- Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 39th Annual Showcase of the Arts presented
- by the Bloomington Chapter of the National Society of Arts and Letters. We're very pleased this afternoon
- to have Carrie Buick Cadillac Pontiac GM Trucks as a sponsor of this event, which spotlights the Young
- Artist Awards in the chapter's 2005 competitions in the arts. I think we should all give them a big hand.
- I am Murray McGibbon, and I will be your host and the master of ceremonies for the program. Our first
- presentation is by Vanessa Brinchley. Vanessa is a second year student in the MFA acting program at
- Indiana University, and her IU credits include Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, The
- Laramie Project, and The Cherry Orchard. Currently she can be seen in the musical Pal Joey at IU. She
- has also appeared elsewhere in The King and I,
- Pegamai Heart, The Turn of the Screw, and Pride and Prejudice. Vanessa received her undergraduate degree
- summa cum laude in theater and political science from Utah State University, and she was Miss Utah in
- the Miss American Pageant, where she won the Burt Parks Talent Award. She's been a recurrent performer
- with the Utah Festival Opera Company and the Old Lyric Repertory Company. This summer, she will be a
- member of the Acting Company at the Utah Shakespearean Festival.
- Her audition piece contains musical selections from Follies and My Fair Lady, and a monologue from The
- Lady and the Clarinet. Please welcome Vanessa Brinchley.
- major, sorry, and a minor in creative studies in dance and technology, entered the dance world when
- he began his studies at the university level. He has performed nationally with various performance groups
- and at numerous regional events. Since his transfer to IU in 2002, he has been an active participant
- in the contemporary dance program there. Ricardo has also had his video work showcased in several national
- exhibitions and has won numerous awards. After graduating,
- He would like to experience the professional world for a while before pursuing a Master of Fine Arts
- in Dance. He will do a contemporary dance solo, possibly maybe, to the music
- Tina is currently a Master of Fine Arts student in the Creative Writing Program at IU. She grew up in
- Oklahoma City and served as a Peaks Core Volunteer Librarian in Zimbabwe. Her work is forthcoming in
- the Mid-American Review and Quarterly West. After graduation, she plans to teach English in
- an inner-resourced community in New York City. Kay will be reading two of her poems this afternoon.
- is a French high wire act artist who, in August of 1974, as the World Trade Center towers were just
- being completed, strung a wire between both of them and crossed eight times. Oh, Philippe Petit, you
- skyscraper walker, pulling your wire first between bridges.
- as if to deny the crossing its length, its fill. Only you with your wire rope stretched taut, your string
- between twin towers, was it a childhood game to you? On each end, a tower not yet taut, two rusty jagged
- lips of an old tin, your length of yarn. What did they say to each other on that windy August?
- What vibration was afoot? But I know it wasn't like that. There were the 200 kilos of cable to sneak
- to the 100th floor, two Cavaletti wires, block and tackles, your neatly ironed costume. Hiding under
- tarps in the stairwell, you waited until the night guard passed.
- Two people climbed the south tower. Comrades, you called them, though there was no war on. They only
- waited with a bow and arrow. The first shot, an arrow with a fishing line tail, you're unable to find
- in the dark. Stripping down, you buzz the roof like a child pretending flight until the line hooks your
- right shoulder.
- The rigging, the smile of the catenary curve tight-lipped for your crossing. You drop your shirt, which
- tumbles through the air shaft to your friend's gasp. Your first step, your long, balancing pole.
- You walk, then kneel, then lie down, face up to the overcast big top. You cross again, cross eight times,
- diverting the police with each pivot. The pictures expose you laughing. Your wind-topped sandy mane,
- your black slacks flagging. From below, you are a mourning dress, inverted on a clothesline, rising
- up to meet the dead.
- From above, no one knows. To a plane, you could be a quarter note, a minor key of ego, a staff over
- the shifting grid of the city. Later, you'll say, your lungs were full of ecstasy instead of oxygen.
- For now, you call out to the god of the balancing pole, of the feet, of the void, oh, Philippe,
- Philippe Petit, is anyone's name large enough? The second poem I'll be reading was inspired while visiting
- the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Southern California. And at the time, I was reading about carnival festivities
- in the Caribbean.
- and how, like our modern day Mardi Gras, they served as a sort of steam valve where people who were
- often oppressed by their lives were allowed to go crazy for a little while in order to maintain calm
- the rest of the year. Visiting the Kelp Forest exhibit,
- The brochure pumps out its propaganda like the tank's wave machine vital for fish life. More than 100-plus
- species are volunteers arrived in the raw seawater settled on the rock work. Behind three-story acrylic,
- swaying Halloween orange kelp banners the water. No roots, stems, flowers, leaves.
- Drying above, it is the drowned remains of Carnaval, unlooped, fallen, and trampled in the streets.
- Schools of new sardines indifferently circle the span of tank lights like homeless around trash can
- fires. Kelp blades, ribs, ridges ripple above the corrugations of shanty shelters. A diver drops in
- from the right,
- his second skin as silvery as the tunas. He cleans the tank. His attachments catching surges of almost
- mechanized waves, his buoyancy regulator, his bristle-mouthed vacuum. The kelp forest exhibit grows
- up to six inches a day. For hundreds of years, people have gathered kelp and its kin for fertilizer,
- chemicals, food.
- He must hear only his breath, amplified, removed from him, bubbling up a machine onto himself. The senoritas,
- a brief flash of scaly darts, nibble at his numb neoprenees. Thank you.
- Charlene Young, a native of Taiwan, is pursuing doctoral studies in piano at the Indian University School
- of Music under the direction of Evelyn Brancardt. She has also worked with Seymour Lipkin, Robert Levine,
- Arnaldo Cohen, and Susan Starr. After winning an IU concerto competition, she performed Beethoven's
- second piano concerto with the IU Concert Orchestra.
- More recently, she won the Camerata Orchestra Concerto Competition and will be playing the Prokofiev
- Third Piano Concerto with it. She has also received second prize and the Mary Winston Small Memorial
- Piano Award at the 2004 WAMSO Young Artist Competition in Minnesota and first prize at the Kingsville
- International Isabelle Schianti Competition. A chamber musician as well as a soloist, she has performed
- at the Sarasota Chamber Music Festival
- and most recently with the esteemed violinist Ikhwan B. Today she will be playing Chasse-Neige by Franz
- Liszt. There's a small change from your printed program.
- After receiving a BFA in musical theatre performance from Western Michigan University, Anjanette Armstrong
- began a career in New York City. A few of her favourite theatre credits include Eve in Children of Eden,
- The Baker's Wife in Into the Woods, Janet in The Rocky Horror Show, Rosaline in Love's Labour's Lost
- and Amy in Company. She also appeared in the NBC series Ed as the character Gretchen Huber.
- She now resides in Bloomington with her husband John, who is an MFA student in the theater and drama
- department at IU, as well as their eight-month-old son Jack. She will be performing selections from
- Tartuffe, the role of Doreen, and Business Lunch at the Russian Tea Room, the role of Melissa.
- Come here, you two, stop fussing and be quiet. We're going to have a little armistice. Now, weren't
- you silly to get so overheated? Aren't you a simpleton to have lost your head? You're both great fools.
- Her sole desire, Valere, is to be yours in marriage. To that I'll swear. He loves you only and wants
- no wife but you, Marianne. On that, I'll stake my life.
- Give each other your hands, you two. Yours first. And now a hand from you there. A perfect fit. You'll
- suit each other better than you'll admit. I tell you, mothers are completely mad. Let's table that discussion
- for the present. Your father has a plan which must be stopped. We'll use all manner of means and all it
- Oh, as often as necessary, the day on which you have agreed to marry, you'll thus gain time, and time
- will turn the trick. Sometimes, for instance, you'll be taken sick, and that will seem good reason for
- delay, or some bad omen will make you change the day. You'll dream of muddy water,
- as a dead man's hers, or break a looking glass. If all else fails, no man can marry you unless you take
- his ring and say I do. But now, let's separate. If they should find us talking here, our plot might
- be divine. Go to your friends, tell them what's occurred, and have them urge her father to keep his
- word. Meanwhile, we'll stir her brother into action, and get Elmire as well to join our faction. Goodbye.
- Oh, lovers! Lovers!
- are never still. Be off now. No time to chat. You, leave by this door. You, leave by that. Christopher?
- All of us at Zero Facts, we're interested in the old fashioned kind of movie making, where the characters
- have dialogue, and thoughts, and emotions. You know, like four weddings and a funeral.
- writers. I produced Sleezerama for the television last year. See it? It got great numbers. But it was
- about a serial killer who becomes president, who finds his humanity only after he gets AIDS and dies.
- We loved it. But we have heard Wilson actually wrote the first script. But that word people didn't like
- it, so we had to have Bubba
- and then come in and rewrite every single word. Well, you know, Landon understood. He thought we wanted
- something serious, but we didn't. She brings a caviar scene. I have a meeting with Nora Ephron in 15
- minutes. We want Nora to write a movie for Meg Ryan, where Meg's a widow who misses her husband desperately.
- They have this really special kind of relationship. And then this man hears her talking on the radio,
- really moved by what she says he wants to contact her with. But the switch is, it's her husband who
- hears her on the radio. She's not a widow at all. He disappeared at sea just like Julia Roberts did
- in, whatchamacallit, and then he shows up and he kills her. It's sort of like Sweet Listen Seattle meets
- Psycho, you know?
- Christopher Noctrab is pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Ballet at Indiana University with an outside
- field in comparative literature. He trained originally with his mother in his native New York. During
- his three years with the IU Ballet Theater, he's been featured in The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty
- Act III, Serenade, Glassworks, and Viva Vivaldi. Most recently, he appeared in the lead role of the
- Jester in IU Ballet Theater's world premiere of Cinderella.
- Christopher's many honors include the Kenneth C. Whittner Award for Ballet Excellence, the Music Dean's
- Scholarship, and Mark Diamond's Award for Best Choreography. He will be dancing the male variation from
- the pas de deux of Leo de Libre's Sylvia as choreographed by George Balanchine.
- Prano Elizabeth Marshall is working towards a master's degree in music performance at IU and studies
- with James MacDonald. A native of Maine, she graduated from the University of Southern Maine with a
- Bachelor of Music Education. She has sung with the Portland Symphony, the Bangor Symphony, the Southern
- Maine Symphony, and the Portland Opera Repertory Theater, including its summer program, Maine's Emerging
- Artists, in 2002. Among her awards are the Louise B. Mayer Vocal Prize,
- and the Emily K. Rand Award in Voice. She will be singing an aria from Rossini's La Pietra Peragone.
- briefly so that you can get up and stretch and move about if you'd like to use the restrooms. These
- are on the other side of the hall from the door through which you entered. I've been asked to ask you
- to please be back in your seats in seven minutes time. We're going to continue our program ladies and
- gentlemen with Emily Doak.
- Emily is an MFA student in the creative writing program at IU, but previously she studied ballet at
- the School of American Ballet and the North Carolina School of the Arts and Film at New York University's
- Tisch School of the Arts. It was at NYU that she found her way into fiction writing through screenplays.
- Her work has been recognized in a number of fiction contests. In 2003, she was a finalist in the competition
- for the Katherine Ann Porter Prize for fiction of Nimrod International.
- She was runner-up in the competition for Meridian's 2004 Editors' Prize for Fiction. In 2004, she also
- received honorable mention in Hunger Mountain's Howard Frank Mosher Short Story Contest and was runner-up
- in the BOM Magazine Fiction Contest. Her short stories are forthcoming in the journals Inkwell and Isotope.
- Today, she will read an excerpt from the opening chapter of her novel, The Rock Hound's Daughter.
- So this is from the beginning of my novel, The Rockhound's Daughter. Chapter 1, Old Yellow. I had my
- mom's bird watching binoculars and was up on the fence, my sneakers gripping the bottom rung, my hips
- leaning into the splintery top rail. I was watching the sky through the magnifying glasses, clear and
- blue, big white cumulus, waiting to see a bird above the scrappy slash pines. Mom had told me often
- enough that this wasn't the way you did it.
- that you had to use your senses, listen and look, and bring up the binoculars only when you had a target
- on the bird. The phone was ringing across the backfield. Then it fell quiet, heavy, hot, stringed bugs,
- no breeze. Mom inside must have answered. I let go of the top rail and leaned over at the most precarious
- angle I could till it felt like my feet needed to fly up behind me. I stayed balanced there on my hip bones
- with the arched back of a swan dive. Holding the binoculars with one hand, my free arm I outstretched
- like a wing and swung my head in arcs of magnified blue, swiftly soaring through patches of white. My
- head felt light, and maybe, just maybe, I was not Penny Creed at all, but I was the bird. Penny, my
- mother's voice soaring up to me in blue and white and the sharp sun to my side so I was flying north. Penny,
- My name rippling through the heat up to me. Penelope, get in here now. I jumped off the fence, fell
- far and straight and human to the dirt, and held onto the binoculars so they wouldn't thump against
- my flat chest as I ran the backfield to our house, tall grasses itching my shins. We lived outside of
- town towards Lloyd, but still inside the Leon County line, down a series of red clay roads that melted
- to rivers when it rained.
- My father was a geologist and found the property through his stream bed research. Our house sat in the
- middle of an oxbow in a real meandering stream. It winded its way from Lake Miccosukee to the Gulf and
- had no official name, but changed as often as street signs as it passed through different counties and
- towns, Miccosukee Creek to Wasissa River to St. Mark's Estuary. At our house, the stretch of water had
- no name, and so we called it Creed Oxbow.
- It wrapped around the perimeter of our house and fields in a wide horseshoe that only became apparent
- when walking the whole thing out on foot and arriving on either end back at the long dirt driveway to
- our house. The ends pinched up close to each other there, and then each turned away in a switchback,
- wiggling its course into the neighbor's property. My mom called our house Old Yellow, but it was painted
- white now. Paul, my big brother,
- had to spend his spring break painting it as punishment for something completely forgettable when he
- did something even worse, he took off. He took off with the backside of the house still its old yellow,
- the two sides completely done and the front trying to dry, wet with multiple coats of white. The next
- day was to be perfect weather for painting, but Paul up and left. When I caught him fully dressed in
- the middle of the night, I begged him not to go.
- Oh, you'll see someday, he told me. What's so bad with it here, I asked, grabbing hold of his leg.
- Let go, he shook me off and whispered past mom and dad's bedroom. You're just a kid. You can't see at
- all. Yes, I can, I said to his back as he walked downstairs. But I was only eight then. Yes, I can,
- he mocked me when we got to the back door. Paul, shh. Maybe he sensed I was upset.
- because he leaned over and tousled my hair kind of sweetly. But then he straightened back up and shouted
- to the empty kitchen, this place sucks. He slammed the back door. None of the outside lights were on,
- so in two strides he disappeared in the night that didn't have a moon. I could hear mom's feet creak
- the wood floor beside their bed upstairs, but she didn't move quick enough to have heard Paul. She was
- unsure why she was awake. I waited by the back door
- curling my toes on the linoleum, squishing my nose at the fresh paint smell that got slammed inside
- when Paul left. Penny, what are you doing out of bed? Mom said when she finally scraped her slippers
- downstairs and realized I was in the kitchen. I went to the window and couldn't see Paul. I thought
- I heard something, I said. I told her I thought it was a raccoon. But she said, no, I thought I heard
- a door. That was me. I opened the back door to demonstrate. I opened it to see.
- Then I started acting real sleepy. You know, to see if there was a raccoon out there, I did a sort of
- headbutt nuzzle past her legs and staggered upstairs before she could say anymore. I knew she would
- follow to tuck me in tight again. That night, Paul stole our neighbor's credit cards. He let himself
- in through old Mr. McDaniel's always unlocked front door. He crept up the stairs to the master bedroom
- and opened the old man's top dresser drawer.
- Mr. McDaniel slept all the while in the guest room down the hall, where he made his bed after his wife's
- death some decade ago. In that lonely decade, Mr. McDaniel took to answering every piece of mail that
- was delivered, including credit card offers. His dresser drawer brimmed full of approved yet unused
- credit cards. All Paul did was dip his hand in that night, and he came out with a fistful. It must have
- been overwhelming for Paul,
- Because my father did not believe in credit cards. They weren't real money. They were nothing. Our household
- worked solely with businesses that still accepted personal checks drawn directly from our bank accounts.
- So Paul, with his fist full of fake money, must have felt defiant as he popped my parents' station wagon,
- new blue, into neutral and pushed it out to the road before he cranked it. Or at least I waited up that
- night as long as I could, tucked in so tight I couldn't turn over.
- waiting to hear him take the car. But then again, maybe I did fall asleep, and he started it up right
- there in the carport, because when I woke up, it was to a shriek downstairs, exclaiming that new blue
- was gone, and it was full morning, and I had untucked myself, and was lying uncovered on my belly. It
- was as if I could see through the solid floor that morning, to where my father, like every day at 8.17 a.m.,
- not changing for spring break,
- would have had his briefcase in one hand and paper lunch sack in the other. Both his hands full, Mom
- would have opened the door. That morning, he dropped his lunch and stood paralyzed with the bright yellow
- backside of his house looming above him, because what he saw when he looked past the deck was nothing.
- The carport was empty.
- Sarah Wilkins graduated from IU in December 2004 with degrees in dance performance and English. In the
- summer of 2003, she trained for several months in New York City, working mostly at the Dance Space Center.
- She spent the summer of 2004 training at the American Dance Festival, where she had the honor of performing
- the repertory of John Jaspers and Ming Yang. This coming May, she will be in China for two weeks, where
- she will assist in teaching and perform the choreography.
- Then in July, she will be relocating to New York City to pursue a career as a contemporary
- dancer, choreographer, and artist. For us this afternoon, she will dance a piece entitled Unfold,
- choreographed to music of J.C. Lowe and Dredge.
- Elizabeth Falconberry, who hails from Bermuda, is a sophomore at Indiana University working on a double
- major in musical theater and English. At IU she's had roles in Sweet Charity and Batboy, and she's currently
- appearing in Pal Joey. Her non-IU credits include Chicago, High Society, and Les Miserables. She will
- spend this coming summer in Daytona Beach, Florida, performing with the Seaside Musical Theater. Her
- audition piece offers musical selections from falsettos
- and Kiss Me Kate and the monologue from Where's My Money?
- For more at Indiana University, Michelle Mohawold is pursuing a BS in ballet performance with an outside
- field in English literature. Before joining the IU Ballet Theater, she trained with the Continental
- Ballet Company in her native Minnesota, and she has attended such nationally recognized summer programs
- as the American Ballet Theater in New York. During her two years with the IU Ballet Theater, Michelle
- has performed in Serenade, Glassworks, Viva Vivaldi, The Nutcracker, and Cinderella.
- Today she will dance a variation from the pas de deux of Leo Dalib's Sylvia as choreographed by George
- Balanchine.
- Yumiko Nishio-Yalkai is currently in her first year of work on a performer diploma at the School of
- Music at Indiana University, where she is studying percussion with Antony Sarone and timpani with Gerald
- Carlos. Born in Kochi, Japan, she began to play percussion in the high school band when she was 15 years
- old. As a high school and university student, she performed as a guest with the orchestra ensemble Kanazawa,
- the Shikoku Philharmonic Orchestra,
- and the Kochi Friday Wind Ensemble. She also played a graduation concert at Kurashiki Sakuyu University
- and a new musician concert in Kochi in 2003. In 2004, she received the H.S. Klaw Scholarship and the
- Avedis Ziljian Percussion Scholarship. She will perform marimba pieces by Eric Semet and Ludwig Albert
- and will be accompanied by Jeff Franta.
- Fantilan, a first-year MFA student in the Department of Theatre and Drama at Indiana University, will
- represent the Bloomington Chapter at the National NSAL Drama Competition in May in Honolulu. Born and
- raised in Salt Lake City, he discovered theatre in the ninth grade and never turned back. Before coming
- to IU, he received a BFA in acting from Utah State University, and he worked at many professional theatres
- in Utah, including the Utah Festival Opera, the old Lyric Repertory Company, the Hale Center Theatre,
- the Pioneer Theatre Company, and the Grand Theatre. Among his credits at IU are roles in Dracula, Happy
- Birthday, Wanda June, and the recent Scarlet Letter. He is also a proud member of the Golden
- Key International Honor Society and received first place in its international acting competition. This
- coming summer, Eric will be working with the Utah Shakespearean Festival. Today, he will offer us selections
- from Sheridan's The Rivals, The Role of Lord Falkland,
- and Peter Schaffer's Amadeus, the role of Amadeus. Well, sir. But you were saying that Miss Melville
- has been so exceedingly well. What then? She has been merry and gay, I suppose. Always in spirits, eh?
- By my soul.
- There is an innate levity in woman that nothing can overcome. What? Happy? And I away? Why, Jack, have
- I been the joy and spirit of the company? Have I been lively and entertaining? Have I been full of wit
- and humor? Well, I'll contain myself, perhaps as you say, for form's sake. I'm not sorry that she has
- been happy. No, no, I am glad of that.
- But she has been dancing too, I doubt not. Now, disappointment on her! Defend this, Jack! Why don't
- you defend this? Country dances, jigs, and reels? A minuet I could have forgiven. I should not have
- minded that. I say I should not have regarded a minuet, but country dances. Soons! Had she made one
- in a cotillion, I believe I could have forgiven even that.
- to be monkey-led for a night, to run the gauntlet through a string of amorous, palming puppies, to show
- paces like a managed filly. O Jack, there never can be but one man in the world whom a truly delicate
- and modest woman ought to pair with in the country dance, and even then the rest of the couple should
- be her great uncles and aunts. If there be but one vicious mind in the set, it will spread like a contagion,
- The action of their pulse beats to the lascivious movements of the jig. Their quivering warm breath
- sighs impregnate the air. The atmosphere becomes electrical to love, and each amorous fog darts through
- every link of the chain. I must leave you. I own. I am somewhat flurried, and you, you, you confounded
- booby, have perceived. Damn your news!
- about real people, Baron. And I want to set it in a real place. A boudoir. Because that, to me, is the
- most exciting place on Earth. Underclothes on the floor, sheets still warm from a woman's body, even
- a piss pot brimming under the bed. I want life, Baron, not boring legends. I'm sick of all your elevated
- themes. Elevated, elevated. The only thing I mentioned, elevate, is his doodle.
- Excuse the language, Baron, but really, if you are honest, each one of you, which of you isn't more
- at home with his hairdresser than Hercules? Or Horatius? Or your stupid Danaius come to that? Or mine?
- Mine, Idomeneo, King of Crete, all these anguished antiques? They're all bores. Bores, bores! All serious
- operas written this century are boring.
- What a perfect quartet. I'd love to write it, this second of time, this, now as you are. Herr Prefect
- thinking, impertinent Mozart, I must speak to the emperor at once. Herr Chamberlain thinking,
- ignorant Mozart, debasing opera with his vulgarity. Herr court composer thinking, German Mozart, what
- can he finally know about opera? And Mozart himself in the middle thinking,
- nice fellow. Why do they all disapprove of me? That's why opera is important, because it's realer than
- any play. The dramatic poet would have to put each line down one after another to make us hear everything.
- The composer can put them all down at once and still make us hear every word. Astonishing device, a
- vocal quartet. I tell you, I want to write a finale lasting half an hour. A quartet becoming a quintet,
- A sextet, a septet, on and on, wider and wider, all sounds multiplying and rising together and then
- together becoming a sound entirely new. I bet that's how God hears the world. Millions of sounds ascending
- at once, rising and mixing in his ears to become an unending music unimaginable to us. That's our job.
- That's our job, we composers, to combine the inner minds of him and him and him and her and her, thoughts
- of chambermaids and court composers, and turn the audience into God. I'm sorry. I talk nonsense all
- day long. It's incurable, Astanzee. My tongue is stupid.
- I'm sure we wish him well in Honolulu. Jinhwan Beun is working toward a Master of Music degree in Vocal
- Performance at IU. He received a Bachelor of Music from Seoul National University of Music and Career
- and a Performer Diploma from Indiana University. In addition, he has completed the St. Louis Opera Young
- Artist Program. While at IU, Jinhwan has appeared in productions of Lucia de la Mamua, La Traviata, Falstaff,
- and most recently La Boheme. He has also sung roles with the Indianapolis Opera and the Nashville Opera,
- and he's been engaged by the Florida Grand Opera for 2005-2006 to perform main stage roles and to cover
- others. Jin Hwan has received a number of honors. He has been a finalist in the Austin Lyric
- Opera Competition, and a semi-finalist in the Washington International Competition, won the Primavera
- Award in the Bel Canto Competition 2004, and took the top prize
- in the IU travel grant competition this spring. Today he will sing an aria from Puccini's La Boheme.
- This concludes our performances. I'm always reminded at this time of year what a wonderful place Bloomington
- is to live. I would now like to introduce David Albright, President of the Bloomington Chapter of NSAL,
- who will preside over the remainder of the program, and I wish you all a very good afternoon.
- Thank you, Murray. First of all, I would like to express my
- deepest appreciation to Murray for a job well done. Let's give him a big round of applause. I also want
- to thank our sponsor for this year's showcase, Curry Buick Cadillac Pontiac GM truck. We'd hope to have
- Kerry Curry, the owner of
- with us today, but he had to be out of town. However, he is with us in spirit. This event would have
- been impossible without the dedication and hard work of Tina Jurgensen, who is our competition coordinator,
- and the area chairs and co-chairs who ran the competitions that produced
- 44 award winners that we're honoring today. I want to pay tribute to them by discipline as we hand out
- the awards. Let's begin with the visual arts. There are three co-chairs, Kathy Koronek, Lydia Finkelstein,
- and Jane Otten. And Kathy will be presenting the awards
- for this area today. Thank you, David. As I call your names, would the visual arts winners please come
- up? Ricardo Alvarez, Jared Landberg, Molly Mitchell, Hun Jun Chun, Ann Potter,
- Melanie Lawrence, David T. Hannon, and Ollie Brareton. I hope all of you will go down and see the work
- in the gallery of these artists and others. They were a wonderful show this year. To Ricardo Alvarez
- for the Alan K. Kahn Memorial Award and the Pygmalion Merit Award.
- Jared Landberg receives the Carter and Schnicki Merit Award. Oh, okay. Okay. To Molly Mitchell for her
- twist tie coat.
- The Grace Dyer Memorial Award and the Klein Merit Award. Thank you very much. For Hong Jun Jun, and
- I hope I pronounced, I tried. The Chris Khan Merit Award. Thank you very much.
- Also, I forgot to mention that Ricardo Alvarez also received the Pygmalion Merit Award, and Melanie
- Lawrence received another Pygmalion Merit Award. I forgot to include those. Sorry. To Ann Potter, for
- her Beatrice, the Alma Eichermann Memorial Award.
- Okay, now Melanie Laurence for the Neuroprimo Merit Award and the Pygmalion Merit Award for her conversation.
- And for the Rosemary Frazier Merit Award, David Hannon for his work between the fields.
- And our top winner for the Career Chapter Award is Oli Brereton for his video Sign of the Times.
- Congratulations. Congratulations to all the winners and I'd like to thank Lydia Fechelstein, Jane Otten,
- Beth Molnar,
- Maya Michelson, Rachel Greenhoe, and Bob Appelman for all their help in setting up this show and for
- getting the judges. And the judges were Rudy Pizzotti, Mary Hambly, and Nan Brewer. Thank you very much.
- Our dance chairs were Joanne Athanas and Mary Stroh. And Mary will be presenting the awards today.
- Thank you. This was a groundbreaking year for dance and then NSAL competitions. For the first time,
- we held two competitions. One was in ballet, one was in contemporary dance. The ballet competition was
- held the end of January in the ballet studios at the IU School of Music. And a week later, the contemporary
- competition was held in the IU School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation Dance Studio.
- Judges for the ballet competition were Jane Hachia Weiner from the Butler Academy of Dance, Bruce Simpson
- from the Louisville Ballet, Michael Tevlin from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. And judges for
- the contemporary competition were Larry Attaway from the Butler Academy of Dance, Elizabeth Monnier
- from Fort Wayne Dance Collective, Patty Willie from the Terre Haute Dance Academy.
- Many people assisted with the planning and running of both competitions, and in particular, I would
- like to thank Violette Verde, Glenda Lucina, my co-chair, Joanne Athanas, who couldn't be here today,
- Elizabeth Shea, Laura Poole, Mike Lucas, and David Albright. Now, if the dancers would please come forward,
- ballet and contemporary dancers.
- Yeah. And unfortunately, all of them couldn't be here today. Let me just start with the Ballet Awards.
- First of all, to Lauren Collier went the Stroh Chapter Award. And unfortunately, Lauren had to go to
- a rehearsal.
- as well as Claire Blatz, who won the Athanas Organ Merit Award. She is at rehearsal as well.
- And Erin Jin, who won the Verdi Chapter Award. All three of them are rehearsing for a choreographic
- showcase later this week. Sarah Durham, is she here? Yes, good. The Barbera Merit Award for Ballad.
- And the Chapter Award went to Christopher Nochtrab. And the Lila and Stephen Hughes Merit Award went
- to Michelle Mahowald. In Contemporary Dance,
- uh... the stro shea merit award went to molly burkett the athanas merit award went to andrea martin
- uh... the shiner merit award went to rachel belati and unfortunately rachel couldn't be here
- to accept this. The Roy Battenhouse Memorial Award went to Ricardo Alvarez. And finally, the Jane Fox
- Merit and Chapter Award in Contemporary Dance went to Sarah Wilkins.
- to all of you. Mera Norris was the chair of our drama competition and she will be presenting those awards.
- Drama winners, on stage. As they are coming up, I want to tell you that we have our audience today
- who won the national competition several years ago in music as a representative of the Indiana chapter.
- Michael Bowell, who is the father of one of our winners today. Michael Bowell, Michael.
- But we have a saying, dying is easy, comedy is hard. And it is hard. It is hard in the context of a
- complete play in which you have three acts in which to establish the comic situation, set up the comic
- characters and dialogue. It is exceedingly difficult when you have to do that in five minutes. Without
- the context of the play,
- and create two contrasting comic characters. These winners today not only accepted that hard challenge,
- but excelled. And we're very proud of the winners of this competition. And please greet them. The winner
- of the Borgenstein Memorial Award is Jessica Lynn Rothert.
- of the Collins-Jakins-Coner Merit Award is John Robert Armstrong. The winner of the Hersamalas Merit
- Award is Alexander Ross Meisner. Vanessa Ballem Brinchley.
- is the winner of the Lyneth Brockett Carol Moody Franz Nigg Memorial Award. And of course she's a double
- winner in both musical theater and in drama. Anjanette Hall Armstrong is also a double winner in musical
- theater and drama.
- And she is the recipient of a Laura Schneider Memorial Award. And yes, they are a pair. They are our
- third drama couple. And the one who will come visit us in Hawaii in May in the national competition
- The winner of our Mrs. Randall Wells Memorial Award, Eric Ventura.
- Elizabeth Albright serves as chair of the Literature Committee and she will present the awards in that
- area. Dying is easy. Following Marilyn Norris on stage is hard. Will all the literature winners please come up?
- Wonderful. We had 37 literature entries this year, and the judges felt that they were a wonderful, wonderful
- group. The judges were Dorian Gossie, Mary McGann, and Roger Finxton. And I'm delighted today to present
- these awards. Our first winner is 15 years old. And this is a special award because we don't really
- expect him to compete with people in the MFA program at IU.
- And so after the judging was done, I asked the judges, we had several high school students in the competition
- and they picked out Carson Day as a person whose poetry was excellent for a high school student and
- felt that he needed this high school encouragement award. Carson?
- Misty Lee Harper is a two-time winner in our competitions. And the last time she won, she went to the
- national competition and won second place in what, $6,000 or something? So she was a very happy winner.
- This year, she won the Will H. Hayes Jr. Memorial Award for her poetry. Misty. And Anne Elizabeth Timberlake
- has won the O'Mara Wilson Merit Award, Anne.
- Daniel Castro has won the Albright-Peercy-Drews Merit Award. Kay Keener, whose first name is Kay without
- a period, has won the Roy Battenhouse Memorial Award in Literature.
- And our top award, the Chapter Per Award, goes to Emily Elizabeth Doak this year. And by the way, her
- novel is finished, and she's going to use this as incentive to polish it this summer. Emily. Congratulations
- to all of our winners.
- Our music co-chairs, and boy did they have a long, long competition, were Stan and Hillary Hamilton.
- And Hillary will present the awards. Hello, musicians.
- Allison, I guess our performers didn't come. Please come. Did our performers stay? Oh, yes. My husband
- Stan and I were initiated into coordinating the music competition this year with the wonderful help
- of Dee Lane, David and Ruth Albright, and Tina Jernigan. We had an exciting two-day competition with
- 49 competitors.
- You read in the detailed, wonderful newsletter by Ruth Albright about our superb judges. They were David
- Canfield, composer, David Zube, professor of composition, Fred Fox, Julia Copeland, Brandsby, Catherine
- Lucas, Sheiko Nariki, Marion Kajaka-Bates, George Caller, Roger Havernack, and Roy Samuelson.
- We also had wonderful help with room management from Ruth and Jim Witten, Ruth and David Albright, and
- Tina Jernigan. And you read about our sandwiches. I know you're jealous. You've already experienced
- the lovely voice of Elizabeth Marshall, who had to leave due to being in the University Singers this
- afternoon. She won the Caldwell Merit Award. Another winner this afternoon was Jamie and
- Barton, who also was singing with the University Singers. And she won the Donald Felton Memorial Award.
- So both of those people have already received their certificate. Allison Wonderland-Basich has been
- awarded the Stravolopoulos Chapter Member Merit Award.
- Xia Yuxin has been awarded the Hatfield Jacoby Merritt Award in Music, and this is a violinist who is
- not here today. Benjamin Boren won the Kornick Tatlock McDonald Merritt Award, and Benjamin is a pianist
- who is not here today. Chai-Lin Yang won the Margaret Mueller White Memorial Award
- in piano. Umiko Nishioka won the Ralston Merit Award for the Most Outstanding Instrumentalist. And Yuen Huan Yun
- won the chapter career award for the most outstanding vocalist. Last but by no means least, George Penny
- was our musical theater chair and he will present those awards.
- While the winners approach, we had a very exciting contest this year with 22 participants. The judges
- were Tony-nominated and Emmy winners, Jonathan Vanderkhoff and Jim Moore, and our third judge was Vince
- Leota from the IU Opera Theater. On with the winners. The winner of the Carl Jernigan Award on Jeanette
- Hall Armstrong.
- The Scott Burgess Jones Tribute Award goes to Thomas Matthew Hirschner, who unfortunately is not here
- today. The Albright Bachman Merit Award goes to Amy Elise Linden. The Caldwell Merit Award, Vanessa
- Balem Brinchley.
- And finally, the Chapter Career Award, Rebecca Falconberry. A hearty congratulations to all of our winners.
- That concludes our formal program. I want to thank you all for coming, and I want to invite you to join us
- downstairs in the lobby for a reception. Anne Call and her helpers have put out a nice spread for everybody.
- And I also would like to ask you to be sure and go into the gallery to see the exhibition, which includes
- the top award winners. One final thing, may I ask the award winners
- together briefly up here for a group picture and to take care of one minor administrative matter. Thank
- you all and I hope we see you again next year.