attending the show to see him specifically. If Murphy’s Law needed more proof, here it was. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for a day of frantic, relentless texts and phone calls. 

Fortunately, SCN as a club is very well connected to the student musicians on campus. The directors pulled some strings, and before 2 p.m., we had not one but two acts accept our offer to perform a short opening set for The Grinns — Marco Zocco ’21 from student rock band Margin of Error, and Mike Mulshine, a grad student solo artist. 

I was relieved that we would still have legitimate student openers for the show, but I already felt like the show had changed so much from what I had envisioned that it hardly felt like my own anymore. Only one out of three bands that I thought would play just days ago would be there now.

This was only the beginning of many obstacles we faced in pulling the event together that day, from endless technical difficulties to scheduling conflicts with students working the show, and it is truly only through the resourcefulness and tenacity of my fellow students in SCN that we were able to get things in order, so that the artists could play their sets and the crowd could have a great time.

I was overcome by a strange realization as we were scrambling to put everything together in the last couple hours before the show: All of these people who I was “in charge of” each knew way more about what was going on than I did. As the leader, really my whole job was to make sure everyone showed up and to know who to direct each question and concern to. When it came to managing any specific aspect of the show, like tech or hospitality, I was just learning on the fly, and I had to fully trust the people I had on those jobs. But standing as I was with a birds-eye view, it was amazing to see how everyone came through and made each piece of the show function.

Bella Cooper ’20, one of SCN’s fearless leaders and a director for two years now, despite her busy schedule the week of my show, gave me perhaps the most crucial advice of the whole night, advice that I kept running through my head over and over the day of, when it felt like everything was going wrong. She told me that things will go wrong, and that there will be unexpected problems day-of. Yet ultimately, no matter what, someone is going to get up on stage and play music, and people are going to show up and have a good time listening. And of course, she was right.

The big night

Our soundcheck ran late, and we had awkward pauses for technical difficulties, but once the music really got going, none of that seemed to matter to anybody. Marco Zocco was the first one on stage: jeans, a black T-shirt, shaggy hair and an acoustic guitar. I was hearing his music for the first time like everyone else there, and to my relief, he was a powerful stage presence and an absolute crowd pleaser with a rich, crooning voice. Mike Mulshine followed, a charismatic one-man show who rapped deftly over jazzy piano beats that filled the room with wholesome vibes. These two new opening acts brought their own unique sounds to the table, all while energizing the crowd in anticipation of The Grinns’ set.

All the while, friends and strangers were trickling into Kairos. Some were there because I coerced them to be, some were there as fans of The Grinn’s or the opening acts, and some were there just there to enjoy the last Wine & Cheese Night of the quarter. But as I continually scanned the crowd of smiling faces, a strange magical feeling filled my heart, that mix of joy approaching overstimulation you feel when you bring your friends from different social circles all together in one place. All the stress and all the hours we had put into this show were instantly worth it when I got to see all these people having a good time together, and to feel like I had a small part in infusing their lives with those little moments of joy that we all live on.

When The Grinns finally took the stage and we got the tech adjusted to their impressive five-piece setup, the crowd went crazy. When you bring a real professional band to play a college house party, people aren’t expecting it. The Grinns’ massive sound commanded the crowd’s attention and the compulsive dancing began, only to increase its fervor with each song. 

The Grinns played an amazing set of hits from their two albums “Golden Hour” (2018) and “Let the Daze Go” (2019). I was delighted to find that they are a group that shines at their best live — songs which were enjoyable as recordings became sublime when their sound filled the Kairos common room. The Grinns’ interspersed their originals with familiar covers adored by the crowd such as the Beatles’ “White Album”’s fun and folky “Rocky Racoon,” indie band staple “Valerie,” The Kink’s head-banger “All Day and All of the Night,” and a crowd-demanded encore of Frank Ocean’s “Sweet Life.” Lead singer Joey Kolk’s uniquely powerful voice was a highlight of the original songs and impeccably executed covers alike. I was dancing as hard as anyone in the room when they played their irresistibly danceable single “Why Do You Lie,” which was the song that first made me fall in love with them.

Even after The Grinns had finished and were packing away their equipment, people lingered in the space, taking in the vibes, chatting up the band members. I was practically glowing as I bounced around the room between each of my friends who had come in throughout the show, thanking them for their presence. As the room emptied out, I had no idea that I wouldn’t see most of those people again until next school year, if ever. I had no idea that this night had barely slipped through the cracks of a global crisis which would isolate us all for at least many months to come.

Life in a world without concerts

Even though so many adjustments had to be made from my original plan, and even though it was far from a technically perfect evening, I was truly thrilled with all the sets that were played and with all the people who came through, to unknowingly celebrate the transition from what now feels like one era of our lives to an entirely different one.

The following week, classes were moved fully online to finish out winter quarter, and the SCN directors announced that all of our events, not just for the rest of winter, but for the entire spring quarter as well, were canceled. As any Stanford student would know, spring is widely considered the most fun time to be on campus, partially because of the warm weather, and partially because for some reason, the warm weather makes people realize they should maybe not take 22 units and instead enjoy their lives a little. Accordingly, spring is always the best quarter for concerts, and SCN already had 10 events in the works. This included the 2020 Frost Music Festival, this year with headliners Mac DeMarco and The Marias. As one of the club’s vocal indie fans, it was especially heart-breaking not to see this amazing show pan out. The world had changed so much and so rapidly in one week, for me and for all students, that this news didn’t surprise me at all, nor did the announcement another week later that spring quarter would be entirely online for the duration of the quarter.

Going to a concert today sounds like a fantasy, the complete antithesis to everything we are supposed to be doing to protect ourselves from COVID-19 today. When I think back to shows I’ve been to at crowded music festivals or huge venues, these are events where thousands of people not only crowd together, but the typical rules of personal space tend to fully disintegrate. In the impossibly dense crowds you find in the pit, it’s entirely normal to be pressed up against people you’ve never met, to have their sweat and their breath in your face. It’s this very strange closeness, this pure collectivity which is hard to come by in daily life, but which many people find so nourishing to the spirit.

For those of us who love going to concerts, it’s hard having lost that part of our lives in this moment, but for the people who make their living organizing and promoting these events, as well as the musicians who perform them, the situation is genuinely dire, and they need our support. Many small artists are posting their personal Venmos and Patreon accounts to their social media during this time, and donating to these is certainly the most effective way to make sure your money goes directly to the musicians you love and not to large companies. Click here or here for articles that list lots of other ways you can support musicians and music-industry workers through this pandemic. 

Whenever it is safe for us all to gather close together again and let our bodies be moved by sounds, I know we will do it with more joy and more gratitude than we ever have. And whenever we are back on campus, you can be certain that SCN will be throwing its most exciting events ever, for all of us to reconnect with each other and with the music that binds us.

When the time comes, I hope I’ll see you all in the pit.

Acknowledgements: I want to thank Bella Cooper for always answering my endless questions, knowing what to do, and providing so many words of encouragement and inspiration; Dante Zakhidov for training me in producing, for always making me stay on top of things, and for being there the day of my show to help me navigate the challenges; Cooper Reed and Ricky Young for working through an extremely difficult tech set up; Federico Reyes for helping me quickly find a replacement opener; Mira Guleri for taking care of hospitality; Matt Simon for creating an amazing professional light set-up; Chloe Peterson-Nafziger and Maya Shetty for taking beautiful photos; and everyone in SCN for being amazing friends that put in so much work to foster the live music scene on our campus and to create so many meaningful experiences for its students. I cannot wait to be back on campus with you guys soon.

Contact Carly Taylor at carly505 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Voices of Canceled Stanford Shows: Sarah Mergen ’19 on adapting Shakespeare and directing ‘HAL’ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/05/01/voices-of-canceled-stanford-shows-sarah-mergen-19-on-adapting-shakespeare-and-directing-hal/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/05/01/voices-of-canceled-stanford-shows-sarah-mergen-19-on-adapting-shakespeare-and-directing-hal/#respond Fri, 01 May 2020 07:05:08 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1167119 Sarah Mergen ‘19 is/was the director and playwright of TheaterLab’s “HAL" (2020). Adapted from Shakespeare’s “Henry IV Parts One & Two,” the futuristic multimedia show would have graced campus last Thursday through Saturday with the misadventures of the timeless rogue Falstaff and his royal mentee Hal.

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Sarah Mergen ’19 is/was the director and playwright of TheaterLab’s “HAL” (2020). Adapted from Shakespeare’s “Henry IV Parts One & Two,” the futuristic multimedia show would have graced campus last Thursday through Saturday with the misadventures of the timeless rogue Falstaff and his royal mentee Hal. Like many Stanford performing-arts groups, Mergen and her company of 10-something actors and a dozen or so staff canceled their show in March due to rapid shifts in University COVID-19 policies. Given the buzz around Mergen’s highly creative, modern take on the “Henry IV” history plays, I spoke with her over Zoom about the creation and truncated production process for “HAL.” 

For Mergen, the works of William Shakespeare have profoundly shaped who she is today as a theater-maker and storyteller. Mergen grew up in a rural community where arts education was not readily available — for the first 10 years of her life, she had minimal exposure to theater. In middle school, however, when she got involved with a summer production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” through Murphys Creek Theater’s Mirror Project, Mergen was hooked. 

“Theater gave me a sense of community I never had before,” Mergen said. “I picked up on the Shakespearean language and memorization really quickly. I did ‘the theater thing’ subsequently for three summers.”

The Mirror Project staged separate “kids” and “professional” shows, and during her third summer, Mergen was fatefully asked to step in for the adult cast as Prospero in the professional production of “The Tempest.” 

Mergen said the incredible experience of playing Prospero cemented her love for acting and desire to seriously pursue theater in college: “I wanted to study acting at Stanford. Upon arriving here, though, I realized I didn’t quite have what it took. My true strengths lie in the storytelling and directorial aspects of theater, in taking a story that is already there and figuring out what works or not, as well as their relevance to today.” 

Mergen told The Daily she is interested in working with Shakespeare in ways that normally are not done.

“Sometimes Shakespeare is a little too removed from what exists today,” she said, adding, “Uncopyrighted material gives [theater-makers] a wonderful opportunity to play with larger archetypal narratives that already exist.” 

As an undergrad, Mergen directed Theater Lab’s “Go Ask Alice” (2016) and the Stanford Shakespeare Company’s (StanShakes) 2018 production of “Pericles.” The former production was a stage adaptation of Beatrice Sparks’s bestseller of the same name, which reimagined the book’s contents as a three-hour monologue split between nine actresses. StanShakes’s “Pericles,” in contrast, marked Mergen’s directorial debut both with a full-length play and Shakespeare. Similar to her experience playing Prospero as a teenager, the thrill of directing a Shakespeare show performed for a sold-out audience all three nights of its run made Mergen want to direct another show immediately after. Mergen made only a few narrative tweaks and revisions to Pericles and knew she wanted to “take Shakespeare much farther,” which she certainly would have accomplished with “HAL.”

Mergen told The Daily how her desire to work with Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” plays through “HAL” stemmed from her experience watching the Canadian Stratford Festival’s “Breath of Kings: Rebellion & Redemption” (2016). The production merged Shakespeare’s history plays “Richard II,” “Henry IV Parts One and Two” and “Henry V” into a four-hour show, split in two halves. Mergen notes how the show was not only “one of the best shows I’ve ever seen in my whole life,” but, more importantly, introduced her to Falstaff and his unique dynamic with the young crown prince Henry V, or Hal.

Shakespeare’s Falstaff is the archetypal rogue who flouts society’s expectations. As one of the Bard’s best-written characters, Falstaff offers the audience a sort of wish fulfillment with the caveat that, as the rogue, he must always be punished in the end. Mergen’s “HAL” takes as its jumping-off point the inevitability of Hal rejecting Falstaff as their mentor figure to accept their kingship. Mergen told The Daily how she felt particularly drawn to the Hal-Falstaff relationship because, for her, it raises questions of what it means to “realize one’s potential” relevant to the lives of Stanford students expected to “go out and do amazing things and be successful.” Through “HAL,” Mergen wanted to challenge whether Hal’s choice to reject Falstaff in the end is actually a good one, and if there is fulfillment outside of our modern capitalist society’s definition of potential. 

When The Daily asked Mergen to give an elevator pitch for her play, she described “HAL” as being set in the near future and centered around the two separate worlds of the Bolingbroke mega-corporation “ruled” by Henry IV and Falstaff’s underground club. Mergen initially wanted her show to be set specifically in the Berlin techno-nightclub scene, but during her year-long adaptation process decided to make it more general. A “really big” part of her directorial vision was using an alleyway stage set-up with video screens on two sides. 

“I wanted to push notions of how Shakespeare can be performed,” Mergen said. “People make a lot of assumptions about what Shakespeare can look and feel like. So I wanted my production to have an SF MOMA art-room aesthetic.”

When asked why she wanted to incorporate film into the aesthetic of her show, Mergen explained that she wanted to give her actors something to take away from the show, noting “undergraduate opportunities to participate in filmed shows are rare.” Mergen also remarked that certain elements of her directorial vision could not be realized without film. Almost all the 15th-century England battle scenes were cut because Mergen reimagined the war as a corporate scandal between Julianna Yonis 21’s Hotspur and Henry’s companies involving leaked news of corrupt management and failure to pay workers. By having the theater space exclusively populated by actors, with sets and props exchanged for urban backdrops and newsreels projected onto video screens, Mergen could focus attention on the character relationships developing onstage. 

Building character is emblematic of Mergen’s artistic process as both the director and self-proclaimed “script adaptor” of “HAL.” Mergen cites Orson Welles’s “Chimes At Midnight” (1965) movie adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” — in which Welles performs extensive character work with Falstaff — as one of her primary inspirations for her project. Mergen first developed her show concept last March in conjunction with Gracie Goheen ’20 and last April and May pitched it to Stanford Honors in the Arts and Theater Lab, respectively. When “HAL” was approved by Theater Lab, Mergen spent all summer working on the story through a creative process involving listening to music and re-reading her script multiple times to get a feel for all possible story arcs, for what scenes she wanted to keep in the show. During fall quarter, she generated various narrative outlines with post-it notes, revising the script in earnest from December through the start of cast and staff solicitation Weeks 4 and 5 of winter quarter. 

The most notable deviations from Shakespeare’s canonical “Henry IV” in Mergen’s “HAL” are not just the gender-swaps — Hal, Henry IV and Hotspur are all gendered female — but also the added complication of a romantic relationship between Hal (Paloma Aisenberg ’22) and Falstaff (David Mazouz ’23). While minimal romantic intrigue in original renditions of “Henry IV” may be reason enough to introduce new relationships, Mergen wanted to develop a Hal-Falstaff pairing for far more nuanced reasons that tie into her production’s core questions around personal potential. The Daily learned that Mergen wanted “HAL” to explore why “the rogue” is always a man, and how as a result, women historically have been able to “access the rogue” only through pursuing a romantic relationship with them — instead of obtaining that life for themselves. Mergen referred to Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swan in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise as a pop-culture example of this dynamic. While Hal’s consorting with the club-owning DJ Falstaff creates narrative tension with her conventionally successful business tycoon mom Henry IV, Hal is humbled when mom is diagnosed with cancer and publicly denounces Falstaff in the play’s finale — this time at a big corporate meeting surrounded by business executives. 

“The production ends on that note — of Hal realizing she cannot have the fulfilling life she imagined with Falstaff, and choosing instead to take on the responsibility of managing her family’s company,” Mergen explained. “The final scene had a big musical montage of what happens to Hal trying to prove to the world that she can take on the Bolingbroke company and all its responsibilities as a 25-year-old. Unfortunately, Hal does not find herself happy in the corporate business world.” 

Mergen elaborated on how “HAL” as an adaptation of a historically political theater responds to our current cultural and political moment: “The rapid momentum that our society has and by which it tells us what we need to do to be happy and successful is all within a capitalist framework. ‘HAL’ is a challenge to ‘the productivity cult’ that tells us that we have to be this one thing and the repercussions this mentality has on the mental health of young adults like Stanford students and their quality of life after Stanford. Political performance pieces should engage with politics in the place and time where things are going up. ‘HAL’ is immediately relevant to the struggles Stanford students face with realizing their potential.” 

Mergen also reflected on how she explored “a lot” with her character work with Evie Johnson ’21’s Henry IV billionaire CEO.

“Henry is sold the narrative that if she succeeds in a capitalist framework, she is empowered,” Mergen said. “But behind the optics of being a powerful feminist icon she is completely miserable. … In ‘HAL’ there was a scene in which Henry destroys a copy of Sheryl Sandberg’s book ‘Lean In,’ and I think this breakdown scene would have made a huge impact on the audience.”

Mergen’s jovial demeanor sobered when The Daily asked her to share how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the “HAL” company and describe her thoughts on the abbreviated production.

“We had a cast of 10 or so people,” she said. “Though auditions went really well, the tech hiring process did not go super smoothly. We struggled to find a sound designer and our costume designer dropped midway, but our production manager, Kerstin Heinrich ’20, covered many of the technical jobs. But as of Week Seven, we had two major videographers involved and ‘everything was pat.’ The rehearsal room is where things work best, where I have the most confidence and experience. My assistant director, Parth Garg ’23, was logging upwards of 25 hours because blocking is surprisingly difficult, and it was my first time mentoring, but also because he took on assistant producer responsibilities.” 

Mergen took a breath: “Everything was going fine — until it wasn’t. I first heard rumors about the 150-person ban in my directing and production management class. We had this one actress who was also in [Rams Head Theatrical Society’s] ‘Pippin,’ so when they cancelled rehearsals around Week 8, I was excited to suddenly have her free. We were all joking around — ‘oh, the show is going to get canceled’ — and boom, spring quarter is online. At that point, Stanford did not specify when students could come back. It’s such a bummer because if they have given us more time or a better notice of what was to come, ‘HAL’ could have gotten a full film recording. As it is, we have nothing we can salvage from the show.” 

When asked how she has coped during quarantine in light of “HAL” being canceled, Mergen looked incredibly disheartened yet persisted in her reflections: “It took me at least two weeks to process. I wasn’t in touch with my emotions, and there was this one day where I just started crying. There is technically this arts grant that I could apply for, but now I do not want to try anything because I am scared it could be ripped away again.” Mergen paused, sighing, “No one tells you how to grieve a rehearsal process.” 

*****

Despite the devastating emotional and artistic impact of the pandemic on “HAL” and so many other Stanford student-artists, April has showered this year with innovative art projects and initiatives. Stanford students have taken to social media to create wholesome new content and give heartwarming Zoom performances. Through sharing the stories of students involved with shows never performed on stage, the ongoing Arts & Life Daily series “Voices of Cancelled Stanford Shows” hopes to celebrate and bring to light art and communities otherwise perceived as lost to COVID-19. If you or someone you know has a story on the pandemic and performing-arts that you want to see represented in The Daily, please fill out this form

Contact Natalie Francis at natfran ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Artist Spotlight: Yannie Tan ’23 on being an experimental musician, Youtube creator https://stanforddaily.com/2020/04/27/artist-spotlight-yannie-tan-23-on-being-an-experimental-musician-youtube-creator/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/04/27/artist-spotlight-yannie-tan-23-on-being-an-experimental-musician-youtube-creator/#respond Mon, 27 Apr 2020 07:41:50 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1166862 With more than 180,000 subscribers and 31 million total views on her YouTube channel, Tan makes videos of piano performances, original compositions, music lessons and comedy skits beloved by fans all around the world.

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Yannie Tan ’23 is a multi-dimensional artist and YouTuber. She is a recipient of a coveted YouTube Silver Creator Award for channels with at least 100,000 subscribers. With nearly 180,000 subscribers and more than 31 million total views on her YouTube channel, Tan makes videos of piano performances, original compositions, music lessons and comedy skits beloved by fans around the world. I recently interviewed her over everyone’s favorite video call app, Zoom, about her classical pianist roots, lifelong love for composing classical and electronic music and insights on managing an influential YouTube channel. 

This transcript has been lightly edited. 

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Let’s talk about your first YouTube video. What’s the story behind that “Tom and Jerry”-inspired performance of the “Hungarian Rhapsody”?

Yannie Tan (YT): It was kind of a miracle. Actually, my YouTube channel started off a long time ago. I made it in seventh grade and I just started off posting piano performances to show my progress on classical music. Then in junior year [of high school], I started intertwining my interests in visual art, animation, and piano together. “Tom and Jerry” was one of my favorite childhood cartoon shows and I was like, “Why not combine classical music with Tom and Jerry music?” because “Tom and Jerry” uses a lot of classical music and no one really pays attention to the music. They just watch the video and find it funny, but they don’t realize that music plays a very important part in making the show funny. 

The performance was in June. When I went back to school the next year, I just told my friend that I posted the video, out of pure boredom. I was like, “Yo, share this with your friends.” But the next time my friends watched the video, they said, “Whoa, you’re famous.” It was very sudden. My friends never really thought of me as a famous person, so it was such a funny dynamic at school. And the views just started exponentially growing. It started from around 1000 views. And then 7000, then 10,000. That was the first time I’ve ever gotten to 10,000. Then it grew to the six digits and then we were like, wow, this is really exponential. Then my subscribers started adding up too, and from that video on I was able to get the YouTube Silver Play Button for 100,000 subscribers. It’s stashed somewhere else – I didn’t want to bring it to college. I am really thankful for this incredible experience. I feel like just understanding that my music can be appreciated by a larger audience other than those from my community is very, very interesting.

TSD: When you realized that a lot of strangers all around the world are watching your videos, how did that change your approach towards your channel? Did it influence your thoughts about what kind of content you want to make?

YT: Contrary to what YouTubers usually do, I didn’t really want to do what the audience wanted me to produce. So if they wanted more “Tom and Jerry” videos, I was reluctant because I wanted to expand my horizons and find other audiences who might also be interested. 

I did look at the comments and a lot of them said, “Make more of these videos.” I made three or four “Tom and Jerry” videos, and I think that was good enough for a period of time. But I thought that if I wanted to expand my creativity, I would have to move on. And if I had a loyal fan base, then I’m pretty sure they would like whatever I make. But I also wanted to just test out different types of videos to see what reactions I would get. 

But there are some comments that I’ve actually taken into account. Some of them are like, “Oh, teach me how to play piano.” I made a series to show people how to learn and understand classical music, which I think is also one of my main goals from at least a couple years ago.

TSD: So what inspired your more recent videos that are related to teaching and composing, whether it be classical or lo-fi like non-classical original music? What inspired you to move away from the performance videos?

YT: I guess after 14 years of playing classical piano, I was slightly tired. I just wanted to take a pivot and test out new things, especially in a college environment. There’s so many new things that you can learn, and that inspired me to try composing and doing things that were considered unconventional for me, and to try to apply my techniques and skills from my foundation of classical music into different genres.

TSD: I listened to “Droplet” and “Wink.” How did you learn how to compose electronically, and what are you hoping to do with non-classical, original music?

YT: It’s interesting to say this because a lot of people don’t believe me, but I think I was more of a composer than a classical musician, even from the beginning. I remember that when I was very young, I’d just go to a piano store and make my own music and play my own compositions. But I feel like I never took that seriously. And I regret that because I feel like I was always a composer from the beginning. But I definitely want to touch base with that skill and try to use whatever I have in my mind, or like whatever skills I have, like on LogicPro and GarageBand. I use those programs to test out what I can do. I know how to use those softwares because I played around with them as a little kid. So, now that I’m older, it’s like second nature to me. 

This quarter I’m also taking a film scoring class, where you write music for certain films. That’s a potential interest that I might want to do as a serious hobby. Listening to other genres like lo-fi and a lot of Kpop recently made me realize that I enjoy creating music outside the realm of classical music.   

TSD: Do you want to talk a little more about that film scoring class? 

YT: It is a recorded lecture series by our professor, John Wineglass. He is an Emmy Award winner for a TV show series. It’s really interesting to have the opportunity to work alongside such an esteemed film scorer. He’s teaching us a lot about how music can be a narrative for a story. I’ve learned so much about how to intertwine music into storytelling for visual productions, which is essentially what I wanted to do on my YouTube channel. It’s been a fun experience.

TSD: So I guess that’s really going back to where it all started. Your interest in “Tom and Jerry,” and the role that the music plays in making that cartoon so fun to watch. 

YT: Yeah, exactly. I guess it’s all film scoring on a certain level. 

TSD:  So with COVID-19 I’m sure your daily schedule changed, so maybe you have more free time. How would you say that COVID-19 has affected your creative projects or your YouTube channel?

YT: Before COVID-19, I was working on a couple of collaborations on campus. But unfortunately, they didn’t happen. I had to take a major turn on my goals for my channel. So I started to make comedy skits like Zoomba University. I think that also reaches out to a totally different audience. I just found the right occasion of using Zoom as a theme, which is what everyone has been using, so it’s directed at a wider audience. But I did make the music behind that skit, so I am still trying to combine my interests in music and in video production together. 

I created “Wink” and “Zoomba University” during quarantine times. When school started, I didn’t have any more time. But yeah, but before then I had two solid weeks to just work on my music and art. It was fascinating to see on Instagram that people were focusing on their drawing and painting skills, and it was so cool to see how everyone was so much more involved in the arts when they were back home and they had free time. So that showed me, at the end of the day, if we were to do one thing that made us happy, it’d be art.

TSD: You already talked a little bit about the YouTube creator community. What is it like to be a YouTube partner and to be in a community of creators?

YT: So actually, I found one of my friends on NowThis on Snapchat. His name is Sebastian Kulwanowski, and he’s from Belgium. I reached out to him, and he said, “Sure, let’s make a collaboration.” And that worked out. It was my first collaboration online, and I learned a lot about how to combine videos together. I’ve also been able to go to the YouTube New York Space, which is like essentially a studio for YouTubers. Sometimes you can see YouTubers trying to make their videos there.

TSD: So you’re really getting that insider’s look. 

YT: Yeah, it’s pretty fun. I wish I could go back. I’ve only been there once. 

TSD: Cool. So what are some short-term goals and long-term goals that you have as a musician, an artist and a YouTuber?

YT: I’m going to make an album on Soundcloud and hopefully Spotify, too. I’ll be trying to put my music on different platforms. It could be any genre – honestly, I don’t really have a pattern. 

I’ve been talking to a couple of my YouTuber friends, and we chat often about how we always want to have a purpose of having a channel. We always boil down to the point that the channel is more for enjoyment than anything. So regardless of how many millions of views we have for a video or how viral we go, we still do it just for the sole purpose of enjoyment.

As an artist, I just want to keep trying unconventional things. That’s always been my core value as an artist. I’ll definitely branch out to different types of mediums to see what I can possibly do in the future.

Contact Nadia Jo at nejo ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Voices of Canceled Stanford Shows: The Stanford Symphony Orchestra’s winter concert https://stanforddaily.com/2020/04/13/voices-of-canceled-stanford-shows-the-stanford-symphony-orchestras-winter-concert/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/04/13/voices-of-canceled-stanford-shows-the-stanford-symphony-orchestras-winter-concert/#respond Mon, 13 Apr 2020 07:03:18 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1166294 "There are at least 200 members of the combined symphony orchestra and chorus, so the March 3rd order to cancel all public events with more than 150 people meant curtains for us," said Stanford Symphony Orchestra Music Director Paul Phillips.

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If you had asked any of the music department faculty what their primary concern was at the beginning of Week 9 winter quarter, their answer would have surprised you. As Stanford students, faculty and other community members are all too aware, Week 9 spelled the beginning of the end for the on-campus performing arts scene. Tuesday, March 3, saw the first of many emails from Russell Furr of the Stanford Department of Environmental Health and Safety, urging that all on-campus events from March 4 to April 15 involving 150 or more participants be canceled or postponed. Nowhere was this more acutely felt than in the music department, whose highly anticipated Stanford Symphony Orchestra (SSO) and Stanford Symphonic Chorus (SSC) winter concert was to feature a professional vocal quartet and debut a brand-new Hauptwerk electronic organ. Yet, just two days before the devastating news hit University inboxes, logistics of a far different nature plagued the music department. 

According to Paul Phillips, the SSO Music Director (MD) and Gretchen B. Kimball Professor of Orchestral Studies, the organ had yet to arrive as of the first dress rehearsal for the winter concert. The decision to invest in the top-of-the-line electronic instrument, with sampled sounds from organs all over the world, had been years in the making for the music department, which was excited by its musical ingenuity and technical capabilities. But as its expected arrival date in early February passed and more weeks went by, Phillips began to grow worried. The organ would have been featured in the second-to-last movement of the Janacék choral mass, and its notable absence going into Week 9 meant that Phillips and SSC director Stephen Sano had to decide whether to move the concert from Bing Concert Hall to Memorial Church. 

“At the end of rehearsal on March the 1st, I started to become more aware of the seriousness of the COVID-19 situation,” Phillips told The Daily. “Nowhere in the U.S. had shut down at that point except for maybe around Seattle, but Steve Sano, the Stanford Live folks and I became aware that the window to give live performances was starting to close — and fast. There are at least 200 members of the combined symphony orchestra and chorus, so the March 3rd order to cancel all public events with more than 150 people meant curtains for us.” 

“Everything happened so quickly,” wrote Jennie Yang ’19, a dedicated SSO coterm violist and member of orchestra leadership for the last five years, in an email to The Daily. “The ban on events over 150 people, which I believe was the University’s first communication regarding coronavirus’s direct impact on campus life, was announced on March 3. Our winter concert set was supposed to be literally days later, on March 6 and 7. In the days in between, I think we were all in a superposition of ‘There’s no way they can cancel’ and ‘They have to cancel,’ but it did seem inevitable when Steve and Paul finally pulled the plug.” 

Phillips described how the March 3 email cued a rapid series of music department meetings where the performance faculty deliberated over their next steps.

“Though [we were all] disappointed, nobody argued in favor of concerts,” Phillips told The Daily. “There was a unanimous decision to do everything [we] could to prevent the spread of the virus, aware that Santa Clara county was one of the hardest-hit counties in California.”

In an email to SSO members entitled “Bad News,” Phillips explained the unanimous decision and related that the last time he had a concert canceled was in 1984: “I spent 35 years without ever having any cancelled performances and most of those years were spent in New England with all sorts of natural disasters. But we somehow skirted them. Multiple dress rehearsals got snowed out but concerts could always take place. That’s how unprecedented this is.” 

Yang spoke to these same themes of public health consciousness and the novel impact on musicians, musing how the cancellation of a performance with no chance of postponement is something that’s “unprecedented in the vast majority of musicians’ lives.”

“The show always goes on, no matter how anxious or ill-prepared you feel (and it usually turns out fine in the end anyways)!” Yang wrote in an email to The Daily. “But when people can’t even convene in the same space without risking the health of themselves and those around them, there’s no way for something like an orchestra to function.” 

SSO President Bryant Huang ’21, a double bassist and orchestra manager, wrote in an email to The Daily a response that strongly resonated with Phillips’ own poignant email.

“I have been part of a cancelled show,” Huang wrote. “The Stanford Wind Symphony went on tour in June 2018 and due to travel issues, our first concert of the tour was cancelled. The rest of the concerts of the tour went on (mostly) as scheduled… Looking back at it, the cancellation of the SSO concert was, for many of us, the first ‘domino’ to topple over as each day after, more things were cancelled (including the orchestra party) and more unexpected announcements were made.” 

By the end of Week 9 winter quarter, the music department had canceled all events through mid-April with the exception of one flute concert that faculty deemed unwise to cancel so last-minute. Phillips convened the orchestra on Thursday, March 5, during what should have been the final dress rehearsal to do the set of readings from the “Advanced Orchestration” class, noting that “[the group] got really lucky because of the peculiar sequence of events. If we had rehearsed for the concert that day, the Advanced Orchestration class readings scheduled for Monday the 9th would have never been done due to new restrictions put in place that weekend.”

The winter concert set and scheduled spring repertoire, however, were not so lucky. Phillips, Yang and Huang all expressed to The Daily their genuine excitement about performing Beethoven’s iconic “Eroica Symphony” and Janacék’s “Glagolitic Mass,” as well as debuting Phillips’ own original composition “Black Notes and White” (2001). This year is Beethoven’s 250th birthday, and orchestras all around the world would have been performing his music this year. The Eroica symphony is a masterpiece and challenging in its demand for technical and stylistic perfection. In the words of Yang, “Pulling off a good and satisfying performance of Beethoven is something that requires a truly cohesive, meticulous and mature ensemble.” 

Huang broke down for The Daily his singular experience rehearsing the “Eroica Symphony” and “Glagolitic Mass” as a double bassist.

“I really enjoyed rehearsing the winter quarter repertoire,” Huang wrote. “It was challenging, yet fun and satisfying to play, especially Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 ‘Eroica.’ Rarely do we get the opportunity to play such an icon[ic] piece by Beethoven, so to have the piece on the program was an absolute pleasure. [Double bassists] often don’t have the most ‘active’ part, but ‘Eroica’ gives us so many opportunities to shine. However, that also comes with certain challenges. While the notes themselves are not particularly hard to hit, the tempo is what makes it a challenge, especially since we have to constantly shift and cross strings. Regarding Janacék’s ‘Glagolitic Mass,’ I grew to enjoy the piece the more we rehearsed it. [Janacék’s ‘Glagolitic Mass’] was also quite challenging, but for different reasons from ‘Eroica.’ For me, it was challenging because of the heavy use of accidentals and the unique harmonies that were foreign to my hands and ears. So I had to spend a lot of time [simply] learning the notes and understanding the music.” 

Yang lamented the devastating impact that leaving campus so abruptly in March had not only on her musicianship but also on that of fellow SSO violist Addison Jadwin ’22.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my viola with me when I left campus, not quite realizing just how long it would be before I returned,” Yang wrote. “I do have my old violin at home, and I will certainly be playing it often. I think one of my biggest disappointments about this whole situation is SSO’s loss of Spring quarter as well. In particular, my friend Addison Jadwin, a musician whom I deeply respect, was slated to perform Walton’s viola concerto, which is a piece I and many, many other violists know of well. He’s the first violist in quite a while (certainly in the last 5 years and probably much beyond that) to win Stanford’s Concerto Competition [but] now, it’s unclear when he’ll be able to do so, and that’s an incredible shame.”

Phillips clarified for The Daily that the music department in the past month has decided to postpone Jadwin’s performance to fall quarter 2020, along with that of Ethan Chi ’22’s piano concerto. It is to be determined when other planned spring quarter repertoire such as Strauss’ “Don Quixote” and Beethoven’s “Sixth Symphony” will be performed. And with the cancellation of an on-campus summer quarter announced on April 2, conducting the Stanford Summer Orchestra will no longer be an option. Many aspects of the Stanford symphonic music scene are “currently up in the air,” but Phillips has high hopes for eventually using the new electronic organ, which ironically arrived on campus the day before the concert was called off. 

While SSO experienced the nasty domino effect of COVID-19 leading to canceled concerts and in turn many leaving campus without retrieving their instruments or rental sheet music from their dorm rooms, the group’s MD has attempted to make the most of the situation. Phillips told The Daily that when the crisis first occurred, conductors from around the country emailed him about how the music department and Stanford more generally were handling the mounting pandemic. Some conductors have organized Zoom sectionals or pre-recorded individual parts to splice together a symphony (most notably in the case of 70 New York Youth Philharmonia musicians with their two minutes of Mahler’s “Symphony No. 1“), but these are not the directions Phillips wants to go with his orchestra. Issues with latency (or the delay in computer ability to process sound) are too significant for an ensemble the size of SSO despite the engineering of the program JackTrip by Stanford’s own Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) researcher Chris Chafe. Phillips would rather spend the time normally devoted to orchestra rehearsal spring quarter on delving deep into orchestral literature and surveying famous composers and conductors. 

This spring quarter, students enrolled in MUSIC 160 “Stanford Symphony Orchestra” will Zoom through the “Keeping Score” survey course curated by San Francisco Symphony MD Michael Tilson Thomas, in addition to virtually meeting preeminent musicians and conductors from around the country. Notable guests include Mindy Kauffman, a piccolo player with the New York Philharmonic who won her spot at age 22; Aaron Dworkin the founder of the Sphinx Organization and prolific writer on the intersection of music and entrepreneurship; Blair Tindall M.A. ’00, author of the critically acclaimed “Mozart in the Jungle” (2005) and Osmo Vänska, the MD of the Minnesota and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestras. Though the course is primarily intended to fill the current symphonic performance void for the 100+ community of SSO and Stanford Philharmonia (SP) musicians, any interested students can enroll — the only criteria for the course is interest in orchestral repertoire and contemporary musicianship. Despite its inability to regain what was lost with the cancellation of its potentially historic winter concert, it is apparent that the Stanford symphonic community is determined to make the best of the situation and reaffirm the importance of symphonic music to its members’ lives going forward. 

Contact Natalie Francis at natfran ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Artist Spotlight: CCRMA recording engineer Elena Georgieva M.A. ’19 on working with award-winning Stanford a cappella groups https://stanforddaily.com/2020/04/03/artist-spotlight-ccrma-recording-engineer-elena-georgieva-m-a-20-on-working-with-award-winning-stanford-a-cappella-groups/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/04/03/artist-spotlight-ccrma-recording-engineer-elena-georgieva-m-a-20-on-working-with-award-winning-stanford-a-cappella-groups/#respond Fri, 03 Apr 2020 18:54:58 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1165935 In advance of the 9th Annual Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards (CARA) ceremony this Sunday, I spoke with Georgieva about how her music, technology and a cappella background informs the significance of four Stanford CARA nominees this year.

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A previous headline of this article erroneously indicated that Elena Georgieva received her Masters’ degree during the 2020 school year versus in 2019. The Daily regrets this error.

Many Stanford students have seen the Knoll, the gorgeous mansion nestled between the upper-Row and FloMo that houses the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). Few students, however, may be so bold as to venture inside while on campus. But not Elena Georgieva M.A. ’19, a music, science and technology (MST) master’s student turned faculty member who during the normal academic year lives inside the state-of-the-art recording studio. In advance of the 9th Annual Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards (CARA) ceremony on Sunday, I spoke with Georgieva about how her music, technology and a cappella background informs the significance of four Stanford CARA nominees this year. 

Prior to coming to Stanford, Georgieva studied a blend of cognitive and computer science and music at UCLA comparable to the Stanford Symbolic Systems program. Georgieva traces her passion for music back to when she started choir in sixth grade after studying piano since age 6: “I found I was able to express myself better through singing than piano and I loved the community and group aspect.” She credits choir for introducing her to tuning and harmony, as she did not think about it too much when studying the piano. Georgieva continued with choir all through middle and high school, and since she knew she wanted to pursue collegiate a cappella, what groups universities offered played a key role in her college search process. She joined the UCLA community service-oriented a cappella group the YOUTHphonics as a soprano and by the end of her undergrad career learned how to beatbox. 

Georgieva’s first exposure to music-recording occurred her senior year thanks to her roommate, who was involved with another UCLA group that produced an album summarizing the college experience. Georgieva had serendipitously just gotten accepted to the MST program at Stanford, and the two coinciding events inspired her to spend the summer after graduation listening to a cappella recordings. When she arrived on campus, the first class she took was MUSIC 192: “Sound Recording Technology,” which became a touchstone of her experience working as a CCRMA instructor and recording engineer. 

When asked why she initially gravitated toward the recording studio, Georgieva smiled: “I had experience arranging pop songs from a cappella [in college] but when it came to performance, things never sounded the way I thought they would. When I started taking classes at CCRMA, however, I found that things could sound in tune with the vibe I wanted through recording, which is super exciting.”  

After taking the sound-recording class, Georgieva kept gravitating to the recording studio, where by chance she recorded the South Asian a cappella group Raagapella, then the comedy a cappella group Fleet Street and subsequently many others. She auditioned for five Stanford a cappella groups and ultimately joined the all-femme Counterpoint, excited to learn how to beatbox and sing the bass part with the all-femme group as well as be part of one of the oldest a cappella groups on campus. The 2nd year of her Masters, Georgieva TAed the course and as of this year teaches MUSIC 192 as the primary instructor. “All this happened because I am very passionate about recording a cappella and I got to take recording class,” she mused. For all those at Stanford interested in the intersection of music and technology, Georgieva recommends MUSIC 220A: “Fundamentals of Computer-Generated Sound” or Music 101: “Introduction to Creating Electronic Sounds” as good places to start. 

The a cappella recording process Georgieva fell in love with through CCRMA consists of four distinct stages: arranging, recording, fine-tuning, and mixing the tracks. Before coming to CCRMA, a cappella groups decide what songs they want to sing and how to go about arranging the vocal harmonies. Once the group has arranged (and perhaps performed live) its songs, it comes into the studio to record. “For recording, there is a click track that singers listen and sing along to,” Georgieva said. “I record people one at a time as a big part of recording is trying to get the best sound out of each person.” She frequently spends hours on end in the recording studio with a cappella groups, confiding that “the most important and hardest part of [my] job is getting people to give the best performance they can.” 

For a recording engineer, the process of fine-tuning, mixing and mastering the tracks varies in the level of creativity and technicality. Once all the a cappella members have had their individual parts recorded, Georgieva works on the tuning and timing of the tracks to get the ensemble up to an “inhumane” level of technical perfection. The next stage — mixing — is by far the most fun for her because it allows her the most creativity.

“Mixing blends sounds together and is where you can add pop production effects such as enhancing vocal percussion to sound like a live drum kit,” she said. “It is little details like these that make a cappella tracks more competitive for national awards such as CARA.”

Stanford has an amazing tradition of a cappella recording not that many know about, besides individuals like Georgieva who are passionate about a cappella and music production history. The Grammy Award-winning producer Bill Hare pioneered many of his innovative recording techniques on the a cappella groups here.

“For a while in the 1990s, the best a cappella recordings in the country were coming from Stanford. Talent and funding from the university were key to this,” Georgieva recalled, adding that “Stanford has not won very many a cappella awards in the past decade. This year however has been big.” 

The year 2020 may prove historic for the University with not one but four Stanford a cappella nominations for this weekend’s CARA awards. The Harmonics are currently contending for “best mixed album” and “best rock album” with “Signal Lost” (2019) as well as “best rock song” with their cover of The Cranberries’ “Zombie” (2019). Fleet Street has been nominated again for “All-Nighter,” this time in the “Best Humor Song” category. And Counterpoint is seeing their first nomination since 2008 with “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” (2019) up for “best country song.” The degree to which Georgieva was involved in the recording process varies across the a cappella groups, with her recording and mixing Counterpoint, recording Fleet Street and advising the mix of the Harmz album. As an alumna, Georgieva feels the greatest pride in Counterpoint, who could foreseeably celebrate their 40th anniversary by winning on the national stage this weekend. 

While the collegiate a cappella consistently provides Georgieva with a sense of community, her work at CCRMA has broadened her musical network to encompass everyone from composition students to indie bands. Georgieva has worked with the Palo Alto-based band Handsome Hound, joined the Laptop Orchestra SLOrk, sound-designed for Ram’s Head Theatrical Society and done live sound at a cappella shows such as Love Sucks, Blacklisted and Encounterpoint. She relates that “Running live sound for a cappella shows requires that I listen to sound real-time, and figuring out what changes to make is definitely more stressful because you only get one shot.” 

While the COVID-19 crisis has unfortunately cancelled Georgieva’s various spring quarter gigs, she along with the rest of the a cappella community will have much to celebrate this weekend when Stanford secures one or more awards at the virtual CARA ceremony. Regardless of how the awards pan out, Georgieva strongly encourages Stanford a cappella groups to keep recording with CCRMA as “it is such a great opportunity!”

Ultimately it is to vibrant engineers like Georgieva, who defy the fuzzy/techie/creative divide, that we owe our ability to enjoy Stanford musical ingenuity whether on campus or elsewhere in the world. 

Contact Natalie Francis at natfran ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Palm Drive Records’ Music @ Mars gives indie musicians the mic https://stanforddaily.com/2020/03/06/palm-drive-records-music-mars-gives-indie-musicians-the-mic/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/03/06/palm-drive-records-music-mars-gives-indie-musicians-the-mic/#respond Fri, 06 Mar 2020 11:19:41 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1165048 Biking through the chilly March night on my way to Music @ Mars, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. It was my second time covering a Music @ Mars showcase for The Daily, and when I entered the lounge and saw the warm fairy lights, instruments and enthusiastic crowd— […]

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Biking through the chilly March night on my way to Music @ Mars, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. It was my second time covering a Music @ Mars showcase for The Daily, and when I entered the lounge and saw the warm fairy lights, instruments and enthusiastic crowd— people huddled together closely, reclining on bean bags, spilling onto the floor, squeezed into couches beside their friends— it was a pleasantly familiar sight. I sat crisscrossed on the floor with my notebook on my lap. An electric keyboard stood in front of the crowd, forecasting the performances to come, with two large speakers standing on each side. I noted on the wall in the middle of the makeshift “stage” hung a curious abstract painting of a rocket taking off, the exhaust from the engines painted as bubbles of color. 

“It feels warm,” said audience member Alex Romero ’21 as he got more comfortable on his bean bag. “I mean, this feels like what a Week 9 event should be. I can sit down and soak in the vibes.”

It was the same pleasant, lively atmosphere I had known when I went fall quarter. This time, however, the indie artist showcase was officially hosted under the auspices of the new Volunteer Student Organization (VSO) Palm Drive Records. The music VSO, co-founded by Elizabeth Gray ’20, Izzy Angus ’20, Federico Reyes Gomez ’21 and Cooper Reed ’21, has produced a series of recording workshops this quarter advertised by posters plastered around campus, featuring their black-and-white palm tree and record disc. With the mission of celebrating and bringing visibility to the hidden work artists are doing on-campus, the indie showcase hosted by co-founder Elizabeth Gray plays perfectly into what the music VSO hopes to achieve on campus. 

When asked how the latest Music @ Mars event relates to her work with Palm Drive Records, Elizabeth reflected on how indie student musicians may not always feel as though they have the right space or audience to perform their work: “I think because there is somewhat of an implicit and internalized pressure on student-artists to perform covers, it can be difficult for these artists to feel like an audience wants to hear originals. I often feel as if I have to sneak originals into a set of mostly covers because I think the audience just wants to sing along with what they know, and I’m afraid of losing momentum. We hope that Music @ Mars provides a space for artists to feel empowered to perform their own work, since our audience is comprised of people who come because they want to be hearing originals.” 

The latest Music @ Mars certainly delivered in giving space to student-artists to perform their music, featuring everything from classic rock, blues/Americana, surf-and electronic music to sampled Youtube beats, French and Stanford lingo. The night began with Charlie Kogen ’23, who began with his original song, “The Only One I’ll Take It For Is You.” Kogen’s voice, sound, and even his stage presence — playing the electric piano demurely while looking occasionally into the audience —  immediately hit with a classical air. Kogen and his music seemed straight out of an upscale New York City restaurant in the 1950s — think Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Billy Joel; man and his piano singing forlorn love-songs in an echoing room. His lyrics, while melancholy, carried an uncanny patience and buoyancy to them, singing about a kind of love that’s flawed and unreciprocated, but fated and enduring. The gentle but pained words reminded me of Johnny Rivers when he welcomed his “baby” back to the “The Poor Side of Town.” Between songs, Kogen talked about his musical inspirations — some of his songs were inspired by lived experiences and others by imagined ones. Yet his song “The Right Mistakes” was written about wanting to combine his actual life with the ones he lives through his music. Though it was his first time performing many of his songs, Kogen wowed the audience with his unique sound, clear voice and remarkable songwriting ability, and definitely inspired more than a few new fans.

Aditeya Shukla ’22, better known by his stage name “Adi,” brought out a guitar for his set, performing acoustic versions of his songs which had originally been composed electronically. The transition to acoustic, however, was seamless, with Adi’s voice being perfectly suited to the mood— soft, deeply emotive, haunting. His singer-songwriter and Americana sound told stories of wavering emotions and wary feelings of affection. “No Stories” deftly captures the disillusionment and disappointment of an ending summer — cooler weather approaching, things unsaid, opportunities unseized, freedom receding once again. After the song, Adi announced to the crowd that they’d no longer have to hear “a guy up here singing sad songs,” and promised to satisfy those who came to the showcase to get “turnt.” After that, Adi flipped the mood in an instant, bringing out a trap beat and rapping to a song inspired by the “OY/YO” sculpture recently erected in front of the Cantor Arts Center. The song was hilarious, poking fun at icons of Stanford culture, such as 5-Sure and Marc Tessier Lavigne, and was filled with so many sharp and clever lines that I couldn’t write them down fast enough. The crowd’s favorite by far, however, was, “You see a stop sign, all I see is go.” Though the song hasn’t been added to Adi’s Spotify yet, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who needs a good laugh with some cleverly worded jabs at the Stanford experience.

Mariam El-Mansouri ’22 then entered the stage with William Kingsfield ’20 on electric guitar. Mariam began by dazzling the crowd by singing a cover of the French song “Rein de Rien,” with William dishing out smooth, bluesy chords alongside her. Mariam has a strong, lovely voice with a tone vaguely reminiscent of Amy Winehouse, or maybe a bit of Alicia Keys. The second song she performed was self-composed and untitled, and conveyed the feelings created by many of the poignant dilemmas that arise from love in the modern world. Mariam’s vivid lyrics communicated the feeling of blooming love, uncertainty and insecurity, the dread of being unsure of one’s relationship status (which is, unfortunately, very relatable … tsk tsk). My favorite line from the song was when Mariam described “playing with your hair with my fingertips.” Between her surprising French intro, William’s guitar skills, and Mariam’s vocal talent, the performance was simply unforgettable.

Parker Day (Cameron Woods ’20) began his set by telling the audience about his unique, creative process: writing raps based on Youtube beats that call to him. While humble by nature, Parker Day is a talented lyricist with an invigorating stage presence. Before his song “Stay Golden,” Parker Day bantered with the audience about experiences with high-school exes, and then dove into a song that transitioned from longing for a missed relationship into a compelling verse about the loneliness of the Stanford campus and fears of “not making it.” Parker Day’s observations really stuck with me and validated my experiences, and, judging from the nods in the audience, I wasn’t the only one. The song “Vacation” was fittingly composed off a sample of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by the Beach Boys, and was inspired by his trip to France. Equal parts carefree and cheeky, the chorus was so catchy and moving that Parker had the entire audience singing along unprovoked, as if they weren’t hearing the song for the first time. Parker Day showcased a great flow, uplifting energy and deeply moving, skillfully worded lyrics. The show wouldn’t have been the same without him. 

The final performer was Cat Davis ’21, who performed songs she had written for classes here at Stanford. From her first song “Nice Try,” Cat Davis’s clean vocal dexterity was already apparent. Cat has an excellent range, able to go from deep notes to falsetto seemingly effortlessly within the span of a single chorus. According to Davis, people have referred to “Nice Try” as “savage.” After listening to the lyrics, this description is understandable — the song is a bold call-out to an insincere suitor and their tactics. Beyond lyrics, both of Cat Davis’s songs featured jazzy, experimental sounds; “Don’t Worry Baby,” in particular, contained modulated backing vocals that imbued the song with a beautiful, slightly ghostly air. 

Sitting on the bean bag (I eventually upgraded from the floor to a bean bag) in the Mars common room, and watching all of the performers, I couldn’t help but have the feeling that I was watching artists who would someday be “the next big thing.” The talent was overwhelming. It feels like the kind of thing you’re going to tell your kids — you saw them first, you saw them before they “made it.” So many different sounds, personalities, feelings and art styles were represented. Thanks to the remarkable originality and creativity of student-artists, Music @ Mars has consistently delivered completely new and enticing material for its audience, who gather during the stress and bustle of Week 9 to simply enjoy music together. And now officially produced by Palm Drive Records, alongside various music-recording workshops, Music @ Mars with its consistent good vibes has become an anchor in the ocean of musical opportunities for student-musicians on-campus.

Natalie Francis contributed reporting.

Contact Megan Faircloth at meganfaircloth ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Harmonics’ winter show ‘Blacklisted’ proves alt-rock anthems, indie solos never go out of style https://stanforddaily.com/2020/03/04/harmonics-winter-show-blacklisted-proves-alt-rock-anthems-indie-solos-never-go-out-of-style/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/03/04/harmonics-winter-show-blacklisted-proves-alt-rock-anthems-indie-solos-never-go-out-of-style/#respond Thu, 05 Mar 2020 07:11:03 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1164896 In their first full-length show of the year, “Blacklisted,” The Harmonics delivered with showstopping vocals and contagious energy.

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After a stunning, goosebump-inducing show, it’s clear that the Stanford Harmonics should not be blacklisted from the Stanford a cappella scene. In their first full-length show of the year, “Blacklisted,” The Harmonics delivered with show-stopping vocals and contagious energy. The indie and alternative-rock a cappella group took the stage of Toyon Hall on Feb. 29. Decked in its trademark all-black, leather attire, the group strutted into the theater and was met with an enthusiastic crowd. 

The Harmonics kicked off the night with a rendition of The Cranberries’ 1993 hit “Zombie,” which featured freshman Cleopatra Howell’s strong belt. They followed this with an emotion-packed version of “Bad Liar” by Imagine Dragons, featuring the group’s vocal percussionist Grayson Armour  ’22. After this, the group sang “Devil’s Backbone” by Civil Wars, with Mitchell Zimmerman ’22, Lauren Ramlan ’22 and master’s student Shawn Manuel taking the lead. The three of them complemented each other well and captured the eerie, pining nature of the song. 

Though the group’s collective energy was incredible, the show’s solo and duet performances were some of the most memorable. Armour sang a solo and charmed the audience with his self-written song, raspy vocals and impressive guitar technique. Sopranos Ella Gray ’23 and Ramlan also sang a duet. Their rendition of “For Good” from the hit Broadway musical “Wicked” was as touching as the original, with their clear vocals complementing each other perfectly. 

Other memorable numbers included “White Flag” by Bishop Briggs, which was also featured on The Harmonics’ recent album “Signal Lost” (2019), up for nomination at this year’s Contemporary A Cappella Singing Awards. The piece featured sophomore Suah Cho’s rich and dynamic voice, as the group increased in volume and energy building up to the chorus. 

More intimate and tender songs added to the emotional impact of the show. The group’s performance of Imagine Dragons’ “Birds” starred Howell, Armour and Maia Rocklin ’22. Backed by softer harmonies, the trio’s voices wove together beautifully as they sang about lovers flying in different directions. Following “Birds,” the performance of “Change” by Rockapella was also an emotionally impactful number. The group invited alumni onto the stage to perform alongside them, as Tianna Trept ’23 shone with her vocal depth and maturity. 

Trept continued to show off her control and range when she was featured in “Dirty Laundry” by All Time Low, supported by a distinct soprano countermelody. Her performance was followed by Imagine Dragons’ “King of the Clouds,” which featured Zimmerman, Rocklin and Ramlan. Zimmerman in particular stood out in this number, showing off his deeper range during the song’s softer moments and his powerful upper range in the louder ones. The group ended with an emotionally charged rendition of Mariana Trench’s “Ever After,” featuring Cho and tenor Joshua Buchi ’22 belting about holding onto a broken relationship. After overwhelming encouragement from the audience, the group returned to the stage for an encore performance of Fall Out Boy’s “Thnks fr th Mmrs,” helmed by Zimmerman. 

Overall, “Blacklisted” was full of both emotionally and vocally powerful performances. The Harmonics nailed both the technical difficulty and raw energy of each and every song, delivering an entertaining and enjoyable night of music to close out Family Weekend festivities.

Contact Amy Miyahara at amymhara ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Astrology app gives Stanford’s Mixed Co love advice in ‘Love Sucks’ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/02/25/astrology-app-gives-stanfords-mixed-co-love-advice-in-love-sucks/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/02/25/astrology-app-gives-stanfords-mixed-co-love-advice-in-love-sucks/#respond Wed, 26 Feb 2020 02:37:03 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1164551 Astrology, romance and music filled Toyon Hall as Stanford’s Mixed Company performed in their highly anticipated annual anti-Valentine’s Day show “Love Sucks” last Friday. This year’s “Love Sucks” emphasized Mixed Co’s lighthearted spirit in the group’s first full-length show of the calendar year. A stellar alignment of raunchy skits, classy choreography and heartfelt, moving songs […]

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Astrology, romance and music filled Toyon Hall as Stanford’s Mixed Company performed in their highly anticipated annual anti-Valentine’s Day show “Love Sucks” last Friday. This year’s “Love Sucks” emphasized Mixed Co’s lighthearted spirit in the group’s first full-length show of the calendar year. A stellar alignment of raunchy skits, classy choreography and heartfelt, moving songs showcased the ability of Mixed Co singers to rise from their most vulnerable selves to fun signature bops that do not take themselves too seriously. 

Mixed Co began promoting the show early this quarter, dubbing themselves “Mixed Co–Star” to merge their name with the popular astrology app, Co–Star. Then, Mixed Co unveiled pictures of group members from an otherworldly photoshoot, featuring singers washed in pink, purple, red and blue lights in posters plastered around campus.

By the time audience members walked into Toyon Hall, the excitement in the air was palpable. Paper streamers covered the ceiling, and paper heart cutouts with flirty messages were plastered over all the walls. The audience members buzzed with anticipation, then screamed with excitement and clapped thunderously as members walked onstage, showing off various levels of nudity. Ranging from fully clothed to shirtless, Mixed Co singers rocked lingerie, leather jackets and skirts, suspenders and tutus as per “Love Sucks” tradition.

The opening number, “Lost in Japan” by Shawn Mendes, featured Ava Ford ’23. Mixed Co showed their energy in this upbeat song, with singers waving their hands together and moving in sync. Then a poignant atmosphere settled over the stage as the group started humming pure harmonies. Vibha Puri ’20 stepped into the middle of the sweeping vocal layers and swaying bodies and began singing “idontwannabeyouanymore.” The raw emotions of this famous Billie Eilish single permeated throughout the room as Puri sang with sincerity and vulnerability. “idontwannabeyouanymore” was one of the highlights of the night that created an especially intimate atmosphere where audience members could empathize with the singers through their own heartbreaks and struggles. 

Then, Ashwin Pillai ’23 appeared to lighten the mood, acting as the show’s emcee during skits in between songs. Dressed in a classy black dress shirt and pants, he described “Love Sucks” as the “raunchiest a cappella show Stanford has to offer” over the audience’s enthusiastic cheers. The first skit featured a dramatic intra-group breakup prompted by Co–Star. Then, Mixed Co introduced several new members with descriptions of his or her horoscope and personality. When Pillai was dubbed a “studious student by day and sensuous lover by night,” audience interjections reached a humorous climax. Unfortunately, it was difficult to hear skits later in the show thanks to the chaotic energy of the crowd, but the few snippets the audience could make out were entertaining. 

While the skits showed Mixed Co’s humorous side, their song selections were more profound and touching. The next song was “Light On” by Maggie Rogers with Katelyn Osuna ’23 as the soloist. Osuna’s confident and expressive voice effectively conveyed the song’s optimistic outlook. The following Billy Joel classic, “And So It Goes” with a solo from Harry Bernholz ’23, showed off the a cappella group’s excellent chemistry. The choral, almost hymn-like performance detailed the story of a disintegrated romantic relationship, and the singers showed how comfortable they felt blending their voices together. The following number, “For Once In My Life,” featuring Eric Hatch ’23, channeled Stevie Wonder’s typical joyous spirit, the performance showcasing plenty of fun vocal riffs and smiling singers. 

Throughout the night, Mixed Co playfully dissed other a cappella groups like Fleet Street and The Harmonics, as well as MS&E majors and the class CS 107. One member lamented, “The last time I was f*cked was on that 107 midterm.” One of Mixed Co’s strengths was balancing the lighthearted and emotional aspects of the show, and the group delivered show-stopping dramatic moments in Disclosure and Sam Smith’s “Omen.” Noah Geller ’21 and Natalie Stiner ’22’s sultry voices led the audience to cheer during the climax of the song. Near the end of the song, all singers turned towards the audience then froze. With a collective “woosh,” the singers jumped into the song again. After this dramatic performance, soloist Alexa Thomson ’21 brought the audience back into a fast-tempo song with “All The Time” by Zara Larsson. Singing about memories of a former lover, Alexa completely owned her time in the spotlight.

Another highlight of the show was “Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap, once again showing off the group’s ensemble skills. Ethereal soprano voices soared over the full and resonant bass, and the intricate vocal layers allowed much room for the audience to appreciate the complex harmonies and nostalgic lyrics. Mixed Co delivered an unforgettable punch with the explosive “Maroon 9: A Maroon 5 Medley” as the finale, featuring hits like “Animals,” “One More Night,” “Misery” and “She Will Be Loved.” Switching between many soloists, Mixed Co members sang about both raunchy flings and heartfelt romance. At the end of the song, everyone in the audience chanted emphatically, “One more song!” Of course, the a cappella group had to comply: Mixed Co’s performance manager Morgan Gwilym Tso ’22 soloed in the encore song, “Smooth” by Santana ft. Rob Thomas. The crowd clapped along as Morgan grooved to the melody and finished the night on a funky note. 

“Love Sucks” offered plenty of opportunities for the audience to empathize with singers through laughter, heartbreak and the endless search for satisfying romance. Mixed Company reminded everyone that romantic love may suck, but love for music and camaraderie is one of the best feelings Stanford community members can experience.

Contact Nadia Jo at nejo ‘at’ stanford.edu

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Dynamic duo Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi combine folk music, racial justice in concert https://stanforddaily.com/2020/02/11/dynamic-duo-rhiannon-giddens-and-francesco-turrisi-combine-folk-music-racial-justice-in-concert/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/02/11/dynamic-duo-rhiannon-giddens-and-francesco-turrisi-combine-folk-music-racial-justice-in-concert/#respond Wed, 12 Feb 2020 07:34:53 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1163849 The tambourine has the power to expose racial injustice and enact radical social change. Or so Italian percussionist Francesco Turrisi and critically-acclaimed folk artist Rhiannon Giddens argued before a packed crowd of more than 300 people at the Bechtel Conference Center this past Thursday. The two artist-activists came to Stanford under the auspices of the […]

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The tambourine has the power to expose racial injustice and enact radical social change. Or so Italian percussionist Francesco Turrisi and critically-acclaimed folk artist Rhiannon Giddens argued before a packed crowd of more than 300 people at the Bechtel Conference Center this past Thursday. The two artist-activists came to Stanford under the auspices of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE) as speakers for the 15th Annual Anne and Loren Kieve Distinguished Lecture. To echo the words of Comparative Literature Professor David Palumbo-Liu, Francesco and Rhiannon are simply the perfect candidates for a lecture series showcasing the works of prominent figures in social justice, humanities and the arts. Though Giddens and Turrisi are incredibly accomplished musicians in their own right, their combined ethnomusicology and performance backgrounds give an incisive yet hopeful account of the hidden racial dimensions of folk music. 

Quintessential American folk song “This Land Is Your Land”, discussed by CCSRE Faculty Director Jennifer Brody and Palumbo-Liu in their opening remarks, served as a touchstone for the featured lecture. Penned by Woody Guthrie and covered by Pete Seeger, among many other folk artists, the 1944 song has gone through many iterations, including one rendition that had a stanza recognizing stolen indigenous land. Brody discussed how many folk music aficionados do not know about Elizabeth Cotton, one of the greatest Black folk guitarists of the 20th century who worked as a maid in the Seeger household and was mentored by composer Ruth Crawford Seeger. Palumbo-Liu then treated the European reception musical and dance form of arabesque as a case study for the intersection of Judeo-Christian and Arabic culture that persisted despite the Spanish Inquisition. Combined, the arabesque dance style and Elizabeth Cotton’s works challenge notions of whose identities are represented within conventional narratives of the European and American musical landscapes. When the microphone was handed over to Giddens, she mentioned the gospel line “when the world is on fire” cut from “This Land Is Your Land” as a way of introducing the thematic tension between hidden Black history and marketed ‘whiteness’ of folk music. 

Turrisi and Giddens began the featured lecture by performing a 19th-century Black folk tune featuring banjo with tambourine accompaniment, surprisingly fresh and modern in its acoustics. Still holding his tambourine upright in his left hand, Turrisi mused how a 19th century print of a British janissary band sparked his tambourine research that eventually led to his musical collaboration with Giddens. The janissary band originated in the Ottoman Empire as a formidable musical ensemble and military band that accompanied the Ottoman army onto the battlefield from the 16th century on. The print Turrisi had stumbled upon caught his eye because of the presence of three African American percussionists including a tambourine player who held the instrument in the same upright manner he learned in Italy. Turrisi gave a whirlwind overview of the tambourine’s chronology dating back to the 5000 BCE Egypt frame drum and subsequent spread of playing traditions through Ireland (bodhrán), Sicily (tarantella), Spain (taranta), the Caribbean and the American South. The tambourine is generally associated with flamenco, bacchanalia, the pseudo-scientific tarantella folk dance and gypsy music. The 19th century, however, saw musicologists codify twenty-plus tambourine techniques into a wildly-popular treatise.

“There is way more to playing a tambourine than just slapping it on your knee or shaking it,” Turrisi noted, demonstrating the three movements of the left hand required by a stroke and how to create a resonant whir on the face of the drum. 

The tambourine research of Turrisi intersects with the work of Giddens on the banjo via a third folk instrument: the fiddle. The practice of Black tambourine performance within the European take on janissary bands grew out of a broader tradition of Black folk entertainment. James Frazer, the 19th-century Scottish-African American tambourine player of the royal British janissary band fame, hailed from North Carolina, not far from where Giddens grew up in Greensboro. 

“Before electricity, dance constituted the primary form of entertainment in America,” Giddens stated, before adding that Black servants and slaves constituted the majority of fiddlers, percussionists and other band members at 19th-century white social functions such as square dances. Playing the fiddle was lucrative social capital that allowed some runaway slaves freedom, and banjo performance evolved alongside it in the ‘folk’ dance scene. Around the time Europeans appropriated the janissary band, highly-problematic minstrel bands arose in the mid-19th-century America. Through a series of 1920s commercial vaudeville prints and headshots exhibiting blackface, Giddens emphasized that Mississippi showboats and the recording industry promoted minstrelsy as late as the 1970s. She then revealed a ‘gray-scale’ timeline she had curated which charted popular recognition of Black versus white folk music performance where the 1920s marked the erasure of Black folk music in favor of white derivatives. 

Giddens drew upon her own background in the fiddle and banjo to similarly trace the banjo from rural African American communities in the South to contemporary largely-white folk music performance. She provided a genealogical tree that showed the gradual cultural divergence of the banjo away from African-Americans starting with minstrelsy and continuing with the Black / hillbilly and urban (think vaudeville, George Gershwin) / mountain delineations. Giddens reminisced that she formed her first-ever band, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, in order to bring back the sounds and melodies of ‘Black’ and ‘mountain’ subcultures underrepresented in contemporary folk. While critical of white appropriation and erasure of Black banjo performance, Giddens acknowledged, however, that the folk of Pete Seeger and Mumford & Sons is not necessarily problematic in how it treats the sounds and genre of folk music. She pointed out that the 1920s recording industry pursued far more questionable decisions in its marketing of ‘ethnic’ music albums that saw folk music portrayed purely as a white — and not a multicultural or Black — musical practice. 

Turrisi and Giddens used the recording of ethnic music albums to clarify that neither abides by race as a social construct and that assuming white cultural hegemony overlooks the historical marginalization of peoples such as the Sicilian and Irish. They then briefly remarked on how their recent album collaboration “there is no Other” (2019) brings together Black folk with Francesco’s multicultural tambourine performance to underscore the rich interplay of disparate folk traditions spanning multiple continents and centuries. The dynamic duo closed out their lecture by performing their take on the classic folk song “Buffalo Gals.” With Giddens on vocals and fiddle and Turrisi on tambourine, their performance reclaimed a minstrel song with the voices and acoustics of traditional Black folk music. 

The following Q&A session, moderated by CCSRE Executive Director Daniel Murray, offered an insightful coda to the featured lecture, with audience questions about how white people can be respectful in folk performance and incorporating ethnomusicology into history textbooks as a gateway for primary school social justice education. When asked specifically about her views on the Lil Nas X “Old Town Road” Grammy, Giddens stated that Black people have always been part of the country music scene and that she was not at all surprised at the Billboard controversy, which reflected the same cultural trends discussed in the lecture. As to whether white people should perform folk music, Giddens reiterated that folk music has evolved to represent a much larger American cultural milieu and that it is only problematic to perform “in the Black style” versus in one’s own way.

By claiming that “there is no Other” in regards to notions of race and musical ownership, Giddens and Turrisi have produced music that “chips away at the concrete” of racialized industry claims to music genres including but not limited to jazz, bluegrass, gospel and folk. The artist-activists do not forego humor even amidst dissecting the painful histories of cultural erasure and political injustice, laughing that “the banjo is simply a tambourine with a stick on it.” Giddens and Turrisi have now joined the hallowed ranks of Bryan Stevenson, Maxine Hong Kingston and Dolores Huerta as much-needed voices that will continue to reverberate on campus the intimate relationship between social justice, the humanities and arts. 

A previous version of this article misnamed CCSRE, as well as the staff positions of featured faculty. The Daily regrets this error.

Contact Natalie Francis at natfran ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Cantor hosts all-embracing runway show https://stanforddaily.com/2020/02/01/cantor-hosts-all-embracing-runway-show/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/02/01/cantor-hosts-all-embracing-runway-show/#respond Sun, 02 Feb 2020 05:20:40 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1163240 This year’s show included 56 models, some of whom were wearing items made by student designers, the rest of whom were self-styled.

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On Jan. 23, poets, singers and models stood, danced and strutted in the marbled lobby of Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center. It was the first-annual FLI+LGBTQ+ Student Self-Fashioning Show, an event created to “highlight the creativity [and] the ingenuity of people’s own self-expression,” in the words of Mekhi Jones ’20, one of three student organizers.

The event was sponsored by Timberland; Estee Lauder; MAC Cosmetics; the School of Engineering; the Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR); Stanford Arts; Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Stanford Introductory Students and the Cantor Arts Center.

PWR lecturer Ruth Starkman was the first to float the idea of the student-led fashion show. In late fall 2019, she reached out to two of her students: Jones and Michael Spencer ’21, who quickly took on leadership positions. From there, the two seniors recruited a third and final student: Doris Rodriguez ’21. Together, the three of them decided on a creative direction; engaged student models, performers, makeup artists, stylists and designers and planned the event.  

Cantor hosts all-embracing runway show
Photo: Michael Spencer

Fashion has long been seen through what Rodriguez describes as a “Eurocentric and elitist lens.” Runway fashion is a multimillion-dollar industry with a long, exclusionary history. Modern fashion, since its conception, has been dominated by luxury brands, concentrated in mostly global cities, and held to rigid body and beauty standards. In organizing the FLI+LGBTQ+ Student Self-Fashioning Show, Jones, Rodriguez and Spencer hoped to bring marginalized communities together and broaden the scope of fashion shows, creating entry points for people who may have previously felt barred from runway modeling. 

The event began at 6 p.m., shortly after sunset. In the Cantor’s main lobby, where the event was held, was a black runway with two parts: a long tail that pointed towards the elevator corridor and a raised, square platform that rested in the dead center of the lobby. Spectators gathered around the perimeter of the room. Some guests stood along the walls, others sat on the steps of the staircase on the right side of the room and peered between the bronze balusters and golden handrails. The models and performers waited in the Stanford Family Room/Sarah Love Miedel Gallery, and when it was their turn, they walked through the elevator corridor — beneath its rounded arch — into the main lobby, where they could finally be seen by all. 

Cantor hosts all-embracing runway show
Photo: Michael Spencer

Suspended above the runway was a partially expanded black banner with the words “I AM AN AMERICAN” written on it in white block letters. The banner is not fully expanded in order to obscure the word “AMERICAN” and provoke questions in its viewers. This banner, one of the Cantor’s ongoing exhibitions by Stephanie Syjuco, seemed to underscore the intentions of the night, which were to create conversations about identity through art and foster a sense of belongingness amongst students and faculty.

In the background, behind the runway, spectators on the ground-level could see hints of another one of the Cantor’s exhibitions: BLKNWS by Kahlil Joseph, a work of art relating to the media’s depiction of black America.

“We want the Cantor to be a welcoming and inviting space for all people in the Stanford community,” said Peter Tokofsy, director of academic and public programs at Cantor.

By encouraging diversity and inclusion in its art and its programming, the Cantor has made concrete steps towards accomplishing that goal. 

At the start of the event, the master of ceremonies professor Adam Banks, academic director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric and Institute for Diversity in the Arts Harmony House, gave a brief introduction, during which he welcomed the audience and praised the event as one “not for consumption or commercialism,” but for celebrating fashion as art and students as creatives. Then, poet Josh Nkoy ’21, rapper Melinda “Linda Sol” Hernandez ’21 and singer-rapper Gabriel “VII” Townsell ’20 took the stage to share their original works. Showcasing a variety of arts in a space of primarily visuals is intended to counter experiences of passive viewing and turn the Cantor into what Tokofsy describes as “a space for creativity.” After the live performances, a soundtrack of modern hip-hop began to play. Finally, a stream of models flowed into the lobby, one after the other. 

Cantor hosts all-embracing runway show
Photo: Chasity Hale/The Stanford Daily

This year’s show included 56 models, some of whom were wearing items made by student designers, the rest of whom were self-styled. There were three student designers: Ph.D. candidate Ana Tárano, Cairo Mo ’20 and Rodriguez, one of the organizers. Tárano showcased three pieces from her mini-collection “Tumbao,” named after an Afro-Cuban style of music; Mo, a multimedia artist, showcased pieces made from recycled materials and Rodriguez showcased items from their gender-neutral clothing line JustBudzZz, which they hope will create dialogue about gender and expression in fashion. 

Cantor hosts all-embracing runway show
Photo: Chasity Hale/The Stanford Daily

Next came the self-styled models, which featured a wide array of looks. Some students with heritage from East and North Africa wore traditional dress; there was a monochromatic skirt suit, multiple ornate blazers, a white dress with an artsy print à la the Mondrian dress and more. “Every day you kind of engage with fashion … When you get dressed … You’re, like, presenting yourself to the world and being like, ‘Who am I and who do I want to be?’” Jones said. The runway portion of the event was an opportunity for students to explore those questions. 

Cantor hosts all-embracing runway show
Photo: Michael Spencer

The energy in the room, throughout the night, was electric.

“[We’re] not at the opera!” said DJ Sheck Mulbah while encouraging the audience to clap and cheer louder.

“The outward love for fellow students was really powerful to me,” Tokofsy said.

After the show had officially ended, people stuck around to mingle and dance.

“The students put on a wonderful, fun, meaningful event,” Starkman said. “I loved seeing [them] define for themselves what ‘style’ is and what a ‘fashion model’ looks like. I can’t wait to see more new faces and styles next year.” 

Contact Chasity Hale at chashale ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Taking notes from a trio of Stanford music majors https://stanforddaily.com/2019/12/05/taking-notes-from-a-trio-of-stanford-music-majors/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/12/05/taking-notes-from-a-trio-of-stanford-music-majors/#respond Fri, 06 Dec 2019 06:58:32 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1161389 At Stanford, the rarity of music majors is so acute that they’ve become almost mythical. Indeed, only around ten music degrees are conferred every year out of 7000 undergraduates, so it’s hard not to express intense curiosity and delight on the precious occasion that you meet a music major in person.

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At Stanford, the rarity of music majors is so acute that they’ve become almost mythical. Indeed, only around 10 music degrees are conferred every year out of 7,000 undergraduates, so it’s hard not to express intense curiosity and delight on the precious occasion that you meet a music major in person.

To learn more about the perspectives of music majors, The Daily talked with three music majors about personal obstacles, future plans, stigmas and words of advice. Sonja Johnson-Yu 18 is a second-year computer science coterm who studied both computer science and music with a concentration in conducting as an undergrad. Nnamdi ‘Papa’ Odita-Honnah 20 is a senior studying flute performance, playing in a variety of ensembles including as a featured soloist with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. Joss Saltzman 20 is a senior studying composition and has composed classical music for solo flute, electronic music, musical theater (most notably Gaieties 2017) and film music.

In conversation, the trio of music majors candidly revealed that the path of a music major is, as we’d expect, unpredictable and self-critical. But there is just something special, sometimes unidentifiable, in their music-making experiences that keeps them going:

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Would you ever talk someone out of becoming a music major? 

Sonja Johnson-Yu (SJ): You need to want to be a music major. But in order to enjoy being a music major, you need a certain depth of experience with music. People can learn, but, just the way that the department is set up, you want to spend time doing enough private study to make significant improvements and display those, and I think it’s important to have some sort of musical background coming into the music major for that reason. I’d say if you’re someone who didn’t have a musical background but was willing to make music their life at Stanford, I’m a believer that if you put in the work, you could succeed. 

Nnamdi ‘Papa’ Odita-Honnah (NO): No, I definitely wouldn’t. I love talking to people who are interested in being a music major. If I ever hear even a slight inkling of maybe thinking about it, I would encourage them to just look into it. You could either be just a music major or you could concentrate in something, which is what most people do. There’s composition, performance, history, theory, science and technology. Every major has its ups and downs — that’s just being a college student — but I love being a music major. It’s great learning new information about something that I already love.

Joss Saltzman (JS): There are practical reasons. Music isn’t designed to prepare you for careers outside of being a performer, composer or a teacher or researcher of music. If someone doesn’t have a certain degree of background by the time they get here, I wouldn’t recommend it. It would just be incredibly challenging. I’d be surprised if someone came to Stanford to major in music without having an extensive musical background. The other case would be if someone doesn’t have at least a general idea of what they want to do with their career with a music major. For instance, if someone’s been playing French horn since they were young but they don’t want to be a French horn player and they don’t want to be a French horn teacher, I would probably ask them, what do you expect to do after majoring in music if not those?

TSD: When you feel like you’ve lost motivation, who or what do you turn to?


SJ: I definitely hit a rut with my voice at the end of my junior year at Stanford, and I actually ended up developing a lot of stage-fright after I had my vocal crisis. I kept trying, but I realized I couldn’t do it on my own. That’s where I think my voice teacher, Greg [Wait], has been huge in helping me find the will to go on in my vocal study, even when things looked bleak. In general, though, if I feel burned out about anything, I usually try to go for a run and get some sleep. That usually helps.

NO: I realize now that if I ever go days without playing my instrument, my days will get steadily worse and worse, and even when good things are happening, I’ll just think, “Wait, what is going on? Why do I feel so down?” And I’ll realize that it’s because I haven’t practiced recently. Regardless of if I were to major in something else and go do whatever, if I didn’t continuously have music in my life, I would just be unhappy. It’s less of a motivation thing and more of a survival thing.

JS: I’m motivated by seeing my friends succeed, and not just in quantifiable measures — like the awards they get or their career prospects — but seeing people achieve the kind of goals that they set out for themselves creatively or academically is the one thing that keeps me going. In the same vein, I feel like my successes can be motivational to my peers. Especially as a senior in the music department, I feel like, if I can be successful in a career in music, then that would give a kind of validation for people to pursue music here. 

TSD: Do you think there’s a stigma in studying music?


SJ: Maybe a little bit when I told my parents I’d just get a CS minor and be a music major. The thing is that it just looks better on your resume to have double-majored, regardless of how competent you might be; people are just reading your resume. The only other stigma would be, perhaps, the perception that it is comparatively less rigorous than other academic programs here at Stanford. Is that true? I don’t know, because I’m obviously partially biased. I started studying computer science in my sophomore year. I’d never seen a line of code before that, so of course, I found CS to be hard, whereas I’ve been studying music since I was five. But, regardless of my CS background, when I’m in the music department, I’m a music student. The standards are just as high.

NO: From what I’ve heard from people who are friends with non-humanities majors, I think there’s some sort of condescension towards humanities or arts majors. I would assume it’s because they’re trying to analyze the arts and humanities industries the same way they analyze their industries. They won’t necessarily see their terms of success in our industry, so they end up attributing less value to it. If that’s the way they think, then I can understand that, even though I think it’s the wrong way to think about things. But all my friends happen to be in the humanities or arts, so we’re very supportive of each other. I know I’m very supportive of other music majors and other humanities majors, and honestly, any other major just because I know everything’s so difficult.

JS: There is a certain expectation of being able to attain a certain lifestyle after Stanford, specifically in terms of how much money you make. But, people are people, and the stigma isn’t very aggressive. They’re more so like, “Good luck with that,” rather than actively putting you down. Personally, I don’t feel very bothered by that, but there is something that I do feel more bothered by, which is the second kind of stigma, that you’re just majoring in music. And the fact that a lot of people are double majors in music contributes to the idea that music is not as rigorous as a STEM major. But, you know, it’s like comparing apples and oranges.

TSD: As ambassadors of the music department at Stanford, what would you want the rest of campus to know?


SJ: One of the things that makes me really happy is that people are making great use of a lot of the classes that the music department offers. These classes are intended to give you some exposure and some experience with music without priming you in the same way that might prepare someone who wants to study music for their life. But, the music department could do a lot of wonderful things and serve more students with greater funding, particularly in terms of hiring more personnel to teach students. More money to hire more personnel will help us to serve and support student musicians better. That’s my diplomatic way of phrasing it.

NO: If you’re even slightly interested in the music department, I would encourage people to look into the new music minor that just came out this year. It’s a lot more flexible. I know some seniors who were not minoring in music until this year and are able to do so very easily. If you’re not interested in majoring or minoring, but you’re an instrumentalist or vocalist, I would definitely look into the different ensembles we have on campus because they’re great communities. They’re not as exclusive as they may seem.

JS: 90% of our events are free. Please, please, come support your friends. There are student recitals, different department ensembles, music-oriented VSO’s, and sometimes professional musicians come to Bing. Just go to some of those things if you have the time. You’ll never be in a place where there’s so much music going on in one place again. You might not get exposure to the vibrant musical culture on campus if you’re not directly a part of it. It’s there for you if you want to experience it.

TSD: If you could choose one piece of music that would make anyone fall in love with what you do, what would it be?

SJ: Brahms Intermezzo in A. There are multiple intermezzi in A, but it’s the one, [she sings the theme of Brahms’ Intermezzo in A Major, Op. 118, No. 2.]. It’s really good.

NO: [Prelude to the] Afternoon of a Faun by Claude Debussy. It opens with a beautiful flute solo and flute excerpts that most people ask for on auditions. Sometimes I listen to that piece and want to burst into tears; it’s such a gorgeous piece.

JS: Whatever your favorite movie is, go listen to the soundtrack. That’s the kind of classical music that I’d like to be involved in, even if the stuff I write doesn’t always sound like that.

Sonja will hold a vocal recital on Friday, Jan. 24 at 7:30 p.m. at Campbell Recital Hall. Her senior conducting recital will be on Saturday, May 16, 8 p.m. at Memorial Church. Currently, Sonja is confirming her undergraduate degrees and pursuing a coterm in CS.

Papa will perform in their senior recital for solo flute on Saturday, May 9 at 7:30 p.m., Campbell Recital Hall. Currently, they are applying to graduate school for music.

Joss will premiere a work for string quartet in the winter quarter, details to-be-announced. His senior recital will also be held at the end of winter quarter. Currently, he is considering coterming at CCRMA (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics).

Contact Timothy Dai at timdai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Music @ Mars showcases Stanford’s rising indie stars https://stanforddaily.com/2019/12/04/music-mars-showcases-stanfords-rising-indie-stars/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/12/04/music-mars-showcases-stanfords-rising-indie-stars/#respond Wed, 04 Dec 2019 11:23:24 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1161429 The eclectic mix of instruments, festive wall decorations, voices and laughter uncharacteristically lively for Week 9 gave the Music @ Mars showcase on Nov. 20 a promising outlook even before the show started.

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An acoustic guitar, electric guitar and bass are propped against the wall. String lights are strung across the Mars common room; a miniature disco ball is suspended from the ceiling, sparkling.

The eclectic mix of instruments, festive wall decorations, voices and laughter uncharacteristically lively for Week 9 gave the Music @ Mars showcase on Nov. 20 a promising outlook even before the show started. The performers were among the waiting crowd, chatting and sitting with their friends, indistinguishable from anyone else in the room. After all, this show was focused on Stanford students — our peers — who, in addition to attending classes, studying and participating in extracurriculars, also compose, produce and perform their own music. 

The showcase began with words from Elizabeth Gray ’20, a student staff member at Mars and one of the organizers of the event, who emphasized the dedication of these musicians for pursuing their songwriting, especially at a place as busy as Stanford. Unlike previous showcases, this show was unique in that the performers would be performing only their personally written music — no covers. This was a particularly meaningful move to make on the part of the event’s organizers, as independent artists often feel as though they have to utilize the popularity of other songs to literally have their voices heard.  

The show began with Cam & Marco, a rap/hip-hop duo with a celestial sound. Obviously very close friends, the pair had an amazing stage presence, engaging well with the audience and splicing their songs with hilarious ad-libs. Each rapper’s skill and flow were demonstrated well in their song “Waves,” which really came alive with their energy and movements. Their lyrics captured the tension and conflicts of interest that pervade being labeled a “high achiever,” and battling other’s expectations with a sense of personal authenticity. Their down-tempo song “Emotions” conveyed a softer side, with low vocals that impressed the poignancy and longing of the enigmatic chorus, “I want to get back there someday.”

Before his set, Eli Feier ’20 admitted it was his first time performing, yet he did not disappoint in the slightest. His song “Smell Ya Later (Moving On)” treads the grounds between R&B and spiritual low-fi, featuring smooth vocals from young alum artist Ava Madison ’19. After the song, Feier switched to an acoustic guitar, explaining that he begins most of his compositions this way, either with just a guitar, piano or ukulele, and that his next song was still under production. Even while unfinished, the bare-bones “Love Night Stands” was equal parts haunting and humorous, laced with double-entendres that offset a melancholy story of unrequited love. Feier’s presence and musical style were completely raw and authentic, and had the audience slowly swaying to the sound of his voice. 

Aniea Essien ’20 has a sound that is very soulful and experimental —  her song “Hello” featured voicemail samples that were actually a part of a social experiment for one of her classes at Stanford. Seeming shy by nature, Essien really blossomed while performing, belting out remarkable high notes in a clear, lovely voice, with a soft, baby doll-esque tone vaguely reminiscent of Melanie Martinez. Throughout “Hello,” the listener can faintly hear the sound of a phone number being dialed, undergirded by a mid-tempo clapping beat, with Essien vocals layered on top of itself, imbuing her singing with an evocative, almost omni-present quality. Essien employed voice modulation, creative sampling and electronic elements throughout her works, garnering much praise from the audience with her unique and ardent style. 

Jacob Eisenach ’22 — also known as Eisenach — is a prolific Stanford artist whose songs grace topics from “pseudo Marxism on the internet” to human relationships. His style can best be described as a mix of indie rock, post-punk revival and a dash of power pop, with uptempo songs and high-energy vocals. Eisenach utilized a drum machine, electric guitar and even a kazoo during his set, dazzling the audience with his unpredictability. Eisenach prefaced his song  “Google Earth” by giving a “shout-out to graphic information systems in general,” perfectly encapsulating his quirkiness. At one point during his performance, he moved away entirely from the mic, giving the song a particularly personal edge. 

The last performer was electronic soul singer Clarissa Carter ’19 M.A. ’20. Carter has a lot of experience in both the music industry and in song composition, having opened for artists such as Wiz Khalifa, T-Pain and Kehlani, and put out several albums since she first began writing music at 13. Like the other artists, Carter utilized a wide variety of instruments during her performance, including a trumpet and bass. In contrast, her song “Speechless” used only a couple of strings on an acoustic guitar and Carter’s voice, providing a particularly base sound that gave life to lyrics that captured the feeling of romantic infatuation. 

I think the most impressive facet of the Music @ Mars showcase was how much creativity and willingness to experiment these performers brought into their craft. Each artist brought their own unique sound to the showcase, and none of their styles were replicated or even could be replicated by another. They’re bold and dedicated, taking both their art and their identities as artists seriously, making it clear to any onlooker that music for them is not merely a hobby or past-time to supplement their academic life at Stanford but rather is a gripping, imperative and inexorable life passion.

Contact Megan Faircloth at meganfaircloth ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Passing by catastrophe: EP-style https://stanforddaily.com/2019/10/14/passing-by-catastrophe-ep-style/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/10/14/passing-by-catastrophe-ep-style/#respond Mon, 14 Oct 2019 08:35:57 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1158538 To “pass by catastrophe,” according to urban legend, you must experience a major earthquake or other catastrophic event during your final exam warranting the university registrars to give everyone passing grades. But in the case of the Stanford band, "Pass By Catastrophe," the phrase means exploring making music together and dropping your first extended play (EP) on Oct. 4, amidst the Stanford grind.

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To “pass by catastrophe,” according to urban legend, you must experience a major earthquake or other catastrophic event during your final exam warranting the university registrars to give everyone passing grades. But in the case of the Stanford band, “Pass By Catastrophe,” the phrase means exploring making music together and dropping your first extended play (EP) on Oct. 4, amidst the Stanford grind. 

That Pass By Catastrophe is, as singer-songwriter and guitarist Max Kilberg ’21 puts it, a “sum of its parts” becomes truly apparent from hearing the band’s origin story in tandem with their new EP. Although all four members have come from different academic backgrounds — ranging from economics and the environmental sciences to communication and film studies — their EP release exemplifies how they have bridged their different experiences as student-musicians to create a noteworthy new groove.

The idea of starting a band emerged out of the close friendship between Max and lead singer Dexter Simpson ’21 as frosh hallmates in Twain. Max had come to Stanford “raised on a heavy diet of classic rock” with a strong background in guitar and song-writing, and knew he wanted to find people to “do music things” with him on campus. Dexter similarly pursued many different music groups as a frosh, employing his musical theater and classical vocal training as a Mendicant, lead member of Gaieties 2017 and member of the Brass Acid Collective. Max fondly recalls when he and Dexter performed acoustic covers of rap songs for their frosh dorm friends. He credits dorm Cafe Nights for inspiring them to form a band and getting involved with a recording studio as sophomores. 

Max and Dexter first met their future guitarist and bassist Zach Plante (’18, Dartmouth) at a Soaked Oates concert on campus. Zach has proved invaluable to the band thanks to his considerable experience playing with the Dartmouth college band Winterhill and his familiarity with sound engineering and studio recording from recording an EP. Through Zach, Max and Dexter got in touch with the band’s drummer and pianist Sam Silverman ’21, who played for a variety of on-campus ensembles as a frosh but was also taking classes in theory and orchestration as a music minor. 

Though Pass By Catastrophe started as four college guys jamming out together during winter quarter, between the exhilaration of performing and Zach’s studio recording experience, the group set their sights on recording an EP. The band met their producer by chance when they first visited Hyde Park Studios in San Francisco. Their future producer Chris Marquez, who worked as a sound engineer at the studio at the time of their visit, initially showed them the equipment and space. Max recalls how they all immediately vibed with the historic recording studio thanks to the Grateful Dead posters plastered on the walls and the fact that Kanye West himself just one week before had sat in the same studio chair as them.

When Marquez sat down with the band to discuss their music Max recalls how he “really liked their sound” and offered to help them mix and produce their tracks. The band thus geared up in spring quarter to record their full EP with the goal of balancing and recording their EP in as few as one recording session. A typical week for Pass By Catastrophe saw them meeting at least twice to rehearse both cover and original songs, perform at an on-campus gig or prepare for studio recording at the Roble Arts Gym. 

Max thoughtfully explained how the themes of Pass By Catastrophe’s debut EP are both the experience of embracing the chaos of life and the dreamy nostalgia of growing up in the American suburbs and moving out to California. The sound of Pass by Catastrophe is driven by classic rock guitar riffs and Dexter’s bluesy vocals, as if an acknowledgement of the diversity of musical and life experiences that brought each band member to out west to Stanford campus.

The band members are all interested in melding social criticism with musical vibes that draw upon everything from classic rock and modern pop (think Coldplay and the Kooks) to jazz and blues. The nostalgic rock vibes of the group have clearly gained traction with the public, as the three tracks on the EP have already garnered thousands of plays on Spotify in the week or two since their release. The song “Pretty Lady” holds a special importance in the group’s heart as its “bop” due to a powerful memory while recording it in the studio. Max reminisces how the group had been initially unsure about whether to record the song. After Zach laid down the piano track and it was transformed by an organ patch and back-up vocal accompaniment, the group realized how much potential their music had. 

When asked what the future holds for the group, Sam notes that the group intends to play several gigs at and beyond the scope of Stanford in celebration of their EP. Some Stanford students may have heard them at their release party this past Friday but others can tune into KSZU at 8 p.m. this Wednesday, Oct. 16 to hear them play live on air. The group plans on venturing out to gigs in Menlo Park, Palo Alto and San Francisco as well as developing new tracks. If almost four thousand Spotify plays of “Pretty Lady” within the past ten days is any indication, this band of student-musicians is right on track for achieving their goal of “making music for and by everyone.”

Contact Natalie Francis at natfran ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Tap into TAPS and other student groups for dance opportunities https://stanforddaily.com/2019/09/28/tap-into-taps-and-other-student-groups-for-dance-opportunities/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/09/28/tap-into-taps-and-other-student-groups-for-dance-opportunities/#respond Sat, 28 Sep 2019 08:30:13 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1157794 Figuring out how to be a part of the dance community can be daunting. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to start, from the myriad classes and performance opportunities offered by TAPS faculty to the over 33 dance groups on campus.

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Freshmen frenzy

As a freshman at Stanford, I remember not knowing where to start when getting into the dance scene. Luckily I found an amazing community in Cardinal Ballet Company and had the privilege of meeting various faculty and students of the dance community through Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) classes I took for credit. Whether you are a dance fanatic like me or you have never danced in your life, dance at Stanford is for you! 

Figuring out how to be a part of the dance community can be daunting. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to start, from the myriad classes and performance opportunities offered by TAPS faculty to the over 33 dance groups on campus. 

So I’m here today to breakdown some ways you can get involved in dance on campus!

No dance experience, no worries

Even if you have never stepped foot in a dance studio before, you can still find your place in the Stanford dance scene.  

Dance classes, studio practices and productions are held by the TAPS department. Stanford has a host of beginner TAPS dance classes you can enroll in, ranging from introductions to ballet (DANCE 48) and hip hop (DANCE 58) to social dance (DANCE 46) and a class you can just be a hot mess in (DANCE 123). Beyond dance as practice, TAPS offers means to explore dance through varied lenses — politically, culturally and theatrically. TAPS 20N: “Prisons and Performance” requires no background in the arts and investigates the use of theater and dance to affect social change and personal transformation among prison inmates. 

Outside of the department, there are many non-audition extracurricular student groups that offer students a welcoming space to move and mess up and learn. Many begin their dance journeys in Common Origins, the only non-audition hip hop group. Other non-audition groups include Stanford’s competitive Kpop team XTRM and Latin dance group Ritmo. See a comprehensive list of student dance groups and their hyperlinked information at the end. 

As you can see, there are a variety of dance classes and performance projects offered every quarter, including ballet, contemporary, modern, social dance and hip hop. If you can’t choose between styles, you can take DANCE 106: “Stanford Dance Community: Inter-Style Choreography Workshop,” where you sample a different dance style each class. The TAPS department allows students to pursue a variety of ways to choreograph, perform and collaborate. On top of courses and faculty performances, TAPS hosts the Bay Area Dance Exchange (BADE),  where dancers from peer institutions meet for an all-day immersion in masterclasses and workshops taught by some of the best dance teaching artists in the Bay Area. 

In terms of student groups, you will find countless styles of dance from hip hop (Dv8, Legacy, Alliance, Common Origins) and social (Cardinal West Coast Swing, Ballroom Dance at Stanford) to tap (Tapthat) and contemporary (Urban Styles, Chocolate Heads with Aleta Hayes) to cultural (Stanford Chinese Dance, Bhangra, Mua Lac Hong). 

While I have only listed a few, there are many more to choose from. Often, dance groups of the same genre will have different styles to their movement quality, so you can find which group you best fit into. 

You may be thinking, “Okay, maybe I’m not quite ready to step into the studio, but I would love to watch dance!” Luckily for you, Stanford has a multitude of dance performances put on by faculty and students alike. For example, this year’s upcoming Fall Mainstage Production “REVIVAL: Millennial Remembering in the Afro NOW” is an Afro-Futurist-inspired dance theater work that explores the people and events that have catalyzed movements for social change through time.

You will be able to find dance performances held by different dance groups each quarter. Often, various groups will stage guest performances so you can see a host of styles and groups in one show. For instance, in the hip hop scene, there is a large show put on by a different group each quarter. Fall Quarter has “Breaking Ground” by Common Origins, Winter Quarter has “EnCounter Culture” by dv8 and Spring Quarter has “Hipnotized” by Alliance.

One of the biggest dance events is the Stanford Viennese Ball, a Stanford tradition with social dancing, live music, performances and live contests with opportunities for volunteering, planning and performing. And the annual holiday performance of “The Nutcracker” put on by Cardinal Ballet Company attracts audience members on and off campus. 

There are so many ways to get involved in dance and dance-making on campus. Dance is a way to move, to create, to destress, and to be unapologetically you. Stanford asks you to dance. 

Resources: 

To stay connected with the general Stanford dance community and be updated on events and auditions, join the Stanford dance community Facebook group! 

Get on the list server for “DanceNews,” a dance-specific email for Stanford students. 

Browse this list of student dance groups and more.

Find more info about TAPS dance faculty, events, auditions, open dance masterclasses, lectures and performances and check the TAPS website weekly for new dance information.

Contact Leilani Tian at leilanit ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Stanford Archaeology exhibit offers glimpse of Native American history https://stanforddaily.com/2019/09/13/stanford-archaeology-exhibit-offers-glimpse-of-native-american-history/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/09/13/stanford-archaeology-exhibit-offers-glimpse-of-native-american-history/#respond Fri, 13 Sep 2019 23:27:28 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1157169 At the Stanford Archaeology Center’s “Trading Faces: Aspects of a 20th Century Coast” exhibit, visitors are greeted with a window into the past as they explore a collection of Native American artifacts from Canada and Alaska.

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At the Stanford Archaeology Center’s “Trading Faces: Aspects of a 20th Century Coast” exhibit, visitors are greeted with a window into the past as they explore a collection of Native American artifacts from Canada and Alaska. 

The collection features a variety of works, ranging from ladles and vessels to totem poles. Alongside each piece, the exhibit offers explanations and historical context. 

Many of the pieces originated from the Kwakwaka’wakw, an indigenous tribe of the Pacific Northwest Coast. The exhibit explores mythology and materials used in these pieces and explains the cultural significance they have to the tribe. These pieces were created in the middle-to-late 20th century and are filled with tributes to the tribe’s history and culture.

Kwakwaka’wkw artists connected with the environment through use of natural resources in creating art. Wood was a common material, and the carving technique was unique for each artist and piece. 

The “Ladle, raven,” created by Stan Hunt in 1986, shows a raven carefully carved into the handle of the ladle. The piece was created using Yellow Cedar wood and paint for its vivid colors. The intricate carvings include symbols such as salmon trout heads, ovoids and form lines. Sam Hunt’s art is known for these unique and detailed carvings. 

Fellow artist Tom Henderson used carving techniques to create the “Models of a copper,” which was considered by the Kwakwaka’wakw people to be a great status symbol when it was created in the 1970s. The piece shows a large, carefully engraved face depicting either a bear or a beaver. This engraving is mounted on a structure with a paddle-like shape, and stands out for its variety of colors and detailed features. 

Stories from the Northwest Coast Tribes are preserved with each unique piece.

A common symbol in Kwakwaka’wakw folklore is the Bawkas, a supernatural spirit whose goal is to bring people to the world of the dead. According to legend, Bawkas haunts forests to tempt humans into eating ghost foods that will turn them into supernatural spirits.

The “Mask, Bakwas” piece is a traditional artistic description of Bakwas. Similar masks were used in potlatch ceremonies, where dancers would use them to personify the Bakwas and perform myths revolving around their danger and seduction. It is carved with red cedar, a popular material known for its strength. 

While the exhibit explains the meanings behind some of its pieces, others are intentionally left mysterious to remind non-Native viewers that as outsiders, they cannot understand all of the cultural context these pieces carry. For example, pieces from the artist Doug Cranmer often contain hidden information about specific locations and subjects.

“Trading Faces” will remain open through May 2020. It is free to visit and open to the public.

Contact Elisa Moraes-Liu at elisacliu ‘at’ gmail.com.

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BLKNWS videos bring campus a new perspective on black representation in media https://stanforddaily.com/2019/09/04/blknws-videos-bring-campus-a-new-perspective-on-black-representation-in-media/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/09/04/blknws-videos-bring-campus-a-new-perspective-on-black-representation-in-media/#respond Thu, 05 Sep 2019 03:42:16 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1157037 Kahlil Joseph’s latest work, BLKNWS, is a makeshift news broadcast displayed on two television screens placed side by side, showcasing aspects of the black community that aren’t usually covered by major news channels.

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When sitting down on a small black couch in the Cantor Arts Center, or in a chair at Harmony House or Lakeside Dining, the striking, wall-length, black-and-white photograph of nuns first catches the eye. 

To avoid the nuns’ glare, one may look toward the two television screens placed in the center of the wall. The scenes on the screens may seem like a mess at first, both visually and auditorily — a kind of unconventional news show of sorts — but soon, the purpose becomes clear. This isn’t an ordinary news broadcast, but one dedicated entirely to one of the most underrepresented and misrepresented groups in America: black people. 

Over the years, artist Kahlil Joseph has amassed fame for his striking short films, usually centered around black culture and excellence. He’s worked for superstars including Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce

Joseph’s latest work, BLKNWS, is a makeshift news broadcast displayed on two television screens placed side by side, showcasing aspects of the black community that aren’t usually covered by major news channels. His exhibit has been on display since Oct. 2018 in the Cantor Arts Center, Harmony House and in the dining hall of Lagunita. The exhibit closes on Nov. 25. 

Like much of Joseph’s work, BLKNWS is as symbolic as it is informative, combining news and visual art in order to present a thought-provoking concept: how news channels would look if they were not biased against the black community. Joseph manages to express this idea with the use of two simple television screens that can be found in the typical American home. By using two screens rather than one, Joseph is allowed more creative freedom in how he chooses to tell the stories of the black community, and is able to seamlessly incorporating artistic elements into his makeshift news broadcast. 

Though it might seem like a mess at first glance, loud rap music drowning out the sound of an interview or seemingly unrelated images and videos being displayed side by side, every choice in Joseph’s art holds meaning. The distinctive characteristic behind his pieces is that much of their meaning is up to interpretation. 

Throughout BLKNWS, Joseph includes videos that might appear completely unrelated to black culture and identity, like an interview of Jim Carrey at New York Fashion Week in 2017 or a CGI animation of a dinosaur trying to dodge meteors hurtling toward the earth. However, these videos all tie together to represent core ideas central to black culture. To some, the video of the dinosaur running from meteors might represent the extinction of black culture due to its lack of representation in the media, while others might have a different interpretation. Joseph’s work forces the viewer to immerse themselves in it in order to fully grasp the ideas and concepts he expresses, which are often presented in abstract ways.  

Joseph relies heavily on music and video in most of his pieces. In m.A.A.d, a short film inspired by Lamar’s 2012 album Good Kid, m.A.A.d City that was displayed in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2015, Joseph overlapped music from Lamar’s album with clips of daily life in Compton, while also presenting his film on a double screen, like he does with BLKNWS. By combining Lamar’s music with footage of Compton, Joseph manages to create a striking piece that blurs the lines between a music video and a short film. 

Joseph uses these same methods in BLKNWS, juxtaposing pop and rap music with various audio and video clips. For example he overlaps a video of a dinosaur screaming with an audio clip of someone talking about the extinction of black culture through the media. With audio and video, Joseph is not only able to educate his audiences, but also paint an image of black culture in their minds, bringing them along on a journey to either discover or revisit the true meaning of what it means to be black in America.

As with any news show, Joseph’s has news anchors, including influential figures like actress Amandla Stenberg, who deliver the news in unconventional and sometimes humorous ways. 

However, not all topics Joseph covers in his piece are lighthearted. His goal is to show all aspects of the black community that aren’t equally represented by the media, and that includes violence and hate crimes against them. Violence against blacks in America is a huge part of black culture, dating back to when Africans were brought to the United States to work as slaves. 

Joseph doesn’t choose to focus only on positive aspects of being black in America, but instead presents an overarching view, equally showcasing good and bad, something major news channels nowadays fail to do.

BLKNWS is a prime example of the result of combining journalism and art, fact and creativity. Though it can be a lot to take in, with images sometimes flying by quickly, Joseph’s work manages to stick with audiences for a long time. It can be hard to understand everything he’s trying to communicate at once, but this lets the viewer think, to wonder why he decided to put two clips side by side, what the significance of the clips is and why he chose one song rather than another. 

Though Joseph has not confirmed plans, some have expressed hope that BLKNWS transforms from an art exhibit into an actual broadcast seen by viewers around the world. BLKNWS was originally created to tell the untold stories of the black community that most news channels choose to leave out. A broadcast would help fill the gap left by news and media companies regarding the equal representation of black culture and writers in the media. It could alter the ways we perceive seemingly news outlets, and could call further into question their reliability. 

Contact Jasmine Venet at jasminevenet28 ‘at’ gmail.com.

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Gilded Age art at Cantor provokes viewers to rethink stereotypes about the era https://stanforddaily.com/2019/09/03/gilded-age-art-at-cantor-provokes-viewers-to-rethink-stereotypes-about-the-era/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/09/03/gilded-age-art-at-cantor-provokes-viewers-to-rethink-stereotypes-about-the-era/#respond Tue, 03 Sep 2019 21:32:31 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1157011 The Cantor Arts Center hosted two temporary exhibitions offering contrasting perspectives of life in the Gilded Age, the late-19th-century years of economic growth and increasing inequality during which Stanford was founded.

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From Aug. 31, 2018 to Aug. 25, 2019, The Cantor Arts Center hosted two temporary exhibitions offering contrasting perspectives of life in the Gilded Age, the late-19th-century years of economic growth and increasing inequality during which Stanford was founded. 

“Painting Nature in the Gilded Age,” a collection of works by multiple artists, showcased art that was meant for consumption by the era’s “haves” — wealthy, uniformly white elites. Yinka Shonibare’s “Cowboy Angels” challenges this reductive characterization of the Gilded Age by serving up a powerful reminder of marginalized groups in the era. 

Select paintings by American artists from the 1880s to 1910 were fixtures on the moss-colored walls of Cantor’s Ruth Levinson Halperin Gallery.

A series of arresting portraits greeted the gallery’s visitors. Their subjects were sumptuously clothed and carefully staged in a display of affluence.

While the collection’s portraits of serene urbanites endorsed a wealthy East Coast lifestyle, its still life paintings recalled a Jeffersonian vision for America and expressed a nostalgia for rural life. Representations of sturdy hunting tools, well-worn boots and other symbols of the virtuous yeoman farmer ideal populate the still lifes. Nora Schlossman, a docent at Cantor, said during a tour of the exhibit that, during the late 19th century, these paintings were mounted in taverns in eastern cities, where many patrons had experienced a rural upbringing. 

Similar to the Colosseum in Rome, or to the pyramids in Egypt, the splendor of “Painting Nature in the Gilded Age” conferred a sense of loss and longing hinging on the belief that the course of history has since taken a downturn. 

Schlossman and others pointed out that most groups, including women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community, have made significant gains since the Gilded Age.

“One of the things that has occurred since [“Painting Nature in the Gilded Age”] was put together was that it does point out the whiteness of the collection,” Shlossman said.

Mark Dion, Cantor’s 2019 artist-in-residence, posed the following question in an article in the museum’s summer magazine: “What are the other stories left untold about the foundations of the Stanford wealth? Who are the unnamed figures on whose backs this fortune is built?”

Yinka Shonibare’s “Cowboy Angels” offers a partial answer.

“Cowboy Angels” consists of five woodblock prints of cowboys with African masks for faces and angel wings. Each print bears the word “Angel” and a collage of Dutch wax fabric, Shonibare’s signature material, which is made in Europe for export to Africa.         

The myth of the cowboy as a symbol of rugged individualism, which was propagated by American writer Owen Wister’s “The Virginian” and wild west shows, belies a harsher truth: Cowboys were wage laborers bound to ranching corporations and railroads. By reworking the image of the cowboy, an archetypal American hero, Shonibare pokes holes in the mythology that shrouds the Gilded Age and urges a more inclusive national identity.

Contact Vani Mohindra at 20vanim ‘at’ students.harker.org.          

   

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‘Photography Teaches’ features Bay Area artists’ work in Coulter Art Gallery https://stanforddaily.com/2019/09/03/photography-teaches-features-bay-area-artists-work-in-coulter-art-gallery/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/09/03/photography-teaches-features-bay-area-artists-work-in-coulter-art-gallery/#respond Tue, 03 Sep 2019 08:55:25 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1157003 From Aug. 1 to 30, the Stanford Department of Art & Art History sponsored work by Bay Area photography teachers Seth Dickerman, Dionne Lee, Aspen Mays and Lewis Watts in the McMurtry Building's Coulter Art Gallery.

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From Aug. 1 to 30, the Stanford Department of Art & Art History sponsored work by Bay Area photography teachers Seth Dickerman, Dionne Lee, Aspen Mays and Lewis Watts in the McMurtry Building’s Coulter Art Gallery. The exhibition, titled “Photography Teaches: Artists from the Bay Area Academy,” was curated by assistant photography professor Jonathan Calm.

“Photographs by each artist were selected to display a sample of their respective visions, to reveal a significant connectivity–ranging from kindred sensibility to creative counterpoint–between the subjects, themes and aesthetics that interest and engage them, and to put into perspective their shared commitment to living and working in the Bay Area as a uniquely inspirational place of nature, history and community,” states the Department of Art & Art History’s exhibit overview. 

Upon entering the gallery, Watts’ “New Orleans Exhibit” was clearly visible along the right wall next to the doors. The work is inspired by the Great African American Migration of the 20th Century, and Watts, a professor emeritus of art at UC Santa Cruz, picked New Orleans because of Loiusiana’s strong connection to the West Coast. Six weeks after Hurricane Katrina, Watts was able to gain access to the city and look beneath the surface of the city’s culture. 

“There has been a concerted effort to make sure that the cultural practice and cultural workers endure as there has been an equally concentrated effort to keep many of the African American residents from returning after they were evacuated from the storm,” Watts wrote in an exhibit description displayed at the gallery. “I have tried to show the look, smell, and sound of New Orleans with my work.”

'Photography Teaches' features Bay Area artists’ work in Coulter Art Gallery
(Photo: ANISHI PATEL/The Stanford Daily)

Lee, who received her M.F.A. from California College of the Arts in 2017, explores ideas of power, agency and racial histories in relation to the American landscape through her work in photography, collages and video. Five of her works were on display on the back wall of the gallery, with titles such as “A Plot That Also Grounds” and “a site for seeing; no other way to say we are waiting.” 

A Plot That Also Grounds” depicts a marsh-like landscape, with small pink flowers in the foreground before a small river, which is surrounded by reeds and tall grasses. Two African American hands reach into the picture, one holding a circular piece of the painting, which looks like a scrap of paper torn out of the middle of a picture. There is a black hole where the missing piece should be. 

“A touchstone of my research is the history of black bodies on American soil,” Lee wrote for the Department of Art & Art History. “Traditionally presented as a refuge, a place of peak contentment and peace, the American landscape is also a place of violence and alienation.”

'Photography Teaches' features Bay Area artists’ work in Coulter Art Gallery
(Photo: ANISHI PATEL/The Stanford Daily)

On the wall directly left of the gallery entrance were multiple 20-by-24-inch prints of various American coins. Dickerman, a professional fine printer since the 1970s and founder of photo lab Dickerman Prints, displays “Currency,” a collection of black and white images of presidential portraits found on U.S. coins. Of the 10 photographs in the series, three were found in the Coulter exhibition: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Dickerman told the Department of Art & Art History that the seed of his project was planted in 1986, when he was “struck by the dignity” of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s portrait on a silver dime. 

“The coins and bills from which these portraits were photographed are history books in disguise,” Dickerman wrote of his work in a biography available at the gallery. “They bear witness to change: physical, historical and philosophical.”

Mays, whose work was displayed further along on the left wall, received her M.F.A. in photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009, and uses her background in anthropology to “explore humankind’s connections with various scientific phenomena and ephemeral lifetime events,” according to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

On display at the gallery is Mays’ 2010 work “The Sun 1957,” a collection of gelatin silver prints depicting the Sun from a mid-century international survey of sunspots. The prints are assembled chronologically into a grid resembling a calendar. 

'Photography Teaches' features Bay Area artists’ work in Coulter Art Gallery
(Photo: ANISHI PATEL/The Stanford Daily)

After conducting research alongside astrophysicists in Chile, the home of the most advanced astronomical observatories in the world, Mays used an abandoned darkroom at the National Astronomical Observatory of Chile to make “The Sun 1957.”

“To my initial surprise, these spectacular technologies drove me instead to seek the rudimentary tools that could offer a more humble, embodied experience of observing the night sky,” Mays wrote of her inspiration for “The Sun 1957” in a description of the piece found at the gallery.

Also on display was Mays’ “Cerro Calán,” a collage made from “two found burning masks” and the lid of a box of Kodak paper. The piece is named after the hilltop on which the Chilean observatory was located. 

The Coulter Art Gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from 12 to 6 p.m. 

Contact Anishi Patel at anishi.patel10 ‘at’ gmail.com.

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Inside the world of college vlogs: Are Youtubers commodifying the ‘elite college’ experience? https://stanforddaily.com/2019/08/13/inside-the-world-of-college-vlogs-are-youtubers-commodifying-the-elite-college-experience/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/08/13/inside-the-world-of-college-vlogs-are-youtubers-commodifying-the-elite-college-experience/#respond Tue, 13 Aug 2019 23:02:15 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1156733 From day-in-the-life videos and dorm room tours to orientation clips and guides on how to get into any school, the stream of college content never seems to run dry. Whether the college experience is depicted accurately or not, the proliferation of college-branded videos attracts young viewers whose perception of schools may be influenced by what they see online.

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“You seem like such a wonderful person. I really want to go to Stanford now since there are people like you there!” 

This comment, left by Youtube user Helena Zhu, is just one of many on a video Katherine Waissbluth ’22 made about Stanford application essays on her channel, “The Kath Path.” The video, like others on Waissbluth’s channel, has garnered tens of thousands of views, and more than 100 comments. Many commenters, like Zhu, describe their desire to attend Stanford. 

Alongside an ever-growing mass of Stanford-related Youtube content, the number of applications to Stanford has been increasing steadily for years; in 2017 there were 38,828 applicants to the class of 2021, in 2018 there were 44,073 applicants to the class of 2022, and this year there were a record-breaking 47,450 applicants to the class of 2023. 

This increase in applicants and — as a result, rejections — is not just correlated with, but perhaps contributing to the emergence of Stanford-based YouTubers who provide further media exposure for the University. And this kind of positive feedback loop isn’t limited to Stanford alone. The same can be observed at other elite colleges.

From day-in-the-life videos and dorm room tours to orientation clips and guides on how to get into any school, the stream of college content never seems to run dry. Whether the college experience is depicted accurately or not, the proliferation of college-branded videos attracts young viewers whose perception of schools may be influenced by what they see online.

Amid the popularization of online videos, “college vlogging” has become a niche of its own. Stanford has housed multiple college YouTubers, some of whom are perceived as “brand names” among doe-eyed viewers across the country, and even the world. “The Kath Path” has joined several other Stanford-based Youtube channels, such as “Cath In College” (Catherine Goetze ’18), “Spirited Gal” (Aparna Verma ’20) and other popular YouTubers at prestigious universities, who together have garnered millions of subscribers eager to learn about “elite” university lifestyle. 

Austin Yao, a rising high school junior from North Carolina, told The Daily about his experience seeing Princeton University through the eyes of successful college Youtuber Nicholas Chae. Yao said he “began to think about Princeton differently” after watching one of Chae’s videos about the school’s economics department.

“I was already sort of interested in an economics major, but hadn’t actually done any research about it yet,” Yao said. “ … [Chae] had pictures of his notes and stuff, and I thought that was pretty cool.”

Aryaman Bana, another rising junior in high school and a friend of Yao, said watching Chae’s videos “catalyzed” his desire to go to an Ivy League school, but also blinded him from considering lesser-known alternatives. After watching countless videos about the elite college experience, Bana concluded that he was left with “this seed planted in my head that certain brand-name schools are the best, so I have to go there.”

Separating the individual from the brand

The relationship between colleges and college YouTubers is one of mutual impact. Sienna Santer, a Youtuber at Harvard, spoke about how the pressure to live up to the Harvard name affected her while producing content. In an email to The Daily, Santer wrote that “Harvard is a household name, and one of the top ten brands in the world.”

“People have such a warped and stereotyped view of what it’s actually like to go there, and so it has been difficult to have the Harvard name attached to [my channel] because I show a very different reality than what most people expect,” Santer wrote. ” … I’m social and I go out, I do well in my classes, I don’t pull all nighters, I have amazing friends and I don’t look like a stereotypical ‘Harvard student.’”

YouTuber Arpi Park ’22, on the other hand, wrote in an email to The Daily that he feels liberated by the sheer number of students attending Stanford — and the unique experience that is guaranteed by its multiplicity. 

“Stanford’s reputation is far beyond the scope of my channel, so I don’t think I could do much to affect it (good or bad),” Park wrote. “So, overall, Stanford’s name doesn’t really affect the way I portray my college experience. I never feel pressured to come off as a ‘typical Stanford student,’ which, in my opinion, doesn’t really exist anyways.”

Like many other college Youtubers, Santer, Waissbluth and Park started their channels with the intention of helping out high school students in the elusive and often inaccessible college admissions process.

“I remembered how unfair the information gap seemed to be when I was a senior in high school, and I wanted to help reduce it,” Park wrote. “A few months after that, I made more videos pretty much because I was bored. It always seemed like a fun, productive hobby … I imagine college youtube is to high schoolers what High School Musical was to me — a sort of glimpse of what their future may look like.”

Santer shares clips of her day-to-day life — such as attending social events and exercising at the gym — to demystify the college experience she believes school counselors tend to depict: stressed out students toiling to earn their degrees, barely passing difficult midterms and studying the nights away for final exams.

However, Santer admits that “social media and YouTube will always portray an idealized version of life to some extent.”

“We [Youtubers] can’t show every single part of our days, we don’t share everything with the camera, and no matter how authentic the footage is, we still have to edit it and create a final project that people will enjoy aesthetically and content-wise,” she wrote.

As more and more college YouTubers showcase seemingly uncharacteristic aspects of their lives — whether it be flying over New York in a helicopter or spending weekends guzzling beer — colleges are increasingly perceived not only as places of study, but also those of socialization, glamour and fun. Some viewers, who “demand authenticity and relatability more than anything,” according to Santer, have not been receptive to these types of changes.

“This past year I really struggled with perfectionism and not feeling like I was good enough, and as a result that transferred into some of my videos,” she wrote. “I’m such a people pleaser, and I was so scared of people rejecting me both online and around campus. A lot of those fears came true, some because I was portraying a more idealized version of my life than what I actually experienced, and I wasn’t happy because I wasn’t speaking my truth and I was getting hated on for it.”

It would be inaccurate to say all college YouTubers strive to portray an “idealized” version of their university experience. Park, for one, makes satirical videos deliberately criticizing the “game of elitism” (a term he synonymizes with college admissions), such as “Buying Your Way Into College: The Game,” “So you’re waiting for college decisions…” and “Ivy League College Tier List,” to name a few. 

“In the future, I plan on making more videos — like actually — but they won’t all be about college because I don’t really enjoy that content personally,” Park said in a vlog recapping his fall quarter

Within a year, Park’s channel has amassed more than three million views, many of which came from a six-minute video detailing the stats and extracurriculars that he believes got him accepted into Stanford. Despite his success, Park wrote in an email to The Daily that refraining from the college-genre in the future was a personal choice, and that he doesn’t see college Youtubers as inherently wrong.

“After all, if they get views, it means people want to see them … I think the college niche on Youtube is fun for a lot of people — whether they are getting excited about college, seeing what other colleges are like, or reminiscing on their own college years,” Park wrote. “Some Youtubers may try to monetize their channels through ads, application services, online courses, etc., which is fine. I’m all for trying to make money on the side (we’re college kids, after all). Personally, I just want to avoid pigeonholing myself into a certain genre that I will ultimately grow out of.” 

Bringing people together through vlogs

For rising sophomore Katherine Waissbluth, creator of “The Kath Path,” what might seem to Park as “milking” the Stanford name is instead a building point for her brand. Her channel caters primarily to those interested in the Stanford experience and potentially applying to the University.

“I believe the Stanford name has been a huge part of my success, especially starting out,” Waissbluth wrote in an email to The Daily. “It is one of the most searched universities in the world, meaning having “Stanford” in my titles allows my videos to be searched more.” 

Santer shares a similar sentiment: “I won’t lie, being a Harvard YouTuber has propelled me forward in the community very rapidly. I’ve seen a lot of unprecedented growth in my subscriber and view count that was quite shocking initially, and I think the Harvard name has a lot to do with that.”

However, Santer has found the college-vlogging experience rewarding in other ways.

“The first time someone recognized me and asked to take a picture with me I started crying! She was visiting all the way from India with her family, and the fact that this little girl halfway across the world knew my name and was touring Harvard because I had inspired her really got to me … I get so emotional when that happens, and it makes everything worth it. It’s a feeling you can’t really describe until it happens to you. It’s unreal.” 

Ultimately, Santer attributes her success only partly to the Harvard name. Though she has worried in the past that people “would only see Harvard” in her, she believes they stay tuned to her channel because of who she is as an individual.

“Reading the comments and messages from subscribers who actually love me as a person, love my editing, am inspired by my life, relate to my struggles, etc. has been amazing and reminded me that I am worth so much more than where I go to school.” Santer wrote.

Contact Ashley Kang at ashley.kang126 ‘at’ gmail.com.

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Q&A: Brian Butler, founder of LA art gallery 1301PE https://stanforddaily.com/2019/08/06/in-conversation-with-brian-butler-of-la-arts-and-poster-gallery-1301pe/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/08/06/in-conversation-with-brian-butler-of-la-arts-and-poster-gallery-1301pe/#respond Wed, 07 Aug 2019 06:59:45 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1156591 The Daily sat down with 1301PE founder Brian Butler to discuss his work, collaborating with other artists and the impact of poster art on the Stanford community.

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Since the Los Angeles art gallery 1301PE opened in 1992, its founder Brian Butler has presented the work of a number of internationally renowned artists, including John Baldessari, Fiona Banner, Diana Thater, Kirsten Everberg, Pae White, SUPERFLEX and Uta Barth. Stanford Art Gallery’s latest exhibition, “Here Today,” displays a complete history of 1301PE’s work from the past 25 years. The exhibition is open from July 23 to Aug. 30. 

The Daily sat down with Butler to discuss his work, collaborating with other artists and the impact of poster art on the Stanford community. 

The Stanford Daily (TSD): How did you first get into poster art?

Brian Butler (BB): As a kid growing up, I would play my vinyl record, look at the album cover art, pull out the poster of the band I liked and put it up on my wall. Then there was this [San Francisco rock poster purveyor] named Ben Friedman who used to sell concert posters from music venues like Winterland and Fillmore West. He had all of these posters that my brother and I would stop and look at—which were made by amazing graphic artists. I think [my childhood hobbies], and looking at art history, and the fact that I really liked the idea of ephemera, which are art forms, like posters, that aren’t precious, and can only be enjoyed for a brief amount of time, had an influence on me. 

TSD: Why did you choose LA as the location for your gallery? 

BB: After I left Berkeley, I moved to London, then back to LA, then to Cologne, Germany. While I was in Cologne, I was working for a gallery that was based in LA, I came back to LA later on; there was an economic downturn, I lost my job, so I thought, “What am I going to do?” And since I really liked editions or multiples, I started a little company called Brain Multiples. In 1998, we moved to the space on Wilshire Boulevard. LA was natural to me because New York was too much about business, and I thought the LA was interesting—with the artists that were there in LA, and all these art schools, from UCLA to CalArts and Otis, and it was cheap living, so people just kind of congregated. 

TSD: Do you consider poster art a form of contemporary art? 

BB: The posters are just an offshoot of the gallery. And I always say this: [posters] are the art of our time. If it’s art of our time, we have no idea if it’s good, bad, or whatever. It’s just of our time. As soon as it becomes “contemporary,” then somehow we’re putting a label on it and giving it a value association. But the artists that I’ve worked with for a long time—Pae White, Diana Thater, Parreno/Pardo, or many of the artists that you’ll see in the posters in the Stanford Gallery—they’re all working, living artists who are just making [art], thinking about what they want to do, wanting to make an impact in this time.

TSD: Are the posters in the exhibition the original copies? 

BB: They’re all original, with the exception of Diana Thater’s “Pink Daisy, Amber Room” exhibition posters. Those posters got wet and the edges stuck together because of a flood in our storage room. 

TSD: Is there a certain formula that you apply for all of your posters? 

BB: I’d say we don’t do anything other than maybe calculate a size. Artists sometimes ask me to do something and they’ll be like, “Oh no, I hate that typeface!” or “How could you possibly use that color?” So even though sometimes we have these discussions about [design], I let the artists make their own decisions for the most part. 

TSD: What have you learned through collaborating with other artists?

BB: I think to be fearless and to trust your gut is the first thing. The idea is like, you know, you have a good time. I learned that working with the artists is about having a continuous conversation with people. It’s not just about the business of having a gallery, or what the exhibition is going to be, or what the work is going to be. For me, it’s communicating with the artists that allows an openness that expands one’s conversation from just being about what we’re selling, to a higher and more philosophical level of how or why we’re selling it.

TSD: What’s special about having poster art displayed in a setting like Stanford?

BB: When the library said they wanted to acquire them, I thought it would be really interesting to put it into an academic situation, because a totally different generation is looking at it. If students just go, “It’s horrible!” I’ll be like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” But if they’re like, “Wow, I’ve never thought of posters before,” then I’ll be like, “That’s pretty great!” Because Stanford was taking them, I thought that the Palo Alto population should be able to see them before they go into a drawer. What I really want at the end of all this is a class that’s taught in the graphic art department on poster making. 

This transcript has been lightly edited and condensed. 

This article and its headline have been corrected to reflect that 1301PE is an art gallery, not an art and poster gallery. The Daily regrets this error.

Contact Brian Lee at bl45983 ‘at’ pausd.us.

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Youtube star Rachel Fong ’21 shares whimsical baking creations in new cookbook https://stanforddaily.com/2019/08/06/youtube-star-rachel-fong-21-shares-whimsical-baking-creations-in-new-cookbook/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/08/06/youtube-star-rachel-fong-21-shares-whimsical-baking-creations-in-new-cookbook/#respond Wed, 07 Aug 2019 06:23:27 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1156584 She has over 1.2 million Youtube subscribers, a Stanford course load and is now a published author, but Rachel Fong ’21 has kept her passion for product design central in all three pursuits. Fong’s debut cookbook consists of 75 original, easy-to-follow recipes modeled after her Youtube channel, “Kawaii Sweet World,” and was made available for […]

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She has over 1.2 million Youtube subscribers, a Stanford course load and is now a published author, but Rachel Fong ’21 has kept her passion for product design central in all three pursuits. Fong’s debut cookbook consists of 75 original, easy-to-follow recipes modeled after her Youtube channel, “Kawaii Sweet World,” and was made available for purchase from major book retailers on July 30.

Officially titled “Kawaii Sweet World Cookbook: 75 Yummy Recipes for Baking That’s (Almost) Too Cute to Eat,” Fong’s cookbook features recipes from hedgehog fudge to panda cakes, deer blondies to narwhal cake pops, emoji cookies to pig puffs. The Japanese word “kawaii” translates to “cute” in English and is the inspiration for the playful, colorful aesthetic of Fong’s baking creations.

The cookbook’s official release was celebrated on Sunday with a special baking party at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park.

Fong and her literary agent approached publishing houses last year with the proposal for the “Kawaii Sweet World” cookbook and, after receiving much interest from multiple publishers, signed with Crown Publishing subsidiary Clarkson Potter, which operates under Penguin Random House. At that point, Fong was able to embark on the process of selecting and refining recipes, writing descriptions, creating a shot list for the photos and seeing her work come to fruition in a final print product.

“I’m very used to sharing my recipes through video where I get to narrate and show frame-by-frame how to make something,” Fong told The Daily. “Figuring out how to explain that through print media was a different challenge.”

She identified her two main methods for thinking of new recipe ideas: watching for food trends, like edible cookie dough, or just letting her imagination take control.

“I take something kawaii and then pair it with a dessert by figuring out how I can transform the dessert into some cute character or an animal,” Fong said. “I also do try to keep an eye on food trends and then figure out: Is this a good fit for my channel? And if so, how can I put my own spin on it and make it very kawaii?”

Fong started her Youtube channel as a 12-year-old in Dec. 2010, just to submit a video entry for a crafting competition. Though she didn’t win the competition, she received requests for tutorials in response to her first video, and she began building her channel from there. Her first videos included tutorials on how to make various clay charms, which progressed into demonstrations on Easy Bake Oven goods, and eventually developed into the more advanced baking tutorials she still makes today.

Fong films her videos on a professional kitchen set, complete with pastel blue walls, lighting equipment and colorful props. Her videos receive hundreds of thousands of views, some reaching upwards of two million, with thousands of comments and likes as well. A few of her most recent videos include, “How to Make Giant Pancakes in a RICE COOKER!” “How to Make BTS / BT21 Cake Pops!” and “How to Make a Rainbow Stripe Cereal Cake!”

While exploring her creative side through baking and Youtube, Fong has also pushed herself academically since enrolling at Stanford in fall 2017. Though she has not yet declared a major, Fong has used her time as a college student to pursue her interest in product design, which she describes as “a cool blend of engineering and creativity.”

“The thing I like most about Stanford is the very entrepreneurial spirit there,” Fong said. “You could say a cliché about Stanford is that everyone wants to join or create a startup, but that’s a cliché I feel like I can live with. I really like everybody’s energy and that you can find like-minded people who really think that they can change the world. They believe in themselves, believe in forging their own paths, and are not afraid to break tradition.”

While testing recipes for her cookbook and, in the process, gaining a granular understanding of baking, Fong discovered an interest in the chemistry of baking and food science in general, which has led to her to consider future work in a food startup or in the food innovation space.

Contact Esther Sun at sune2696 ‘at’ lgsstudent.org.

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Professional Art Society of Stanford founders reflect on legacy, opportunities opened as group transitions to new leadership https://stanforddaily.com/2019/07/31/professional-art-society-of-stanford-founders-reflect-on-legacy-opportunities-opened-as-group-transitions-to-new-leadership/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/07/31/professional-art-society-of-stanford-founders-reflect-on-legacy-opportunities-opened-as-group-transitions-to-new-leadership/#respond Wed, 31 Jul 2019 07:05:30 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1156507 As Reilly Jonathan Clark ’18 M.A. ’19 and Michael Reily Haag ’18 M.A. ’19 hand the baton to two new PASS presidents, they are leaving a legacy of several PASS-led projects that have taken place around campus.

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In 2017, Reilly Jonathan Clark ’18 M.A. ’19 and Michael Reily Haag ’18 M.A. ’19 founded the Professional Art Society of Stanford (PASS) to increase awareness of the arts on campus and provide potential career pathways for art majors at Stanford. 

Now, as Clark and Haag hand the baton to two new PASS presidents, they are leaving a legacy of several PASS-led projects that have taken place around campus. The organization has also increased its connections and engagement with the Bay Area art community since its inception. 

“PASS gives students unique, hands-on experiences that are difficult to find in college,” Clark wrote in an email to The Daily. “For example, we have executed major exhibitions, worked with artists to create new works, visited studios and private collections and most importantly, we have connected students with mentors.”

One of the many hands-on projects PASS has completed is the 2017 exhibition “Badlands,” created by students and put on display at the O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm. The main theme of the exhibition was environmental justice and awareness. For new PASS Co-president Mac Taylor ’20, curating and organizing the exhibition provided valuable lessons that could be used in any future career in the arts.

Taylor noted in an email to The Daily that “PASS members organized, curated, and sponsored the exhibition from start to finish, working with award-winning artist Josue Rivas, as well as the work of other Stanford faculty and MFA students.”

“This event allowed PASS members practice with the process and act of curating, of sponsoring an exhibition, and of working with artists — all experiences not easy to find on campus, and all experiences of increasing value to those interested in pursuing the arts professionally in most any form,” Taylor wrote.

Angelica Jopling ’20, the other new PASS Co-president, said the organization doesn’t just provide hands-on experience, but is also a way to connect her lifelong passion for art with a tangible career in the field.   

“I’ve always had a strong connection to art since I was a young child,” Jopling wrote in an email to The Daily. “Stemming from the intimate and emotional interaction I had with art from such a young age, I was driven to pursue Art History at Stanford.” 

However, passion for art isn’t always enough to make a career. The connections that budding artists make with the wider community are often essential. PASS tries to streamline that process by fostering engagement with and between members of the Stanford community. Local artists also work with PASS to provide opportunities for those interested in the arts.

“Reily and I also wanted to point students towards careers in the arts that many of us never knew existed,” Clark wrote. “The art world can be difficult to access, and we wanted to make it just a little more accessible.”

The connections that students make through PASS are intended to last a lifetime, which is an added bonus considering how difficult it is to gain an entryway into the art world. PASS also provides opportunities for students who have similar artistic interests to connect and collaborate. 

“Having approached art from two directions, one of personal relation and youthful passion, and then from a more academic perspective, I still felt as though I lacked real engagement with the art community at Stanford and beyond,” Jopling wrote. “PASS gives the opportunity to not only combine these two perspectives but to add a third. This is one that is centred around creating an art community both in and outside of Stanford because art cannot be a monologue.”

But connecting with other art students and learning about potential careers aren’t the only benefits of PASS. For cofounders Clark and Haag, founding the society was in itself a challenge. Advocacy and ownership of decisions were just two of the many lessons they learned through their journey.

“Building PASS with Reily taught me so many things. I learned that at Stanford, we can’t rely on the university to do anything for us,” wrote Clark. “We have to organize ourselves and ask for what we want. And we can’t shy away from any task, no matter how big or small! I got to know so many talented people and feel deeply thankful to have worked with them.”

As Clark and Haag hand over the presidency of PASS to Taylor and Jopling, they have high hopes for the future of the society, including more exhibitions and opportunities to connect with other artists. 

“We have a spectacular new generation of executives, led by co-presidents Mac Taylor and Angelica Jopling, who will take the society to new heights,” wrote Clark. “I believe that the Stanford arts community can accomplish anything it sets its mind to. So we need to think big.”

Contact Anahita Srinivasan at srinivasan.anahita ‘at’ gmail.com.

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Matt Wilson’s band livens Dinkelspiel Auditorium with ‘Honey and Salt’ album performance https://stanforddaily.com/2019/07/26/matt-wilsons-band-livens-dinkelspiel-auditorium-with-honey-and-salt-album-performance/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/07/26/matt-wilsons-band-livens-dinkelspiel-auditorium-with-honey-and-salt-album-performance/#respond Fri, 26 Jul 2019 09:28:51 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1156458 “Honey and Salt,” Wilson’s 13th album, is an ingenious jazz reinterpretation of Carl Sandburg’s classic poems.

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Matt Wilson’s band performing their new album, “Honey and Salt,” superbly demonstrated the unique talents of each musician in songs like “Fog,” as well as their ability to cooperate through songs like “Choose.” The performance captured me with smooth delivery and sonic breakthroughs. 

On July 14, my father and I, along with Jazz Camp members and other eager spectators, gathered at the Dinkelspiel Auditorium to see one of the most captivating performances of the year: Matt Wilson’s band performed Wilson’s new album, “Honey and Salt.” Featuring five gifted musicians — Wilson, the drummer; Dawn Clement, the pianist and vocalist; Jeff Lederer, the reed player; Nadje Noordhuis, the trumpet player and vocalist; and Martin Wind, the base player. 

“It feels very different when you have lots of young students in the audience” Noordhuis told The Daily. “At that point I’m more aware that they are perhaps looking up at us the way that I would have looked up to performers when I was their age.”

“Honey and Salt,” Wilson’s 13th album, is an ingenious jazz reinterpretation of Carl Sandburg’s classic poems. Even though each track seemed casual and undirected on the surface, the songs told stories through a coalescence of instruments, verse readings and singing. 

“I grew up in West Central Illinois, in the town adjacent to Mr. Sandburg’s.” Wilson told The Daily. “We studied his poetry at a very young age, and as I left home I rediscovered my roots and become even more appreciative of them.”

The first track on the album, “Soup”, gave me a taste of how poetic jazz can really be. As one of the more casual songs on the album, the song was performed with such an easygoing manner that I felt I could see the “famous man eating soup” in the poem as vividly as Carl Sandburg did. 

“People just buy it, and they get into it.” Wind said. 

The transition to the second track, “Anywhere and Everywhere People” was immediate. Clement’s singing of interesting words like “anywhere,” “everywhere” and “be seen,” on top of the already playful music, gave me the impression of studying an abstract modern painting. 

The mood became more peaceful in songs “As Wave Follows Wave,” “Night Stuff,” “Fog” and “Prairie Barn.” One detail of the songs that enchanted me was the use of instruments and human vocals to simulate the sound of nature. 

Toward the end of “As Wave Follows Wave,” each musician said “as wave follows wave” continuously with different volumes, pauses and tones to give the effect of waves splashing over the shore. The repetitive playing of Carl Sandburg reading the poem “Fog” as Wilson’s drum rhythms mimicked the imaginary movement of fog was quite original. Wilson’s slow shaking of the tambourine to create the effect of wind and bells in “Prairie Barn” is among the most creative techniques I have seen.  

One of the best parts of the performance was the five musicians’ chorus of one of Carl Sandburg’s most renowned poems, “Choose”. The poem is about our attitudes towards dealing with everyone and everything in life, and whether we should treat them with an “open, asking hand,” or a “clenched fist.” Seeing jazz musicians interpret a 20th-century poem in a refreshing way, without sacrificing its original taste, is inspiring. 

“I think an important part of the work is the range of the songs, range of the groove, range of the dynamic and range of the licks of the tunes,” Wilson said. “Sometimes people are surprised when we do some tracks that are really short, because they’re used to jazz songs being a certain amount of time.” 

“Track 1” contrasted the rest of Wilson’s works, as he intended. With other tracks lasting an average of 3-4 minutes, this track was less than a minute. The audience got more excited when the performers invited an audience member to read the lyrics. This spontaneous connection between the audience and the performers was very memorable.

“This is an offering and receiving process,” Wilson said. “We’re offering sound, but at the same time, we’re receiving something back from the audiences. We’re receiving applause and smiles.” 

Wilson likes to call the area between the concert hall stage and the first row of audiences the “moat.” And good musicians should be constantly thinking: How do we take away that moat and make the audience part of the music? 

Throughout the performance, the musicians attempted to remove the metaphorical moat by interacting with the audience and “really allow the audience members into [their] world,” Wind said. Subtle details from Clement’s expression of lyrical emotion, to Wind’s exaggerated grooves, to Wilson’s passionate rhythms, and Lederer’s spontaneity playing reed all helped to remove that “moat” without us noticing. Their idea of making the members of the audience read poem verses while they perform also helped pull the audience into the story that the band was trying to tell.   

“We’re really trying to bring as much joy to the audience as possible,” Noordhuis said. “We’re not trying to be serious and create a sort of studious atmosphere. It’s all about this freewheeling celebration of music and poetry.” 

Contact Brian Lee at bl45983 ‘at’ pausd.us.

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Veteran monk discusses spiritual balance with grad students at Bhakti Yoga Club event https://stanforddaily.com/2019/07/24/veteran-monk-discusses-spiritual-balance-with-grad-students-at-bhakti-yoga-club-event/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/07/24/veteran-monk-discusses-spiritual-balance-with-grad-students-at-bhakti-yoga-club-event/#respond Thu, 25 Jul 2019 03:51:28 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1156444 Bhakti Yoga is a spiritual yoga focused on peace and devotion.

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More than 80 people, including students, professors and other Stanford community members, gathered to hear monk and Bhakti yoga practitioner Vaisesika Dasa speak about how to seek balance in life on July 12. The event was organized by the student-led Stanford Bhakti Yoga Club.

Bhakti Yoga is a spiritual yoga focused on peace and devotion. At the event, Dasa described balance as feeling one’s “own fullness.” 

“Balance doesn’t mean to be [spiritually] still,” he said. “It means you know how to pull back to your center.”

The event took place at Stanford’s Graduate Community Center, and a large number of the attendees were graduate students. They voiced concerns about stress and work pressure, asking questions about how to stay grounded and balanced.

“As students we have to juggle a lot of responsibilities,” said Stanford Bhakti Yoga Club President and Ph.D. student Khonika Gope. “We have studies and we have to take care of ourselves. Dasa’s talk about balancing the inner and outer worlds is very important.”

As a high schooler, Dasa was curious about two questions: “Why should I die?” and “What is the purpose of life?” In his junior year, he renounced the material world, quit his sports team and walked to school barefoot. Now, Dasa speaks about balance at companies, organizes spiritual retreats and creates video guides to achieve spiritual satisfaction. Dasa discussed his journey as a monk, the role balance plays in his life, and concrete steps everyone can take to find balance.

“Gaining balance means finding out who you are,” Dasa said. “What you are is more important than what you have. That’s so magical. It helps me make good choices and not be reactive.”

According to Dasa, there are three ways people can spend their lives. They can exploit those around them for personal gain, disconnect from the world, or choose the path of service and balance, which leads to a fulfilled life. He said it is important for one to know their own goals and lifestyle because it is very easy to get lost otherwise. 

To help specify these goals, Dasa recommended that attendees spend an hour in a distraction-free environment and write down their most cherished dreams with a pen and paper. He also recommended that everyone practice gratitude to help achieve balance. 

“You feel balanced because you feel you are enough,” he said. “When you feel entitled, you think you deserve more. You will never be satisfied so you’re never balanced.”

Dasa believes that — in order to lead a happy, balanced life — one should participate in selfless service. 

“Every person has a natural gift,” Dasa said. “It’s unique. When you use that unique gift for selfless service, it creates the perfect alignment, which gives balance.”

Dasa’s talk contained elements of theoretical spirituality and practical applications. Event attendee Fabio Dias da Silva said Dasa’s tips and suggestions were useful for finding balance.

“I now know that I have to seek focus and try to not worry,” da Silva said. “Instead, I should help other people.”

Contact Manat Kaur at manat ‘at’ object.live.

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‘Island Universe’ at Cantor models theories of our existence https://stanforddaily.com/2019/07/21/island-universe-at-cantor-models-theories-of-our-existence/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/07/21/island-universe-at-cantor-models-theories-of-our-existence/#respond Sun, 21 Jul 2019 19:35:28 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1156401 “Island Universe” represents possible models of the early universe through sculpture. The temporary exhibition is open at the Cantor Arts Center from Feb. 23 to Aug. 18, 2019.

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Walking into Josiah McElheny’s “Island Universe” exhibition felt different, even though the indoor space was nothing out of the ordinary — a large cuboid room with modern cement walls and ceiling, with wooden floors. Erratically hung from the ceiling are chandelier-like, shiny steel and glass figures. As I walked through the room, the figures gave an impression of movement and expansion. But I didn’t understood what was moving and expanding until I recalled the name of the exhibition: “Island Universe.” 

“Island Universe” represents possible models of the early universe through sculpture. The temporary exhibition is open at the Cantor Arts Center from Feb. 23 to Aug. 18, 2019. 

“I have been very moved by the way that so much of the grand ideas around cosmology come from a source that’s very, very simple,” McElheny said in a video interview with Cantor Arts Center director Susan Dackerman. 

McElheny is a New York-based artist and sculptor whose main works include recreations of Renaissance glass objects and abstract contemporary sculptures. He worked closely with David Weinberg, an astrology professor at Ohio State University, to help develop scientifically accurate measurements for “Island Universe.” 

Collaboration between artists and scientists is not unusual at Stanford. Former Stanford postdoctoral fellow Thomas Juffmann worked with UC Berkeley’s Phillip Haslinger and the San Francisco Art Institute’s Enar de Dios Rodríguez on SEEC, an abbreviation for “see light.” SEE Photography relies on highly advanced cameras to help people see what happens at the speed of light — how light is scattered and reflected as it travels.

Stanford also offers a variety of different Art + Science programs through both The Senior Reflection, a series of courses for Stanford seniors interested in art and science, and the Cantor Arts Center Art + Science Learning Lab, a behind-the-scenes learning experience of science and the conservation of arts. 

“Island Universe” consists of “five different propositions and possible models for the emergence of the universe,” Dackerman said. Through these models, McElheny harmonizes art and astrophysics by making complex scientific theories visualizable without losing scientific precision.

In each of the five figures, a big central sphere represents the origin of the universe, while light bulbs and little glass circles on the inside represent the present time. When viewed from afar, the figures sparked my imagination surrounding expansion of the universe. And as I looked closer at each of figures, I experienced the profound feeling that I was traveling back through time. 

The five chandeliers in McElheny’s exhibition are each made of parts manufactured in different locations, but assembled at the Cantor Arts Center. They contain rods and spheres made of chrome-plated aluminum and riggings, hand blown and molded lights and other glass parts and electric lighting and rigging, according to the description in the exhibition. 

“The most complicated parts of the whole project are these little one inch spheres,” McElheny said. “They cost $1000 each to make.” These metal spheres were made in Queens, New York, and then shipped to Los Angeles, where holes used to install rods that connect to the glass parts were punctured using $2 million machines called 5-axis lathes. 

“Island Universe” is inspired by the Metropolitan Opera’s chandeliers and the Inflationary Universe Theory, which is an explanation for the expansion of the early universe developed by Stanford physics professor Andrei Linde. 

Inflation, the exponentially fast expansion of the universe, is capable of producing not just a universe which appears identical everywhere, but a multiverse consisting of many different exponentially large universes, each with its unique properties, Linde said. 

“[McElheny] was trying to use art to represent something that we cannot see with our eyes,” said Linde, who has visited the exhibition and gave a presentation about it at the Cantor Arts Center. “He was not showing something in space, but in each part of the multiverse evolving in time.”

McElheny wanted his models to appeal to people from different backgrounds. As a result, the arrangements and proportions of every component of the models are carefully considered, purposeful and precisely follow their scientific derivations, even if they are modeled on speculative and theoretical science. The sculptures aim to simultaneously engage artists and philosophers — who might view the work from a bigger-picture point of view — and scientists, who might emphasize the details. 

“Cantor serves as an inclusive gathering place to connect people through the presentation of diverse art and ideas, which is what happens when one experiences ‘Island Universe,’” Dackerman told the Daily. “Having such works at Stanford affords the opportunity to bring the community together with students and faculty from every discipline to think about how seemingly disparate ideas interrelate in our lives.”

Contact Brian Lee at bl45983 ‘at’ pausd.us.

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