"Inside the Box" For students interested more in the performing art of the theater rather than in sculpture, consider the collaboration between the Engineering School and the Drama department called "Inside the Box."
This project brought together a playwright, a director and a team of introductory-level engineers who together helped create a 10-minute play.
The director took the play, written by the playwright, and had to coordinate five special effects embedded in the scene. The engineers were charged with creating the special effects.
"There was a lot of duct tape, cardboard and wires," Directing Prof. Betsy Tucker said.
The plays were performed inside of a grid, which is a metal frame off which props can be hung. The groups had five minutes to set up the scene and five minutes to strike, or dismantle, the scene.
"The grid stays up the whole time," Tucker said. "It's kind of funky. It's rough theater."
Tucker said, from her observances, the students involved at first had difficulties in communications.
"They're baby engineers and third- and fourth-year directors, so there was a big vocabulary and experience difference between the groups," Tucker said. "There was a lot of talking and explaining that had to be done."
Fourth-year College student Walt McGough, a playwright for the project, also said communication was tricky at first between playwright and director.
"It was challenging getting on the same page of what we each wanted from the scene," McGough said.
McGough wrote two scenes, each of which was directed by different directors and worked on by different engineers. One director was a close friend of McGough, but McGough said working with the other director, with whom he was not as familiar, took some getting used to.
"It was weird working with a person I didn't really know," McGough said. "We had to get a feel for each other and find a compromise."
Fourth-year College student Jenna Berk, a director, said the biggest challenge for her was working with the engineers to ensure a smooth integration of the special effects into her scene.
"The biggest challenge was working [the effects] into the play seamlessly and working with the engineers so everything we did wouldn't interfere with the way they worked," Berk said.
For example, Berk said she wanted an actor in her scene to carry a box onstage. The engineers had planned to put all of their equipment in the box, so Berk had to rework the scene.
Tucker said Berk's problem was one that, inevitably, many groups faced.
"They had to make it work as an artistic event," Tucker said. "Stylistically and theatrically, they had to make it make sense. Plays are wacky and difficult."
Despite the challenges and long hours, Berk said watching the actual performances, which were open to the public, made the project worth it.
"Everything just blended together," Berk said. "It seemed like a play that was happening instead of a freak directing project."
First-year Engineering student Adam Poffenberger, though he said his group spent four hours a day on the project leading up to the performance, agreed with Berk that the final night was gratifying.
"We were able to do a lot more than I expected," Poffenberger said. "It was pretty rewarding -- frustrating at times -- but pretty rewarding in the end."
McGough, from his angle as a playwright, said his experience watching the finished production was different from the perspective of either a director or an engineer.
"Seeing people act out what I had written was a complete head trip," McGough said. "There's something really neat about seeing someone else perform your work."
Tucker, though only speaking for her directing students, summed up the majority of student responses to the collaborative project.
"Initially, they chose to do the project," Tucker said. "They tore their hair out, then they thought it was hellish, and then they were proud of what they pulled off."
Sculpture
Art Prof. William Bennett's entry-level sculpture class, ARTS 282, is taking the second groundbreaking of Ruffin Hall from a ceremony to a performance.
The first groundbreaking was in January, but Bennett said the groundbreaking was always meant to be a multi-part event. The second groundbreaking, scheduled for May, will be a public event.
"When I think of sculpture, I think of the connection to other arts by way of ritual," Bennett said. "It becomes a performance art."
To help Bennett realize this groundbreaking goal, his students are preparing different projects relating to sculpture to present during the groundbreaking ceremony May 2. Some projects include baking bread from an earthen oven, similar to one used to dry sculptures, and creating a hot air balloon in the shape of the Rotunda.
"Part of art-making is private, but another part is about the community," Bennett said. "The class is like that -- a bunch of people working individually but part of a collective."
Bennett chose to use entry-level students for this event for a variety of reasons.
"Advanced-level students have their thesis, but beginning students are wide open," Bennett said. "I'm taking beginning students and putting on a big thing, making real art. Although they're entry-level, I believe they can make high-quality, important art."
Bennett's students said they have enjoyed both working on this particular project and Bennett's class in general.
Third-year College student Michael Petit, whose group is designing the Rotunda-shaped hot air balloon, highlighted the freedom of the class.
"You can just make up pretty much anything you want as long as it's up to scale," Petit said. "It's really fun because you don't have to sit down and write a paper, you can make a tree or something if you feel like it."
Second-year College student Janet Leung, involved in creating the earthen oven, emphasized Bennett's attributes as a professor.
Bennett "always comes up with really different, memorable projects," Leung said. "He's a very open-minded professor."
Bennett said the aim of the class is to be a memorable experience for students, especially since ARTS 282 may be the only sculpture class his students will take here at the University.
"A lot of your college career is a blur," Bennett said. "I'm hoping that when this hot air balloon in the shape of a Rotunda rises into the air, it will etch into people's hard drives."
Arts Administration
For practical-minded students who are interested in the arts, Art Prof. George Sampson's class, "Principles and Practices in Arts Administration," could be a suitable fit.
"It's an experimental course," Sampson said. "Essentially, it's the management of the arts."
The course, offered for the first time this spring, was cross-listed in the College and the Commerce school so the class would not be stereotyped as fitting for only College students, Sampson said.
"We examine the commonalities of performance and visual arts from a managerial prospective," Sampson said.
The cross-listing worked -- according to Sampson, his students are from a variety of majors. There are students representing each of the arts as well as language, economics, history and English majors. Quite a few are Commerce students as well.
In the first half of the semester, Sampson emphasized business elements such as budgets, accounting, marketing and finance.
The second half of the semester was devoted to more art-related topics including human creativity. Sampson said he also invited guest lecturers involved in arts administration from the Charlottesville area.
"The best part has been the speakers and getting to hear the real side of the arts and how business applies to the arts," third-year College and Commerce student Kelley Mulfinger said.
Mulfinger, a Commerce and Art History major, said she found a perfect fit in Sampson's class.
"This really has been the perfect class for me because it shows how business applies to the arts," Mulfinger said.
Although second-year College student Emily Hagan does not have the Commerce perspective, she said her experience with art history is valuable to the class.
"I think that the art history component brings an appreciation for what arts administrators bring to people -- an appreciation for the art," Hagan said.
Sampson said he also allows the students time in the beginning of the class to announce different art events at the University or share music.
"The underlying lesson is to encourage cross-disciplinary experience," Sampson said. "Hopefully this contributes to a growing awareness of how much is here. There are few people who realize how much there is."
The final project for the class is a group project with some relation to business and art.
"Most projects are real time, real questions about the current state of the arts on Grounds," Sampson said.
For example, Sampson cited one project on the question of whether there should be a centralized box office on Grounds, where students could buy tickets for drama productions, a cappella groups and UPC events all at the same window.
Sampson said he learned a few things from this project as well.
"One thing that I learned was many students haven't had the experience of group work," Sampson said.
Sampson elaborated, using art history majors as an example.
"Art historians learn on an individual basis," Sampson said. "They individually spit back out elements of art in the final exam."
Sampson's course exposes all his students to group work, a skill they will need in the workplace, where Sampson said most everything is group work.
For the less art-oriented students as well as the art-related majors, Sampson said he tried to convey the linked aspects of the different art disciplines.
"They also learned the issue of the connectedness of art," Sampson said. "This is the first time ever they've stepped back from the study of one arts discipline and taken a horizontal look at the arts."
Sampson said he had two other points he wanted his students to learn from the class above all else.
"I want them to have some hands-on experience and at least the beginning of the framework for experience in the business of the arts," Sampson said. "Two, I want them to come away with a theoretical framework that gives them a new way of thinking about the arts universally."
Hagan said one of Sampson's objectives especially had been achieved in her case.
"I don't do anything with performing arts, but I've been exposed to a lot through this class," Hagan said. "He does a good job in connecting it all."
Although the schedule is not definite, Sampson said he hopes to teach the class again next spring.
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