Research

Arts and Design Research Incubator offers full slate of events for fall 2015

Self-portrait by Bill Doan, professor of theatre and women's studies Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

The Arts and Design Research Incubator (ADRI), a unit of the College of Arts and Architecture Research Office that provides support for high-impact arts and design research projects, will offer a series of lunchtime and evening events throughout the fall 2015 semester. Events will include research presentations, films, movement workshops and more. All events take place in 16 Borland Building. For more information, visit our website or call 814-865-5126.

Lunchtime Events 

Held every other Tuesday, noon -- 1 p.m., ADRI "Dialogues," are intended to explore interdisciplinary space in arts research.

  •  September 22: "Surveying the Landscape: Current Trends and New Directions in Integrative Arts Research"

Andrew Schulz, associate dean for research in the College of Arts and Architecture

  • October 6: "Sonification, the Music of Science: Creating Soundscapes from the Earth, the Cosmos and More"

Mark Ballora, associate professor of music technology, will present sonification projects that have been done in different areas.

  • October 20: "The Discipline of Play: Building Resiliency, Igniting Innovation"

Sandi Carroll, ADRI research fellow and program manager, will discuss why it is important for adults to incorporate play into their work and what various contemporary physical comedy training methodologies offer the STEM disciplines. Carroll has appeared on and off-Broadway and in independent and major studio films, and written, performed and produced her own shows on both coasts and internationally. She has taught at New York University, Emerson College, University of Virginia, Brown University and The Public Theater.

  • November 3: "Adventures in Graphic Medicine: When a Body's Story Needs Pictures"

After writing a play about his family's experience when his sister suffered a severe traumatic brain injury, William J. Doan, professor of theatre and women's studies, discovered the drawings he'd done as part of his creative process had the potential to tell that story in a new and compelling way. He will discuss how graphic medicine -- comics, short stories, novels -- has become an important outlet for both those who are sick, their families and their health care providers.

  • November 17: "Voicework, Accent Modification and ALS: A Case Study in Prolonging the Ability to Speak"

Andrea Caban, a solo artist, writer and teacher, will discuss how she has worked with a woman living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to help her make specific accent and breathing changes to prolong her ability to speak as long as possible. Caban is a professor of voice and speech at California State University -- Long Beach, and the associate director and master teacher of Knight-Thompson Speechwork.

Evening Events

WORKSHOPS

  • "The Discipline of Play" -- A workshop series held every Tuesday and Thursday, September 22 through November 19, 5:30 --7:30 p.m.

Led by Sandi Carroll, ADRI research fellow and program manager (see bio above). Learning the discipline of play teaches us how to be resilient in the face of the inevitable failures that come with true innovation, and helps us welcome those failures as essential guideposts on the path to success. This class will teach you to play as if your life depended on it, to risk breaking the rules and being a fool, to go beyond the bounds of normal and access the infinite resources of fun that exist inside us all in order to work -- and live -- better. Laughter guaranteed. Attendees are encouraged to attend as many sessions as possible, but drop-in participants are welcome. Check the ADRI calendar for schedule updates.

  • "Mindful Movement" -- Mondays, October 19, 26, and November 2, 5:30 -- 6:45 p.m.

Led by Elisha Clark Halpin, associate professor and head of dance in the School of Theatre. This expressive improvisational movement workshop is an opportunity to increase awareness and self-knowledge through a bodily practice. With the dual goals of physical embodiment and increased consciousness, the practice is a time to come as you are and move. There are no set steps or routines, no moves or sequences to learn. You move in your own body in response to the guidance of the facilitator. With a focus on breath, non-judgment and release, this contemplative movement practice is a safe place for exploring the body, mind and emotions. No dance or movement experience necessary. Practice is suitable for all abilities. Wear comfortable clothing. A notebook or journal is encouraged. Drop-in participants welcome.

  • "Playwalking" -- Wednesday, October 21, 3:30 -- 5:30 p.m.

Led by Kimberly Powell, associate professor of education and art education and researcher for WalkingLab. Art walks allow us to explore our movements in relation to space and place and how we author place-based stories through walking. In this workshop, we will engage in sensory activities as we take a walk through campus in order to explore perception and place in a whole new way. Engaging the roll of the die, we will incorporate chance as a form of playful interaction with the environment around us. As a group, we will walk and document our activities, uploading our accounts to a Facebook page that we will review and reflect upon after our walk back to the studio. Create an art walk through chance and play!

FILMS/THEATRE

  • "Rhythms of the Universe" -- Wednesday, October 7, 5:30 p.m.

Learn how the cosmos was sonified for this short science outreach film, with discussion led by Mark Ballora, associate professor of music technology. The film "Rhythms of the Universe," created by cosmologist George Smoot (Lawrence Berkeley Labs, 2006 Nobel co-laureate) and Mickey Hart (drummer with the Grateful Dead, ethnomusicologist), premiered at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in September 2013. This showing will include the 22-minute film, portions of the discussion that preceded and followed it at the premiere, and a presentation of some of the sonifications that appear in the film's soundtrack.

  • "Performance! Body! Self!" -- Friday, October 23, 7 p.m.

A performance, lecture and rant by internationally acclaimed solo performer Tim Miller will perform excerpts from his work and speak about the role performance plays in constellating identity. Hailed for his humor and passion, his solo performances have been presented all over the world. He is the author of the books "Shirts and Skins, Body Blows" and "1001 Beds." His theater works have been published in the play collections "O Solo Homo: The New Queer Performance" (1998) and "Sharing the Delirium --Second Generation AIDS Plays and Performances" (1993). Miller has taught performance at the University of California at Los Angles, California State University -- Los Angeles and New York University. He is a founder of Performance Space 122 in NYC and Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, CA.

  • "Death Down Under" -- Wednesday, October 28, 5:30 p.m.

This 45-minute documentary (directed by Kathy High with Cynthia White) about death, decay and eco-friendly or 'natural earth' burials was shot in Western Australia and follows the collaboration of a young fashion designer/artist and funeral celebrant, Pia Interlandi, and a forensic scientist, Ian Dadour. They developed an experimental research project that allowed Pia to test out her fashion-for-the-dead and Ian, an entomologist who studies homicide, to research clothing decay on animal corpses. Pia and Ian had to amass a team to wash, dress and bury 21 dead pigs on a kangaroo reserve. Then they dug up the remains over one year's time to examine the decay of the ritual burial garments. "Death Down Under" follows the entire process from gathering the slaughtered pigs to the results in the laboratory. Filmmaker Cynthia White will be on hand to facilitate the discussion.

  • "Voice Bank" -- Wednesday, November 18, 5:30 p.m.

Written and performed by Andrea Caban; directed by Amanda McRaven, "Voice Bank" is the story of one woman who defies her amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis to fight for the privilege to keep speaking, raising the questions: Who owns the knowledge of our bodies? Who owns the knowledge of our experience? This original one-woman show comes to Penn State from Los Angeles as part of a special residency at the ADRI.

Caban plays both herself and Terry, a woman with an indomitable spirit and a passion for performance, as they manage Terry's progressing symptoms through voice and accent training. The play is based on 40+ hours of actual transcriptions from voice and accent sessions with Terry.

ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. ALS is characterized by stiff muscles, muscle twitching and gradually worsening weakness due to muscle wasting. This results in difficulty speaking, swallowing and breathing.

 

Last Updated July 28, 2017

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