July 10, 2003
Annual celebration of the arts covers wide ‘Sphere’
The Summer Arts Festival returns to campus July 16–19, with its many events built around the theme of “Spheres.” That may seem like a strange theme for an arts festival, but if director Hannah Wiley’s first idea had been approved, the theme might have been “The Frontal Lobe.”
“A former grad student of mine gave me Antonio Damasio’s book, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain,” Wiley explained. “I loved the book and was taken with the fact that the frontal lobe is the area of the brain that’s responsible for creative activity. So I suggested to Michael Halleran that the theme of the festival be the Frontal Lobe.”
Halleran, divisional dean for Arts & Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences, liked the idea but rejected the name. So the field of brain science was retained in the next proposed theme, Hemispheres, which was finally shortened to Spheres. And Damasio will be on campus to give a festival lecture: Emotion, Feeling and Social Behavior: The Brain Perspective, as the first-ever summer Katz lecturer. His free talk is at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 16 in 130 Kane.
“Once we had the theme in place, all sorts of things started happening that related to Spheres,” Wiley said.
Take the Kronos performance, for example. Kronos is a quartet of musicians with an eclectic style who have performed at past arts festivals. Wiley had known for several years that the group was putting together a multimedia piece entitled Sun Rings, so it became a natural addition for Spheres.
Sun Rings came about when the NASA Art Program contacted Kronos with an open invitation to take sounds of space and weave them into music. The sounds came from plasma wave receivers built by physicist Don Gurnett and flown on a variety of Earth-orbiting and planetary spacecraft over a period of 40 years.
Kronos’ longtime collaborator Terry Riley composed the music for Sun Rings, which includes — in addition to the space sounds — visual design and projections by Willie Williams (video director for the Rolling Stones’ “Licks” tour and designer for stadium and arena tours for U2, REM, David Bowie, Bryan Adams and others). The University Chamber Singers, directed by Music Professor Geoffrey Boers, are one of two choruses providing vocal music for the piece.
“I’ve heard snippets of the music, and it’s stunning,” Wiley said. Sun Rings will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 19 in Meany Theatre, with a pre-performance lecture by Richard Will at 7 p.m. in the west lobby. Tickets are $45, $40 for students and seniors. The ticket price includes a $10 donation to the Lt. Colonel Michael Anderson Endowed Scholarship Fund.
Another funny story about the festival’s theme involves Art Professor Jamie Walker, whose installation, Sight and Sound, will be on display in Suzzallo Library. “Jamie makes these beautiful ceramic spherical vases with ceramic flowers that come out of them,” Wiley said. “I’ve been in love with his work for a long time and thought it would go well with our theme.”
So Wiley approached Walker about doing a piece and he agreed, but what he proposed to her was to have a lot of ceramic tiles on the floor of the library that people would walk on and they would break. It wasn’t what Wiley had thought he would do, but she accepted it. Months later, when Wiley sent him an e-mail telling him the copy was due for the brochure on Spheres, Walker wrote back saying, “Spheres? I thought you said Fears.”
So his piece has evolved. It’s now described as an installation that “relies on the inherent material and historical properties of glass to engage the senses through sight, sound and touch. The viewer is invited to walk on pathways of glass leading to a spherical centerpiece.” It will be on display outside Suzzallo’s Reading Room.
Wiley’s own group, the Chamber Dance Company, is performing a work that includes a literal sphere. Called Heisenberg Principle and choreographed by Tandy Beal, the dance incorporates a helium-filled weather balloon. It also provides a connection to one of the festival lectures. Philosophy Professor Andrea Woody will present Spheres of Influence: The Impact of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle on the Arts. The dance concert, which costs $10–12, will be presented daily at varying times in Meany Studio Theatre, while the free lecture is at 11 a.m. Thursday, July 17 in 101 Suzzallo.
Event connections aren’t the only kind that have been made through the festival. Wiley approached Art Professor Rebecca Cummins, whom she knew from last summer’s festival, and asked her to create a sundial for this one. Wiley took Cummins to lunch with Astronomy Professor and sundial enthusiast Woody Sullivan, and the two ended up co-teaching an interdisciplinary class on the subject in spring quarter. Now, sundials made by students in that class will be on exhibit in 101 Suzzallo.
But that’s not all. A number of outdoor sundials are being created at locations across campus, and tours will be conducted at 1 p.m. every day of the festival. The exhibit is called collectively Where Is Noon?
Many other events are scheduled for the festival. A complete schedule is available on the Web at http://www.summerartsfest.org. Tickets to events for which there is an admission charge may be purchased at the Arts Ticket Office, 206-543-4880.
