Creative Acts in the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park
Site Specific Music & Dance Performances
Please note: Because of rain, this event will be postponed until Thursday, October 21st at 4 pm.
The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture presents Creative Acts: Site Specific Dance & Music in the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park, an on-site celebration featuring performance art inspired by the location.
Act One: Thirty Oaks
Director & Choreographer: Meghan Flanigan
Composer & Musician: Timothy Nohe
Dancers: Kate Brundrett, Ravae Duhaney, Josephine N. Kalema, Emily Kimak, Franki Trout
Musicians: Rose Hammer Burt, Tiffany DeFoe, John Dierker, Will Redman
Sculptural Costumes: Antoinette Suiter
The first part of the presentation will showcase Thirty Oaks, a site-specific work that celebrates the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park with dance, music and visuals. This project will join choreographer Meghan Flanigan, sound artist Timothy Nohe, and visual artist Antoinette Suiter in a multidisciplinary collaboration involving UMBC dance students and Baltimore musicians. The piece will draw from the reflective atmosphere, the geometry of the tree plantings, the collective journal writings of visitors, and the legacy of Joseph Beuys to create a contemplative and beautiful homage. Every element will spring from and be united with the space itself: the dancers will move through, around, and with the trees, weaving a moving sculpture that reflects the patterns of trees and rocks. The musicians will also move through the space creating sounds from a visual score inspired by both Fluxus practices and the shape of the oak leaves in the park. The audience will be invited to be scattered amongst the trees and watch the emerging movements and sounds from their unique perspective.
Choreographer, UMBC adjunct faculty member, and Imaging and Digital Arts MFA Candidate, Meghan Flanigan is the director and choreographer of the work. Timothy Nohe, UMBC professor, will create a sound composition for the work and will direct four musicians. Visual artist and and Imaging and Digital Arts MFA Candidate, Antoinette Suiter will create sculptural costumes and sets for the project. The dancers for the project are UMBC undergraduate dancers who were drawn to the project as an opportunity to work outside of the studio or theater and to collaborate with other art forms.
This portion of the event is supported by the TKF Foundation.
There will be a brief intermission with comments from CADVC Executive Director, Symmes Gardner.
Act Two: Songs from a Public Diary
Composers: Shane Parks and Charles Miller
Vocalist: Madelaine Winter
Keyboard: Charles Miller
Song 1: Dear Lover; Song 2: I Wish He Could See; Song 3: A Day in the Journal
The second part of the presentation will include musical settings of texts taken from the public journal in the park. For years students, faculty, staff, and visitors have written in the journal. Their entries range from letters of appreciation for the beautiful space and it's peaceful atmosphere to college trials and tribulations. Often students write about stressful semesters or especially joyful relationships also. Anyone passing the park can read the ever-changing book and add to it.
Senior UMBC Linehan Artist Scholars and Music composition majors, Charles Miller and Shane Parks, have taken three of these journal entries and set them to music. Inspired by the language, tone, design, and emotion of the posts, the composers sought to embody the rare honesty displayed in the writings as music. The composers collaborated in a variety of ways for the project. Parks and Miller exchanged melodies and harmonies determining the best setting of each work, while constantly editing every aspect of the pieces. As a result of the collaboration, the compositions draw from many different genres. A single vocalist from UMBC will perform the short songs with accompaniment by Charles Miller on keyboard.
Admission is free. 4 -5 pm, Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park, located on the south side of the campus, within Hilltop Circle, with metered public parking available in the Commons Garage.
A talkback session will follow at 5:15 in the amphitheatre of the Fine Arts Building.
For additional information, please call 410-455-3188.