Big Bang! Arts Week opened last Thursday evening with a resounding boom. In conjunction with the drama department and the Office of the Dean of Students, the University of Virginia Arts Board now is wrapping up its annual week of collaborative instruction and performance between University students and new, invigorating artists.
Arts Week, which began Jan. 28 and will run until Feb. 6, is entirely organized by the 10 students of the Arts Board, with only logistical help from the University, which provides funding to book artists and spaces for performances.
"[The University has] been really helpful and supportive but in a hands-off kind of way that has allowed us to make the critical decisions," Arts Board Committee member Kadeem Cooper said. He added that all events are free so as to encourage as many students as possible to come out.
During each day of the week, one or more artists has performed or hosted a workshop. Students were given the opportunity to sign up for these workshops late last semester, and about 40 signed up, Cooper said. Many of these students are art or drama majors, but there is also a range of others looking to try something different, he added.
"We really want people to get outside their comfort zones," Cooper said. "I feel like a lot of the art going on at U.Va. goes unnoticed by much of the student population, and we hope to introduce them to a little more of it."
This year, the board chose to feature three visiting artists: poet Daniel Beaty, who specializes in spoken word performances; the Rennie Harris Puremovement hip-hop dance group; and award-winning Sundance Festival filmmaker Ray Tintori, who is best known for his short film, "Death to the Tinman," and for his work with The Killers and MGMT.
Tintori began the week last Thursday evening with three short film screenings: "Glory at Sea," "Death to the Tinman" and Jettison Your Loved Ones." He also gave a lecture demonstration the next day.
"Glory at Sea," a film with strong connections to the Hurricane Katrina disaster was "unlike anything I'd ever seen before," second-year College student Ryana Burrell said.
The week also featured Poetry Slam, a student competition held Jan. 30 at 8 p.m. in Jefferson Hall. Second-year College student Michele Miller won the contest with her piece, "Autotune," and was invited to open for Beaty the following night in Old Cabell Hall.
Sunday was Beaty's first performance of the week, a spoken-word solo act entitled, "Emergence-See!" Beaty played a total of 40 different characters throughout the show, who each gave a different perspective of the modern black experience in the United States. He opened with a news broadcaster informing the audience that a slave ship, "Remembrance," has risen from the Hudson River in front of the Statue of Liberty.
Among many others, Beaty's cast of characters also featured a young girl suffering from AIDS, a scholar coping with the loss of his wife to drug-related crime, a business executive and a gay man. Each character dealt differently with the issue of identity and personal freedom, but in his closing lines, Beaty told the audience that what his characters are living is "a pain particular to being black in this country, but it is a pain beyond race."
Some students in attendance expressed that the characters' sufferings are so dark that they almost might be too difficult to understand.
"Spoken word is so tied to race, and I think because of this, it is much harder for me to appreciate the depths of some of these pieces other than on a purely artistic level," second-year College student Steve Ward said. He added, though, that he originally came to Beaty's show in part because he was skeptical of the effect that the spoken word could have on an audience, but he left impressed.
Throughout the rest of the week, Beaty worked alongside Rennie Harris Puremovement, which formed for the first time at the Helms Theatre Friday evening. Together, the two artists then are collaborating with University students to create an entirely new performance for Saturday's show - the culmination of the entire Arts Week.
Prior to coming to the University, the artists knew of each other's works but were not personally connected.
"These are two artists who have wanted to work together for a number of years," said Samuel Rabinovitz, chair of the Newcomb Arts Board.
The performance will be staged in Old Cabell Hall this coming Saturday at 2 p.m..
Cooper encourages everyone to come to Saturday's show. "If you want to see a unique artistic event, this is it," he said. "It won't be a run-of-the-mill play or concert; it truly is one of a kind"
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