Greetings and welcome to the third season of these School e-newsletters.

We're coming off a very good year in 2006-07. Students and faculty from the Department of Dance performed by invitation at Governor Spitzer's inauguration last January. The Department of Theatre's fall production of Stop Kiss was recognized by the American College Theatre Festival and students and faculty performed selections from the spring's Festival of Ten in Hungary. Five students from the Department of Art had their work selected for inclusion at the annual Best of SUNY exhibit in Albany and 100 students (an all-time high) had their work selected by an external juror for inclusion in the annual student exhibit on campus.

Looking forward to 2007-08, we will once again host a Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra concert in November. The Department of Dance will host the American College Dance Festival in March featuring the country's best in collegiate choreography and performance. The seminal 1960's musical, Hair, headlines the Department of Theatre's Mainstage season. And the school, in collaboration with the Office of Advancement, will host a fund-raising gala October 12 at the MetroCenter in Rochester to celebrate and restore the College's collection of original artworks by poet E.E. Cummings.

We hope you find the newsletters informative and, especially for alums, we hope they keep you connected to the College. In fact, we invite all alumni to drop us a note and let us know what you've been up to since leaving Brockport. As we begin another school year, best wishes from the School of Arts and Performance.

Francis X. Short, PED
Dean, School of Arts and Performance

Members of the faculty have traveled and exhibited extensively in recent months. Lori Mills participated in the Western New York Clay Symposium Exhibition which continues at the Lederer Gallery at SUNY Geneseo through September 21.

Jim Morris received a Fellowship Award from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Jim will be among 20 Fellows at this six-week work retreat for visual artist, writers and composers.

Jennifer Hecker traveled to and documented sculpture installations at the Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY, the Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, as well as locations in Texas and New Mexico.

Watch for her curated show at the Tower Fine Arts Gallery in January entitled Endoskeletal/Exoskeletal, an exhibition of sculptures with armatures.

Arts for Children welcomes new faculty member Christian Carson who will be spearheading the art concentration for our majors. With an MFA in painting from the University of Albany, Chris has exhibited in venues throughout New York State. He recently received the Award of Excellence at the Finger Lakes Show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester.

Former director Diane McGhee has retired from SUNY Brockport. A national search is underway to find her replacement.

Juanita Suarez visited China in August and has been invited to teach at Guang Ya School, a prestigious private K-12 institution, during her sabbatical in spring 2008. Juanita will teach modern dance and stage a modern dance drama based on the survival story of the Giant Panda. This work will be presented to audiences visiting China for the 2008 Olympics.

And finally kudos to our outstanding majors who garnered a number of college-wide awards in Spring 2007 including the Marion Schrank Student Leadership Award (Marisa Ballaro), the Delta College Commendation Award (Anastasia Pennington), the Honors Program Scholar (Marisa Ballaro and Alissa Chaney) and the Delta College Program Scholar (Sarah Hunter). Congratulations to all!

Over the summer, the Democrat and Chronicle began a new venture with eight area colleges. Four students, including SUNY Brockport's Amanda Hartman, designed, wrote and created "The Loop," an online vehicle to connect Rochester's more than 30,000 college students. Now they can check out what to do, where to eat and who is performing at area campuses simply by clicking on rocloop.com. To be at the forefront of what Gannett hopes to introduce across the country was a thrill for Hartman. She continues working at the Loop this fall with more Brockport students participating as backpack journalists and content managers.

And we welcome Alex Lyon to the communication faculty. Alex earned his PhD in communication at the Univeristy of Colorado at Boulder. He previously taught at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock before coming to Brockport. His primary area of research interest is in organizational communication. Under that umbrella, he enjoys researching organizational culture, power dynamics and ethics. His teaching interests include organizational communication and communication theory courses.

Join us for DANSCORE 2007 - the annual production of faculty choreography, November 14-16, in Hartwell Dance Theater.

Artistic Director Bill Evans will contribute a restaging of his 1979 work Craps, accompanied by Brockport dance musician Greg Ketchum. Also slated: a new Evans duet with acclaimed Irish dancer Eddie Murphy, accompanied by Brockport dance musician Mark Olivieri. Other choreographers for DANSCORE include Anne Burnidge (whose work just received strong reviews in The New York Times), Jim Hansen, our guest artist in West African dance Habib Iddrisu, new Assistant Professor Suzanne Oliver, Department Chair Darwin Prioleau and Juanita Suarez.

Of special note: the November 17 performance will be a special scholarship fund-raising event followed by a reception for all attendees and performing artists. Tickets for this special performance are $35 per person. Call (585) 395-ARTS for ticket information for all DANSCORE presentations.

More than 45 PES majors volunteered at the IFDS Disabled Sailing World Championship held in Rochester September 7-15. More than 170 sailors from 30 countries competed in one, two and three person keelboats on Lake Ontario.

This is the first time the World Championship has been hosted in Rochester. Our students helped move boats and equipment as well as helped transfer competitors from wheelchairs into and out of boats. According to professor Lauren Lieberman "...being able to sail is very freeing and very normal. I think it's wonderful that people with disabilities are able to show their skills at such a high level, and that our students are part of this exciting event."

Our production of Stop Kiss was one of six productions invited to the American College Theatre Festival's regional festival last January. About 20 of our students traveled with the show to New Paltz, gave two performances, attended workshops, and got to share ideas, tips, and social time with other theatre students from the Middle Atlantic region.

As part of our relationship with the University of Debrecen in Hungary, Professor Richard St George had a semester-long teaching/directing residency in the spring, culminating in a directing award established in his name! Six Brockport students traveled to Hungary in May, performing excerpts from Festival of Ten at Debrecen and Pazmany Peter University in Piliscaba.

And finally, check out the Department of Theatre's new video!

James Wyman began his position as director July 1st. He most recently served as chief curator at the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor. Jim earned an MFA in photography from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

His many teaching and research interests include history of the photographic image in print, artists' books, photography as visual language and media culture. In fact, Wyman is returning to the Workshop, as he was exhibitions program coordinator from 1987 to 1997. He's currently writing a biography of VSW founder Nathan Lyons.

Wyman succeeds Chris Burnett who has accepted a position at the University of Toledo in Ohio.

It's an exciting exhibition season coming up. For details visit the VSW Web site.

Mark your calendars for Friday, October 12, at 7 pm and join us at the MetroCenter for a fundraising gala for Brockport's E.E. Cummings collection. Two Cummings scholars, Milton A. Cohen and Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno, will speak regarding the significance of this collection and its connection to the Rochester area.

The more than 70 works comprising the Hildegarde Lasell Watson collection represent Cummings' range as a painter - from portraiture to landscape to abstraction. A number of pieces - those that have been restored as well as those awaiting a sponsor for restoration - will be on display. For details, visit the Cummings Web site. We look forward to seeing you there!

Send us your ideas and comments for future e-newsletters! Please forward to Virginia Bacheler, Associate Dean, School of Arts and Performance vbachele@brockport.edu
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