The ASU School of Film, Dance and Theatre has officially announced its 2016-17 MainStage season, which features two world-premieres of plays created by Arizona State University students as well as five dance concerts, two film screenings and theatre productions featuring boats, food and a strange creature.

The annual "Fall Forward!" dance concert kicks off the MainStage season, the official performing arts season of the School of Film, Dance and Theatre, at the end of September. The concert features new works by ASU faculty and guests. Download Full Image

The first theater production of the season is new work written by the MFA theater cohort and directed by Kyra Jackson, Wyatt Kent and Phil Weaver-Stoesz. “Out of Many” examines what it means to call people “American” and how to find unity in a nation divided. This play features stories, images and ideas torn from the American zeitgeist.

Horror comedy “Feathers and Teeth,” which features a mysterious creature, will premiere just in time for Halloween, followed by the Emerging Artists dance series and the Fall Film Capstone Showcase.

In the spring, BFA dance candidates will present diverse pieces in two separate evenings of Transitions Projects.

The theater season will return to Shakespeare for the first time in a decade with “Titus Andronicus.” Director Kristin Hunt will use food to help tell this tale of revenge, betrayal, violence and one very disturbing pie.

In March, audiences will take a trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon with “Men on Boats.” Playwright Jaclyn Backhaus retells the raucous adventure of Captain John Wesely Powell and his crew’s expedition. “Men on Boats” features 13 male characters, none of which are played by cisgender male actors. 

The last theater production of the season features another piece written by a student. MFA playwright Marvin González De León’s “Haboob” is a work of magical realism that follows its characters into the desert as they hunt for and fight over a buried inheritance.

The annual “SpringDanceFest” concert will highlight some of the best hits of the dance season alongside new work, and the Spring Film Capstone Showcase will close out the MainStage season with screenings of work by senior film students.

For more information on each event and to purchase tickets, visit season.asu.edu or asuevents.asu.edu. 

Stephani Etheridge Woodson, associate professor in the School of Film, Dance and Theatre and director for the Theatre for Youth PhD and MFA programs, won the Distinguished Book Award from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education for her book, Theatre for Youth Third Space. Performance, Democracy and Community Cultural Development.”

"The book offers a new way of thinking around how we can use theatre to build a more just and democratic world and I am honored to receive this award from such an important national organization,”" Woodson says. Download Full Image

“Art makes a difference in people’s lives.” The award will be presented at AATE’s 29th annual national convention this July in Boston, Massachusetts.

Linda Essig, Evelyn Smith Professor in the School of Film, Dance and Theatre, has work published in the current issue of Theatre Design and Technology.

Her “"Primer for the History of Stage Lighting,”" which was originally commissioned and published by the Theatre Library Association in 2007, was reprinted for the spring edition of Theatre Design and Technology, the publication of the United States Institute for Theatre Technology.   Linda Essig Download Full Image

Angeline Young, an Master of Fine Arts student in the School of Film, Dance, and Theatre in the Arizona State University Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts, received recognition for her contributions to dance research Friday, April 29, 2016. The Graduate and Professional Student Association honored Young and other ASU graduates at an awards ceremony hosted at the ASU Art Museum.

Young received two awards, the Arijit Guha Graduate Student Advocacy Award and the GPSA Outstanding Research Award, for her work in dance research and teaching. Download Full Image

“"I am honored for this recognition,”" Young says. "“My work as a dance advocate is not easy, and I am not the only one fighting for more inclusive methods that acknowledge cultural differences in dance in the academy. I grew up in San Francisco’'s Chinatown and Haight-Ashbury districts. These experiences have impacted the way I approach teaching and learning in the arts in an academic context. My hope is that through designing and implementing equitable approaches to dance pedagogy, more people will be able to experience the value of social justice initiatives in dance and embody what it really means to be respectful, understanding and compassionate.”"

Young is currently working on a performance project that traces her family’s forced migration through China during the Chinese Civil War. For more information, visit angelineyoungdance.com.

Melissa S. Rex, clinical associate professor in the School of Film, Dance and Theatre, is a recipient of the newly created and highly competitive Vibrant City Grant from the City of Tempe. Vibrant City Grants are made available to individual artists to help fund passing, short-lived, momentary, temporary, transitory, ephemeral projects that occur in Tempe in public spaces not traditionally associated with art. Rex's "Storytelling in the Park" project is focused on the expressed desire for community gathering and inclusion of community members in programmed arts and cultural offerings through storytelling. The project also utilizes the existing landscape of Kiwanis Park in a creative way. Through the construction of a mobile and re-usable performance/presentation stage, local artists and community members can share their stories of Arizona culture, history, folklore and more through (but not limited to) the mediums of spoken word, storytelling, dance and music. 

The ASU School of Music is pleased to announce the appointment of Christopher J. Wells as assistant professor of musicology, beginning in fall 2015. Wells comes to ASU from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he is currently visiting assistant professor of music.

“We are thrilled to have attracted Christopher Wells to our faculty at this critical time in the history of the school,” said Heather Landes, director of the school. “Dr. Wells’ interdisciplinary research interests in jazz music and dance, as well as his interests in American music, complement our diverse offerings and will contribute greatly to the newly announced PhD program in musicology as well as the undergraduate core curriculum.” Christopher J. Wells joins the ASU School of Music as assistant professor of musicology, beginning in fall 2015. Photo by Kai Hayashi. Download Full Image

Originally from New York City, Wells received his PhD in musicology in 2014 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His dissertation focused on drummer/bandleader Chick Webb and swing music in Harlem during the Great Depression, and for his research efforts he received the Glen Haydon Award for an Outstanding Dissertation in Musicology and the Edgar A. Toppin Award for Outstanding Research in African American Music.

“I was originally attracted to ASU due to the School of Music’s institutional location as part of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts,” says Wells. “Its comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach seemed like a perfect incubator for the sort of inter-arts dialogue and focus on community participation that I strive to foster through my research on jazz music and dance. I also connect very deeply with ASU’s mission to unite excellence with inclusivity and access; this is what I think higher education ultimately can and should be.”

A social jazz dancer for more than a decade, Wells is currently writing a book about the history of jazz music’s ever-shifting relationship with popular dance. He has also written a chapter for the forthcoming “Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity.”

In his new position in the School of Music, Wells will contribute a unique voice to the musicology program. He will conduct creative research, teach musicology courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels, including those in the core curriculum, collaborate with faculty colleagues in recruiting students and in the development of curricular initiatives, and mentor graduate students.

“I’m looking forward to being part of a top-notch musicology faculty with colleagues whose work I’ve admired for years,” says Wells. “I’m also looking forward to exploring the opportunities ASU offers for innovative, collaborative work in areas such as research design and online pedagogy.”

Public Contact: 
Heather Beaman
School of Music Communications Liaison
480.727.6222
Heather.M.Beaman@asu.edu

Media Contact:
Heather Beaman
School of Music Communications Liaison
480.727.6222
Heather.M.Beaman@asu.edu

Linda Essig presented a plenary featured session at the annual conference of the Association of Arts Administration Educators (AAAE) in Philadelphia in June.

In addition to being invited to present at the conference, Essig was also elected to serve a three-year term on the association's board of directors. Download Full Image

The ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts has appointed Tiffany López as the director of its School of Film, Dance and Theatre. López, a professor at the University of California Riverside in the Department of Theatre, Film and Digital Production and an Endowed Chair in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, officially begins her tenure July 1.

“Dr. López has unbounded energy and vision and will be a great asset to our faculty and students,” said Steven J. Tepper, dean of the Herberger Institute. “Her life, scholarship and creative work exemplify the values and aspirations of the New American University. She is the perfect person to lead us into the future as a place that deeply engages its community, prepares artists for many different social and professional roles, and values and advances the diverse cultural expression of our city, region and world.” Tiffany López begins as director of ASU's School of Film, Dance and Theatre, in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, on July 1. Download Full Image

López brings more than 30 years of engagement within the arts community and 21 years as an academic to the role.

“This is an extraordinary time to join the School of Film, Dance and Theatre and the Herberger Institute as a visionary place for training global artists and leaders,” López said.

Her current scholarship on how theatre artists use their work to create shared vocabulary for processing violence and trauma connects with the institute’s ongoing work at the intersections of art, health, and youth and community development. López deeply understands how a university can be a force for cultural change and growth in the community. At UC-Riverside, she founded the Latina/o Play Project at the Culver Center for the Arts in Riverside to engage the community in telling its own story.  

“As an educator and artist, I’ve dedicated the length of my career to thinking about issues of diversity as intrinsic to cultivating excellence in the work that we do — that’s a very strong vision and a point of commitment I’ll bring to the position,” López said. “I’m excited to be a part of the initiatives and the transformative conversations underway within the Herberger Institute and the opportunity to actively engage both the mission and the impact of diversifying the arts.”

López, the first in her family to graduate high school and attend college, says she is a poster child for public education and is excited to work with the ASU student population. She attended community college with plans to manage a fast-food restaurant, but education set her on another path. With support from student programs and fellowships, she transferred to California State University, Sacramento, where she received a bachelor’s degree in English. She earned a master’s degree and a doctorate at the University of California, Santa Barbara. López’s honors include a Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation. She is also a Fulbright Scholar.

“I understand how the path of obtaining and receiving an education is not only personally transformative but also transforms your entire family history by showing what’s possible,” she said. “And it transforms our communities by enabling us to give back and make a difference. The goal is to not just walk through new doors, but open them wider for others.”