May 27, 2014
Capstone Arts Immersion Field Trip to Los Angeles
ITALIC visited Los Angeles for its capstone arts immersion field trip over Memorial Day Weekend. The trip capped off a quarter-long exploration of community-engaged art in ITALIC. Students prepped for the visit by hearing lectures on cultural tourism and the history of art and urban space in Los Angeles before heading to the airport for the trip to “SoCal.”
On Saturday, the trip focused on community-based art created outside of formal, “high art” institutions. The students started their tour with a visit to Los Angeles Plaza, the original center of the city, where they learned about the racial dynamics of the city and conflicts between groups that date back to its founding. They then explored Olvera Street and learned about David Alfaro Siqueiros' whitewashed, and later restored, mural, América Tropical.
The class next visited the Watts Towers Arts Center - Watts resident Simon Rodia created the Towers over nearly four decades, and they have stood as a community symbol ever since. They then joined a second line in the Los Angeles Poverty Department's Walk the Talk parade, highlighting community leaders in the city's Skid Row neighborhood (and earned a mention in a Los Angeles Timesarticle on the event). After having a Q&A session with comedy writer Erica Rivinoja, the class headed to The Great Wall of Los Angeles. Created by the Social and Public Art Resource Center, led by Judy Baca, The Great Wall of Los Angeles is a mural that reaches nearly a half-mile long. The work depicts the history of Los Angeles from its founding through the 1960s from the perspective of the city's diverse ethnic groups.
Day two, where students explored some of the city’s premiere artists institutions, began with a visit to the J. Paul Getty Museum, where students saw exhibitions of the work Yvonne Rainer, Ansel Adams, and Jackson Pollock, among others. They next visited the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles before ending the afternoon by attending a Los Angeles Philharmonic performance of Così fan tutte, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel with a Zaha Hadid-designed set, at the Disney Concert Hall. To end the day, Stanford Trustee Joy Simmons hosted ITALIC for dinner, which featured soul food, a tour of her amazing collection of African American Art, and a performance by puppeteer Basil Twist, a Stanford Artist in Residence this term.
Before heading home to Stanford on Monday, ITALIC's trip to Los Angeles concluded with a discussion with John Malpede and the artists from the Los Angeles Poverty Department who created Walk the Talk.
May 28, 2014
Stanford Newscreated a video profile on ITALIC. Watch it here.
May 22, 2014
Spring 2014 Lecturers
ITALIC has welcomed a variety of diverse guest lecturers to class this Spring. On April 17, Institute for Diversity in the Arts Executive Director Jeff Chang gave a lecture on hip-hop history as a community-based social movement. The class featured an in-class hip-hop dance demonstration by ITALIC student Elijah Williams. On May 15, Audrey Shafer, MD, Director of the Arts, Humanities and Medicine Program at Stanford, lectured on the connections between anesthesia and poetry. Finally, on May 22, Apple Store creator (and Stanford alumnus and Trustee) Ron Johnson led ITALIC in a discussion of the connections between art and design. The lecture and discussion was part of ITALIC's quarter-long exploration of the boundaries of art - in this case the boundaries between commerce, technology, design, and art.
May 12, 2014
ITALIC was featured in a San FranciscoChronicle article on the arts at Stanford. Read about it here.
May 3, 2014
ITALIC Visit to the San Francisco Ballet
ITALIC traveled to the San Francisco on May 3 for a triple-bill of Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine's Agon, Balanchine’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, and Jerome Robbins' Glass Pieces, set to the music of Phillip Glass. The class was treated to a backstage tour after the performance, where they were able to go on stage, see where the company rehearses, and ask questions of some of the SF Ballet's staff. The trip linked with in-class lectures on minimalism in dance and the African American vernacular in the work of George Balanchine.
May 1, 2014
Spring Quarter Artist Visit: Cartoonist Ivan Brunetti
ITALIC Welcomed cartoonist Ivan Brunetti to class on May 1. Ivan gave a lecture to ITALIC students about his work that touched on the editing process and how he created several covers for the New Yorker, and led them through a series of workshops on comic drawing. The visit coincided with ITALIC students' first Spring 2014 creative project: creating comics that address a course theme.
April 8, 2014
Exploring Campus Public Art
To begin a quarter-long exploration of community-engaged art, ITALIC students visited public art at Stanford. Students began by giving oral presentations about works on campus and wrote their first paper of the quarter on how a sculpture of their choice "worked" in its on-campus location. For their capstone creative project this Spring, ITALIC students will be designing, and if possible executing, a community-engaged artwork. Pictured from left to right are Don Yeoman, The Stanford Legacy(2002), Jack Zajac, Big Ram Skull and Horn(1976), and Kenneth Snelson, Mozart I (1982).
March 4, 2014
Comedian Tig Notaro Visits ITALIC
ITALIC welcomed comedian Tig Notaro to campus on March 4. Known for her appearances on This American Lifeand her standup show, Live, completed just days after she was diagnosed with Cancer, Tig spoke with students about the way she uses comedy to address serious themes. The visit was part of ITALIC’s Winter Quarter course, "Gravity and Levity," which focuses on how artists take lighthearted and serious subjects to the same subject. Students had the opportunity to ask Tig about her famous Live show, learn about the path she took to standup stardom, and the ways she crafts her act and performs on stage. That evening, ITALIC and The Stanford Storytelling Project hosted an evening of free standup with Tig, which drew a raucous audience of 300+. A public Q&A led by Stanford’s Dan Klein followed the event.
Read coverage of the event from the Stanford Daily, SCOPE (Stanford Medicine Blog), and the Stanford Arts Institute.
February 22, 2014
Taylor Mac's Hir at the Magic Theater
To continue their winter quarter exploration of gravity and levity in art, ITALIC students traveled to San Francisco's Fort Mason to see Taylor Mac's Hir at the Magic Theater. The play's title (pronounced "here") represents both the gender neutral-pronoun as well as the themes of home and family explored in the play. Mac's work, which features a transgender character, a solider returning from war, and a questioning of the gender roles in the "traditional" nuclear family, provided a way to bridge ongoing class discussions on gravity in levity in art that deals with both war and issues of identity. The class' exploration of the play began with a lecture by ITALIC PWR instructor Hillary Miller on the history of Queer Theater and the work of Taylor Mac, and ended with a talkback session after the play with some of the play's actors and production staff.
February 7, 2014
'Theater in the Time of Jihad: A Conversation with Playwright Shahid Nadeem with Excerpts from "Burqavaganza"
As part of their exploration of "Gravity and Levity" Winter Quarter, ITALIC students attended a performance of the controversial (twice-banned) Pakistani play, "Burquavaganza," and joined a conversation with playwright Shahid Nadeem and other politically-engaged artists and activists at Stanford's Roble Theater. The event followed a lecture by theater director Vidhu Singh, who was responsible for brining Burquavaganza to the United States and staging it in the Bay Area, and Stanford Professor Jisha Menon, who discussed Gravity and Levity in South Asian Theater Forms with ITALIC students. Discussion after the play included topics including the power of humor to tell powerful human stories about politically sensitive topics, and the challenges of presenting a play meant for Pakistani audiences to theatergoers in the United States.
January 22, 2014
ITALIC in the News!
ITALIC was featured in the Stanford Report. Read about the program here!
December 9, 2013
ITALIC Fall Creative Project Presentations
Throughout Fall Quarter, ITALIC students have been developing new scenes for Anton Chekhov's The Seagull as part of their final projects for the term. Working in groups of four to five, students filled in some of the "missing" scenes from the play, such as Polina's wedding, Konstantine's attempted (and successful) suicide, and the construction of the play's stuffed seagull. The performances included acting, student-composed music, dance, and new short films made by the groups. Above are photos from The Sexy Seagull, Facing Reality, Arkadina in Mourning, A Remarkable State of Preservation, and Death of a Nobody.
December 3, 2013
The Things I Have Done with Dance: A Conversation with Jerome Bel
Festival Jérôme Bel at Stanford concluded with The Things I Have Done with Dance: A Conversation with Jerome Bel on December 3 at Pigott Theater. Bel spoke for 45 minutes about his path to becoming a choreographer, and some of the works performed as part of the festival. After his talk, four ITALIC students, Hope Casey-Allen, Gloria Chua, McGregor Joyner, and Jackson Roach, led a Q&A with Bel.
The students asked about the dances they had attended over the past month, such as The Show Must Go On and Cédric Andrieux, as well the philosophy that Bel uses to shape his works. Appropriately for this event, where students were both on stage and in the audience, the relationship between audience and performer in Bel's work was a main topic of conversation. After the talk, Bel joined ITALIC students for lunch and more conversation near Burbank House.
November 18 - November 21, 2013
ITALIC Guest Artist, New York Times and Artform Critic Claudia LaRocco
ITALIC’s Fall 2013 guest artist, Claudia LaRocco, visited Burbank the week of November 18, 2013. A theater, dance, and literature critic for The New York Times and Artfourm (among other publications), Claudia gave two lectures and led three discussions for students in section. Topics ranged from her path from English major to dance critic, the nature of arts criticism and its role in society, and the idea of the “poet as critic.”
In lecture, students had the opportunity to perform Duet, a piece in which dancers stand completely still for the duration of John Cage’s silent work 4:33. ITALIC students then honed their arts-writing skills by drafting their own critiques of the work in section. While on campus, Claudia also hosted a lunch for a group of writers from the Stanford Arts Review, a new online publication.
Claudia’s visit coincided with Festival Jérôme Bel at Stanford. Before her week in ITALIC, she led a Q&A after Bel’s Cédric Andrieux at Bing Concert Hall.
November 13 - December 3, 2013
Festival Jérôme Bel at Stanford
ITALIC students are finishing a two-week collaboration with noted French choreographer Jérôme Bel and his dance company. This course unit coincided with Festival Jérôme Bel at Stanford, a major Bay Area arts event co-sponsored by Stanford Live and ITALIC. (Read coverage of the festival in The Palo Alto Weekly, In Dance, and The San Jose Mercury News).
Students attended lectures about Bel and his choreography by ITALIC faculty and staff , and discussed readings on postmodern dance and music in section. They saw Bel’s The Show Must Go Onat Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium on November 13. The work is series of dances set to 18 pop songs performed by both professional and non-professional dancers. ITALIC student Gloria Chua attended more than 50 hours of rehearsals to be part of the performance! Dina ed Dik and Henrique Neves, members of Bel’s company who staged the work at Stanford, led ITALIC students through some of the numbers in class the same week. (Read reviews of The Show Must Go On from San Francisco Classical Voice and The San Francisco Chronicle).
ITALIC students also attended a performance of Bel’s Cédric Andrieux on November 18. The piece is a one-man solo that covers the biography of the performer and many of the major themes of postmodern dance. ITALIC’s Fall Quarter guest artist, New York Times and Artform critic Claudia LaRocco, led a Q&A with Cedric after the performance.
Festival Jérôme Bel wraps up with a Q&A with Bel himself on December 3 at 11 am. The discussion, taking place at Stanford's Pigott Auditorium, will feature questions from ITALIC students and a lecture by Bel on “The Things I Have Done with Dance.” For more information, click here. (For a preview, read a Q&A with Jérôme Bel in The Stanford Daily).
October 20, 2013
Vanya and Masha and Sonia and Spike at the Berkeley Repertory Theater
ITALIC students attended at performance of Christopher Durang's Tony Award-winning play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at the Berkeley Repertory Theater on October 20. The play built on student analysis of, and performances of scenes from, Chekov's The Seagull in lecture and section the week before. Students enjoyed dinner in Berkeley before the show, and even watched a film assigned for class, Orson Welles' The Lady from Shanghai, on the bus to the theater!
Octber 11, 2013
ITALIC Trip to SFO's Falstaff at Frost Amphitheater
ITALIC students braved the Northern California fall weather to see a live simulcast of the San Francisco's Opera's performance of Verdi's Falstaff at Stanford's Frost Amphitheater on October 11. Despite the brisk evening, and an illness that required a an understudy to be rushed to the theater during the first intermission, students were able to enjoy the opera and think about how the multiple artistic media involved (music, performance, and film) shaped their viewing experience.
Octber 3, 2013
In-Class Performance by the St. Lawrence String Quartet
ITALIC welcomed Stanford's own world-renowned chamber group, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, for its first in-class performance on October 3. The group played a selection of Joseph Hayden minuets to explore how the composer used music to upset expectations in the mind of the listener.
Octber 1, 2013
ITALIC and SIMILE Joint Event at CCRMA
On October 1, students from ITALIC and SIMLIE (Science in the Making Integrated Learning Environment) attended at lecture by Professor Ge Wang at CCRMA (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics) at Stanford. Professor Wang first led a live demonstration of his music programming language ChucK, which allows users to code and produce sonic pieces from the programming language in real time. He then gave an overview of the Stanford Laptop Orchestra, slork, which combines elements of computer programming, sculpture, and music composition to produce innovative new "orchestral" pieces. Finally, Ge discussed two of the music apps he helped create, Ocarina and I am T-Pain, and demonstrated them to the class in an impromptu performance. The lecture was followed by an informal discussion and a rush of student downloads of his apps to use on the walk back to Burbank!
