- Yeah, that's what I like to hear. I heard a whoop. My name is Rob Johansson, and I have the privilege
- of hosting today, today's NSAL awards ceremony. The NSAL means a great deal to me, and I'll talk a little
- bit about why. I know it's a beautiful day.
- It's gorgeous out. And here we all are in a dark room. And why are we here for a lot of great reasons?
- Some of us are going to perform. Most of us are going to watch. And we're here to celebrate some really,
- really wonderful performers and also celebrate people who support them. The NSAL, just in this room
- alone, the winners today, let me make sure I get the figure right, I'm aging.
- It's crazy. I think this is the first time I'm at a podium and I go, I should wear glasses. The winners
- of today's competition are receiving awards of more than $26,000. Yeah. Really, really amazing. And
- the mission of the National Society of Arts and Letters is to identify, encourage, and assist young people
- that are talented in art, dance, drama, literature, music, and musical theater. Bloomington Chapter
- is one of 17 in the United States that does that, and I'm keyed into the word assist. Some of you know
- this and some of you don't, but last century, I was lucky enough to be a Bloomington Chapter winner,
- And sometimes the fates all align and that was the year that the acting competition went national. And
- I got to go to San Antonio and in 1994 I was lucky enough to win the national competition. And it was
- honestly one of the most important years of my life because I luckily
- had my chops going, and I was well prepared. And that competition introduced me to some people that
- have been kind of very important in my career. So I look to the National Society of Arts and Letters
- as a bunch of people that really care. And for the people that are performing today and for the people
- who are here to pick up an award that aren't performing today, these are people that really, really
- take your future
- to heart. And I think that's a beautiful thing. So that's why we're in a dark room on a beautiful day.
- All right? And it's a wonderful reason. And we'll enjoy the sunshine in a few hours, so I should shut
- up. Also, I will say, I'm going to announce people. I probably won't be saying what they're performing.
- It's in the programs. And that reduces the chances of me butchering names.
- So let's just go with that, all right? So our first performer today is Julia Paige Thorne, who is in
- her second year of musical theater BFA program at IU with a minor in arts management. Julia opens next
- Friday in IU's production of The Drowsy Chaperone as Kitty, and is also working as the assistant
- choreographer for the show. She was last seen in Roots to Wings,
- Last Dance, choreographed by George Penny. She was also a tribe member at Herod's Girl in Jesus Christ
- Superstar for IU Theater. Julia is from Crown Point, Indiana. Please welcome Julia to the stage.
- or the add-on to Facebook like Farmville? Or what, like some stupid little app? But you, you take it
- seriously. Seriously, you take it seriously? Jesus, you're one of those people? So you have like an
- actual person that you call. Did your astrologer tell you that an awful man you love was going to break
- your heart?
- Did she tell you to not go to the fancy Italian restaurant that he yelped and got all excited about
- because it's a setup that you will be ambushed? Did she happen to mention that your boyfriend is a fucking
- power hungry fucking asshole who, by the way, clue number one, picks someplace special and expensive
- so that you won't scream and cry? And he thinks you might, and he thinks he's being nice when he pulls
- the plug and leaves you there to gasp for air and die? Weren't you wondering
- sitting there like a dumbass, not breathing, not moving, as he says what he says, watching the truck
- come at you, bam! There's a $45 entree and another glass of wine on its way, and he says graciously,
- get whatever you want, it's all on me. And you wonder why you hadn't been warned by a fucking astrologer?
- Instead you quietly sob with your head in your hands and people stare, but you, you don't make a sound.
- Your ex just had a better planet in his house that day than you. I want to be brave. I want to be strong.
- the people who are in the know on the pianist community, I was going to announce that Julia was being
- accompanied by Brandon Porter. Unfortunately, last night, Brandon Porter broke his leg. Yeah, yeah,
- so, and we're on the second floor, so it's not happening. So, Joey Vaz was the accompanist on that,
- and we'll see Joey later today as well. It's improv, we can make the show happen.
- Sorry. Is it Lala? Leila. Thank you. Thank you. Leila Hazelwood is our next performer. She began her
- dance training in Indianapolis at Kenyatta Dance Studio under the direction of her mother.
- Vanessa Owens. She is a 2013 graduate of Indiana University and is currently teaching an advanced
- contemporary dance course at IU. She is the newest faculty member for the Indianapolis Ballet Conservatory
- in Carmel, Indiana. This is also Leila's first season as our Associate Artistic Director for Kenyatta
- Dance Company. And here she is.
- Yang, an MFA candidate in fiction writing at Indiana University, and the associate editor of Indiana
- Review. She was raised in Rochester, New York, near my old stomping ground, and received her BA from
- St. Lawrence University in 2015. Her fiction has appeared in several literary journals, including the
- Cossack Review, Kenyum Review, and Clock House. And she will be reading from her short story,
- Runners. Hi, everyone. Thanks so much. I'm going to be reading the opening from my short story, which
- was recently published in the Cossack Review. So if you would like to know how it ends, you can find
- it there. It's called Runners.
- Erin said the trick was to take only things that wouldn't be missed. An orange from an overcrowded fruit
- bowl, two slices of bread from each loaf, a white nub of soap from the bathroom dish, a fresh bar already
- waiting to take its place. That first house, a square brick home across from the middle school, Ivy
- crawling over its face, I was jumpy and excited.
- thrilled by the ease with which the back door had given under my cousin's touch. Hadville, New York,
- was the type of town where the neighbors all knew the names of each other's dogs and few people bothered
- with locks. It was so easy strolling inside and helping ourselves to whatever we needed that I imagine
- the house was a regular grocery store, except the owners loved us so much they let us have everything
- for free. I told Erin this and she laughed.
- The sound raised a pleasant tingle along my skin. Erin had never laughed much when her dad,
- my Uncle Roy, was around. Now that he'd gone, she'd become a light-hearted version of the brooding teenager
- whose cool looks used to freeze me in my place. Why here have some broccoli, Miss Louise, she said,
- bowing to me and offering the head in both hands. Why, thank you, Miss Erin, I said, bowing back.
- And would you like a can of our superb tomato soup? Why, thank you. We went on like that for a bit until
- the noise of the house resettling scared us and we bolted. Then the long walk back to Uncle Roy's truck,
- which Erin had parked on a side street four blocks away. She only had her learner's permit, but she
- was the best driver I'd ever seen. In all ways, Erin seemed older than her 16 years.
- I was in awe of her. Though she attended the high school across town, during the day I often imagined
- us bound together by an invisible line. When the teacher handed out the permission slip for the Geva
- Theater field trip, I smiled, knowing how Erin would forge Uncle Roy's signature with a flourish. When
- the other sixth graders snickered at my sloppy clothing and called me hunchback and dyke, I imagined
- Erin's icy stare turning them to stone
- After we got back to Roy's house, I heated up the tomato soup in two mugs and Erin boiled the broccoli
- until it was soft. We worked in the white glow of the little light under the microwave. Erin said we
- needed to conserve energy and make Roy's money stretch as long as possible. So we tried to only have
- one lamp on at a time. We took two minute showers. Sometimes we even lit candles.
- I loved those nights the most, when the flickering shadows blurred the edges of the room, and I could
- pretend Aaron and I were the last two people on earth. Aaron set the broccoli on the table. She handed
- me a steaming mug and raised her own into the air. In the semi-darkness, she looked queenly, hair cascading
- around her shoulders, eyes brilliant on blinking. Before Aaron, I had never known brown eyes could carry
- so much light.
- To our freedom, she said. We clinked mugs and drank. The tomato soup scalded the roof of my mouth. I
- moved in with Aaron and Roy after my dad, Roy's older brother, was killed by a delivery truck driver
- on the highway. There was a settlement and some money stashed away for me once I turned 18. At first
- it wasn't surprising that my uncle had gone. Roy had disappeared before.
- Once when I was nine and again last year before Christmas, he just ducked out, vanished for a day or
- two, and returned looking happy or as happy as he ever did. In appearance, Roy resembled his brother,
- a small man with thin features and bristly black hair he tamed with gel each morning. But where the
- memory of my dad radiated warmth and laughter, Roy seemed somehow curled in on himself.
- Stunted. There was an ancient crabapple tree in the courtyard of Hadville Elementary that I had decided
- resembled my uncle. Both had the cramped, anxious appearance of creatures that hadn't seen enough sun.
- He did make his efforts with me. He used to clap his hand on my shoulder in a brusque, brotherly sort
- of way. He never could seem to figure out how it was okay to touch me, never kissed or hugged me as
- my father had.
- And he rattled off questions about school, tried to turn my one or two word murmured responses into
- fodder for more talk. Every once in a while he took me out to dinner. The best restaurants in town where
- the food came in tiny portions and the plates were ringed with bits of inedible green or to the little
- theater for artsy films I didn't understand. Aaron never came along on these trips.
- She and Roy had a coolly functional relationship that allowed little space for direct interaction. Erin
- cooked her own food, stayed up as late as she wanted, and cut class as it suited her. Roy remained locked
- in his bedroom, which doubled as a home office most of the day. Neither seemed to sleep much. In the
- middle of the night, I'd wake from the fold-out couch in the living room to hear Erin returning from
- one of her walks or Roy muttering on the phone.
- I'd been told my uncle designed websites for a living. Some part of me believed these late-night calls
- were connected to his work, even as another part dreamily spun stories of exotic friends in different
- time zones, women with accents trilling my uncle's name. Roy had kept a stern and spotless household.
- Floors swept, shelves tidy, furniture arranged at right angles and regularly wiped of fingerprints.
- In the weeks after his disappearance, the place began to gain a lovely, lived-in feeling. Trash amassed
- in corners. Yellow stains blossomed on the counters and inside the kitchen sink. The yard grew unruly,
- spiky weeds poking through the grass. I'd been living with Aaron and Roy almost three years by that
- point. Now was the first time the place truly felt like a home.
- Erin relocated to the master bedroom where her father had slept, and I vacated my fold-out couch for
- Erin's bedroom down the hall. In the evenings, after we had both showered, I liked to visit her, sit
- on the edge of my uncle's queen-sized mattress, and watch her comb out her long hair. It was slick,
- dark hair, almost black, like my dad's and Roy's. I could only figure my tannish curls had come from
- my mother.
- I'd never met her. She was gone before I started forming memories. And my dad, when asked, only distracted
- me with goofy stories about mom sprouting fins and moving into the sea. A similar fate seemed to have
- ensnared Erin's mom, of whom there was not a single photograph in Roy's house. Perhaps this was why,
- in the beginning at least, I didn't make a fuss over my uncle's absence.
- Ours was a family where people simply disappeared. Thank you. Soprano Caitlin Johnson is pursuing a
- master's in vocal performance at Indiana University's Jacob School of Music under the guidance of Heidi
- Grant Murphy.
- She spent last summer as a young artist with the Prague Summer Nights Festival, performing the role
- of Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni. She's a 2015 cum laude graduate of Rice University's Shepard
- School of Music. Kaitlin's from Atlanta, Georgia, and she will be accompanied by James Maverick.
- This is worth being inside on a nice day. Wow. Oh, boy. Ryan Klaus is a senior at IU from Cleveland,
- Ohio, majoring in theater with a minor in contemporary dance. I had the good fortune of having Ryan
- in class when I was teaching down here, and he is a fiercely passionate student. And I had the good
- fortune of performing with him up in Indianapolis last summer.
- He was recently seen as Ferdinand at IU's production of the Duchess of Malfi. So please welcome Ryan
- to the stage. Boards you. Boards you. Christ Almighty.
- trying working for you for a living. The talking, talking, talking, Jesus Christ, won't he ever shut
- up? Titanic, self-absorption of the man. You stand there, trying to look so deep, when you're nothing
- but a solucistic bully, with your grandiose self-importance, and lectures, and arias, and let's look
- at the fucking campus for another few weeks. Let's not fucking paint, let's just look.
- You know, not everything has to be so goddamn important all the time. Not every painting has to rip
- your guts out and expose your soul. Not everyone wants art that actually hurts. Sometimes you just want
- a fucking still life, or landscape, or comic book, or soup can, which you might learn.
- If you ever actually left your goddamn dramatically sealed submarine here with all your windows closed
- and no natural light because natural light isn't good enough for you. But then nothing's ever good enough
- for you. Not even the people who buy your paintings. Museums, our mausoleums, galleries are run by pimps
- and swindlers and art collectors are nothing but shallow social climbers.
- So who is good enough to own your art? Anyone? Maybe. No one's worthy. That's it, isn't it? We've all
- been weighed in the balance and have been found wanting. Even as one heat, another heat expels, or as
- one nail by strength dries out another,
- so the remembrance of my former love is by a newer object quite forgotten. Is it mine or Valentine's
- praise, her true perfection or my false transgression that makes me reason thus to reason thus?
- She is fair, and so is Julia that I love, that I did love. For now my love is thawed which, like a waxing
- image against a fire,
- no impression of the thing it was. Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold, and that I love him not as
- I was wont. Oh, but I love his lady too, too much, and that's the reason I love him so little. How shall
- I dote on her with more advice that thus, without advice, begin to love her? It is but her picture I
- have yet beheld, and that hath dazzled my reason's light. But when I look on her perfection,
- You know, a lot of these guys back here today, I've been back there and they've got the performance
- jitters and
- These next two don't have to worry about that because they're on video. Yeah. I don't remember ever
- having that option. So we've chosen to show them this way because of the great expense that renting
- a special floor for them to dance on, it would just cost so much. And it's much better to put that money
- into awards for these performers. So you will meet Rachel and Anna, though, during the awards ceremony.
- Here they are on video.
- Rachel Schultz, is that where we are? That was Rachel for those who don't know. She began her training
- in ballet at the age of eight and since then she's trained under many reputable teachers all over the
- world. Rachel's competed in the last four Youth American Grand Prix regionals where she placed
- and most recently second place in the senior classical age division. Rachel's currently a freshman in
- the ballet department at IU Jacobs School of Music. All right, are we ready for honor?
- is a sophomore at Indiana University pursuing a BS in ballet with an outside field in Italian and a
- BS in finance. She is going to be well versed in everything. She's hoping to graduate and continue dancing
- with a professional ballet company in the coming years. All right. Are we ready for pianist Philip A? Yes?
- Born in South Korea, started playing piano at the age of five. He graduated summa cum laude in piano
- performance from Seoul National University College of Music.
- And as a result, he had the chance to perform at the 78th Chosun Ilho Debut Concert at Sejong. I hope
- I'm not butchering that. Too much center, Korea. He's won awards and has performed not only in Korea,
- but in France, Poland, and the United States. And here he is now.
- Thank you.
- stage manager for performing emergency surgery on that piano or else we wouldn't have heard that beautiful
- piece of music. Let's take a 10-minute intermission and we'll come back and hear some more wonderful
- things. Thanks. 10 minutes, everybody. Hi, everybody. All set for part two. All right. All right.
- Thank you. All right. So let's get started.
- Stella Bella is an MFA candidate in poetry at Purdue University. Her work has previously appeared in
- Juked, Crack the Spine, and Rust and Moth, among many other publications. She's an alumni of Carnegie
- Mellon, where she studied creative writing and professional writing. Hannah is a native of Bayonne,
- New Jersey, and she'll be reading her poems Seven Hungers and Saturday Afternoon,
- thrown in the living room. Here she is. First poem I'm going to read is called Seven Hungers. One. Goose
- flesh after a whisper of skin on skin, the way each hair on my arm strains
- towards more of his touch, even years deep in his tiny Brooklyn apartment. Two, to grin at just the
- sight of him. What a pain to have my cheeks ache from smiling. To punch him lightly in the arm, foe
- yell until he kisses me where it hurts. Three,
- The way his mouth moves towards the right side of his face when he speaks. It almost looks like he has
- three front teeth. But something in that tug of skin, or perhaps the ease of the smile that blooms there,
- precious as anything coaxed alive from dirt. Four. When I press my cold hands,
- against the strange heat of the small of his back. That hallowed shadow dip in the expanse of brown
- skin, the way this boy, this trained engineer explains it away as just his Latin fire. Five, the simple
- heat of his body next to mine. Six,
- The softness of his voice in sleep talk. The sureness with which he declares his nonsense to me. Everything
- spoken in a sigh. Stories from television to workplace nightmares to a conniving sandwich thief. When
- I recount them in the warm yellow of morning, he groans and pulls the covers over his head.
- until I burrow into that private darkness with him. Seven, to kiss the mouth that feeds me comfort even
- some thousand miles away. The warm liquor of his voice, the static electricity of every message received.
- How many days until you meet me at the airport?
- and scoop me into cupped hands while the traffic cops of Newark let their whistles drop from their lips.
- The second poem is called Saturday Afternoon, Prone in the Living Room. I am melted ice cream on the
- floor, me in my worst form. I wish I could put myself
- in a freezer until I regained my consistency, but instead I keep staring at the ceiling fan. I am spreading
- my fingers and unspreading them like a child making snow angels. The carpet doesn't hold impressions
- from the motions, but I like the futility. It's a Saturday.
- A great day for letting my brain be ransacked by the black horse flies of existentialism. They climb
- in my ears and buzz smugly. I hum along having learned their song at a young age. I arch my back using
- my muscles to remind myself I have a body.
- It can be easy to forget what's real when I sleep for 18 hours a day. Isn't it nice? Sure, it's not
- what one could call coping, but it's not the worst thing I could do to myself. Thank you.
- Cameron Barnett, our Chapter Career Award winner in Contemporary Dance, is a sophomore BFA majoring
- in dance at Indiana University. Originally from Bloomington, he's passionate about both performing and
- creating. Since Cameron began studying at IU, he's danced in works by Kyle Abraham, Andrea Miller,
- Jose Limon, and Jerome Robbins. Cameron's own work
- questions the boundaries of dance and theater, drawing inspiration from such sources as musical form,
- mathematics, and the patterns of everyday life. He'll be performing Five, which is one of his own works.
- Here he is. I would like to talk to you about the number Five.
- And the thing that I like most about the number five is that there are only five platonic solids. This
- is a regular polygon, it's a regular triangle, and it has the same number of triangles meeting at each
- corner. The definition of a platonic solid is a shape where you've got sort of different sides to the
- shape, but all of the sides are the same shape. That shape is a regular kind of polygon, so like a square
- where all the sides are the same length and the angles are all the same.
- and every corner looks the same. So those are the conditions. And this is, in fact, called a tetrahedron.
- It's like a pyramid, but it's got a triangular base, not a square base. So a tetrahedron is four triangles.
- This is the octahedron. It has eight oct, eight triangular faces. So if I get two of those and stick
- them together, you'll see that I also get the same corner everywhere else. And this is an octahedron.
- So unlike our tetrahedron, this has
- four triangles meeting at each corner. And this is one of my favourite platonic solids. This is called
- an icosahedron. You can see every single corner has got five triangles meeting at it and all of the
- faces are triangles and in fact you get 20 triangles. So this is an icosahedron. This one over here
- My marvellous props. Well, Brady, what's that? That is a cube. Yeah, it's a hexahedron. Well done. So
- a hexahedron has six square faces. So I'm happy with that. And I'll put a cube on my list. And that
- is six squares. At this point, I would jump to pentagons. I don't have any pentagons, unfortunately.
- But you can fit three pentagons around a point. This is the dodecahedron. Dodec means 12. It has 12 pentagon.
- faces and at each vertex we have three pentagons. Where does a sphere fit into all of this? A sphere
- isn't a platonic solid because it doesn't technically have faces. I guess in some sense the sphere is
- kind of the limit of having more and more faces like if you get enough faces eventually the faces are
- all of size zero but it's not counted as a solid
- of any shape because it's not got kind of individual faces that are a shape.
- Also a Bloomington native, Felix Murbank is a freshman at Indiana University who strives in every step
- of his life to fulfill the artistic moral precedence of life that his mother, Althea, set forth to him
- at an early age. Without her journeys in conveying her experiences through different artistic lenses,
- Felix would never have grasped the importance of acting and performing in his own life.
- Felix is now. What a damned epicurean rascal is this? My heart is ready to crack with impatience. Who
- says that this is improv and jealousy?
- My wife hath sent to him, the hour is fixed, the match is set. See the hell with having a false woman.
- My bed shall be abused, my paupers ransacked, my reputation non-act, and I shall not only receive this
- villainous wrong, but stand under the adoption of abominable terms, and by him who does me this wrong.
- Terms, names, Mamon sounds well. Lucifer, well.
- Barbason, well, yet these are the devil's additions, the names of fiends. But Cuckold? Whittle? Cuckold?
- The devil himself hath not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass. He shall trust his wife. He shall
- not be jealous.
- I would rather crust a Fleming with my butter, Parsons use the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman
- with my aqua vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my England gilded than my wife with herself. And then
- she ploughs, and then she ruminates, and then she devises. Eleven o'clock the hour, I shall prevent
- this, detect my ways,
- Get my revenge on Falstaff and Lafette Page. I'll be about. Better three hours too early than a minute
- too late. Five, five, five. Cuckholds, cuckholds, cuckholds.
- walking down the street and they come upon me like they're important to something, you know? And then
- they just start pushing me down this alley, but it's not like an alley, it's more like a dark hallway,
- you know? And then they just punch me and kick me, you know? So I curl up on a ball and move, so they
- can't hit me or nothing, you know? You know, I just thought if I wanted you guys to have some friends,
- it doesn't have to be you, I mean,
- I mean, I mean, I mean, just a couple of buddies, just a couple of guys, just a couple, a couple,
- a couple, a couple, a couple, a couple of big guys and some, some, some fighters, you know, just to
- show my couple buddies too, you know, and, uh, and I'm on edge right now and I'm, I'm, I'm flying high
- and I gotta talk, but, but I'm serious about this, you know, you know, just a couple of guys, just a
- couple of, a couple, a couple, a couple of big guys, some, some, some fighters, you know, and maybe
- they leave me alone cause, uh, cause the guys have been after me too, you know,
- Oh, they kicked me a pretty bad, you know? And if I weren't high and itched, I mean, I'd have pain soon
- throughout my body, and then walking around here late, I mean, I'm constantly scared, because you never
- know what's waiting for you around the corner, you know, just to jump, you know? It's not like I'm protecting
- myself or nothing, you know?
- Some guys, some vibes, you know. Some guys that if you're walking around with them, you can do anything.
- I miss Bloomington. Dang, it's a good place.
- Sehee Hwang, a 21-year-old harpist from South Korea, has received global attention from receiving the
- fourth place award at the 10th University International Harp Competition, as well as many other international
- awards. She graduated from Yewon Art School, the leading school of music and dance in South Korea.
- Currently, she is pursuing an artist diploma at the IU Jacobs School of Music, and I think I talked
- just the right amount of time. Here she is now.
- Oh, Scott Van Wye is somebody else I had a lot of fun with by the time down here. He's a junior BFA
- student in musical theater from Indianapolis. And he's had a very nice career on stage at IU, as a lot
- of folks here have. He's performed in such shows as Jesus Christ Superstar, Occupants, Mr. Burns, Romeo
- and Juliet, and The Mystery of Edwin Drew.
- And he's also performed at IU Summer Theater and at Cardinal Stage. And he is this year's third place
- winner in the NSAL Drama Competition. And Scott will be accompanied again by Joey Voss. Here's Scott.
- The person who would still talk to me is Jenny. We were out at dinner one night and she's talking to
- me and I'm not listening because I'm working on my case. I'm writing down ideas I have on a napkin and
- I'm writing down diagrams of the cars, what lanes they were in and how fast they were going in what
- directions, the laws, the other driver, and the numbers that I'm gonna call to get my case fixed. And
- I'm getting so upset and so worked up that I'm actually marking over my own handwriting, tearing up
- the napkin and marking the table
- and Jenny just looks at me and she says, what are you doing? And I look at her and I say, well, what
- part of this napkin don't you understand? And then Jenny looks at me and says, Mike, you're right, but
- it's only hurting you. And I'm just so glad that you're alive. And I think we should focus on that.
- to say it once. And I dropped the case. I paid for Dad's car. June 26, 2007, Jenny and I go to City
- Hall and get married. And I still didn't believe in the idea of marriage. And I still don't. But I believe in her.
- and I've given up on the idea of the right.
- Thank you, Joey Voss, for being an emergency fill-in today. Yeah, we had a couple of last-minute curveballs,
- you know, pianists going down with broken legs, and we have one more curveball. We end our program today
- with Andres Acosta, who is a second-year graduate student at the Jacobs School of Music, where he studies
- with Carl Venice. The Miami, Florida native received his undergraduate degree
- from Florida State University, interesting theme, Florida. He made his IU Opera Theater debut as Alfred
- in Deflater Mouse. So, Florida. He actually was just in Florida at a competition and, as I speak, remains
- in Florida.
- Yes, and I was gonna make, I was gonna try and pretend that we had him via satellite. It's not true,
- we just have a video. So here he is via the magic of video, Andres Acosta.
- and congratulations to everybody for the awards you won for this year's NSAL. I am about to turn the
- program over to Ruth Albrecht. I just want to say thank you for letting me share this with you guys.
- I have to run in a few minutes back to a rehearsal up in Indianapolis. But I do want to say that for
- the performers, hopefully you'll be able to take some time and thank
- the members of NSAL, the people that take the time and donate their money and their efforts to promoting
- our careers. It's a wonderful thing. And I've been a proud member of NSAL for 10 years because I believe
- in their mission. And I say to all the performers, find a way to pay it forward. So Ruth, I turn it
- over to you. Thanks everybody.
- Delta had not canceled Andre's 5.30 AM flight back from Florida. We could all have hugged him here,
- because he's very huggable. I don't know. My 23-year-old friend tells me that everybody checks their
- email in the middle of the night. But hey, I don't think many people my age do. But I did check at about
- 2.30 this morning. And there was his email saying that he was
- Well, I don't think weathered in. I think Delta's had a system breakdown. Anyway, he was not here, but
- we were able to see him sing, and that was exciting. And it's just really exciting to recognize so many
- wonderful young artists this afternoon at our 51st Annual Showcase of the Arts. I was trying to figure
- out, we have 51 winners. 14 were represented today, so we could have had, we could have at least three
- more of these programs.
- I don't know after all the things that went wrong with this one that I am up for that, but between Brandon
- Porter breaking his leg and Andres remaining in Florida. The judges agreed this year that the talent
- was just phenomenal. We're just delighted. Erin, could you turn the house lights up? I wanted to introduce
- Judy Park, who is our national...
- National President of the National Society of Arts and Letters and I thought maybe she could just stand
- up and wave so that if any of you wanted to talk to her at the reception later you could. We are delighted
- to have her here. She's a big fan of our chapter and she visits us frequently. It's really just a pleasure
- to help these young people pursue their dreams. I love them all and
- So now we're going to present their awards, the $25,950 in cash and 800 in Pygmalion's gift certificates.
- My thanks to chapter members and other wonderful donors who've made this possible. And my thanks to
- the judges and chairs. Without them, none of this would have been possible. Right now I want to introduce
- Suzanne Halverson and Robert Kingsley.
- who are the chairs of the visual arts competition. We actually had that exhibit was here in the Waldron
- in January. It was a wonderful exhibit. And we're happy to be able to show the winners' works as the
- awards are presented today. Erin, I think we need more light. Thank you, Ruth. As Ruth just said, the
- exhibit was in the Waldron
- Rosemary P. Miller Gallery of the Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center today. There were 100, or this January,
- there were 120 pieces submitted for jury, and there were 35 pieces selected for the exhibit, so everyone
- who was in the exhibit is a winner. Today we will be honoring the award winners, but in fact,
- I wish that all of the artists could be here today to be recognized. I would like to thank Bob Kingsley,
- my co-chair, and Catherine Rohrer-Johnson, who did a lot of work all the way from Boston to make this
- happen. I would also like to do a slight correction to the program today. Martha McLeish, Amy Breyer,
- myself, and Bonnie Skolarski were the judges. I would also very much like to thank Julie
- Julie Roberts, who is the director of the John Waldron Art Center Gallery. She met individually with
- each of the artists to make sure that the presentations were as they had wanted them to be. And as the
- first gallery director here in the 90s, I know how much work that was. So I would like to ask the award
- winners to come down and Bob will present the awards to the winners.
- So just come down all at once. It would be nice if you were all down here and then we could line you
- up and give you your awards. Okay. Our top award winner,
- today is Letitia Merkel. She won the chapter award for her video, Flourish. Why don't we hold our applause
- and just applaud for everyone when it's done. Luke Huling won the Alma Eichermann Memorial Award for
- his sculpture, Archie. Yu Yan
- won the Ilkner P. Ralston Memorial Award for her painting, untitled. Armand D'Agruriel won the Klein
- Merit Award for his sculpture, Reflection from the Abyss. Sarah Bagdadi won the Nelda Christ Memorial
- Award for her photo, untitled, Simon.
- Mary Claire Namath won the Grace L. Dyer Memorial Award for her wall piece, Daydreams. Emily Teague
- Sinnott won the Grunwald Merit Award for her painting, Re 359.
- Taryn Dickerson won the Pygmalions Art Supplies Award for his painting, Black Girl Magic 3, 10, 1, 16.
- Jenica Brown won an award from Pygmalion Art Supplies for her painting, View from the Roca Maggiore,
- number 2. Braden Raymer won
- a Pygmalion's Art Supplies Award for his monotype, Duck. And Amaris Boden won a Pygmalion Art Supplies
- Award for her painting, Liz. L-E-3, oh, I wrote it down, L-E-3, L-I-3, sorry, L-E-3. Thank you very
- much and congratulations.
- I'd like to introduce now Karen Butcher, who's the chair of the ballet competition. Karen actually won
- an NSAL award in dance several years ago and has become an NSAL member to help other young dancers pursue
- their dreams. Karen? Good afternoon. I'd like to have Rachel and Annalisa come on down, please.
- Ballet competition this year, we had an amazing talent of young women and a gentleman this year, actually.
- And Annalisa and Rachel are the recipients of these two awards that we're about to present. I do want
- to tell you a little bit about the judges that we've had this year. Uwe Kern from Louisville Ballet.
- He's the senior ballet master there.
- Hisham Ormadeen from Ballet Met in Columbus, Ohio. He is the senior ballet master. Olivia Clark, who
- was a former principal ballet dancer at Ballet Met. And we had Sasha James this year teaching the master
- class, which was part of the competition. Rachel Grace, who's a freshman, very impressive freshman,
- won the Marina Svetlova Memorial Award
- and the Joanne Athanus Memorial Award for ballet. Rachel. And Annalisa Wilkins, she will represent the
- Bloomington Chapter at the National Ballet Competition in Boca Raton.
- Once again, the talent in these two young women is very impressive and I can't wait to see what they
- will give to us in the next three years. Well, three years for Rachel and two years for Anna here at
- IU. Annalisa is the recipient of the Joanne Avanis Memorial Award and the Katherine P. Borkenstein Memorial Award.
- Thank you. Our next category is Contemporary Dance and Celine Carter is the Chair of Contemporary Dance
- and will present those awards. Thank you, Ruth. Could I invite the Contemporary Dance recipients to
- join me on the stage, please?
- It's such a pleasure to witness young artists in this time. And I can't say enough about how the Cash
- Award really helps artists, especially in dance. It's the difference between being able to attend a
- workshop, a master class, travel to an audition. It's a really helpful, helpful gift. So I'm grateful
- to be a part of NSAL, and I'm just so honored
- to witness these dancers. So Emma DeLillo received the Marina Svetlova Memorial Award. Corey Boatner
- also received the Marina Svetlova Memorial Award.
- Meredith Johnson cannot be here, and I will give her award to her tomorrow. And it is a great honor
- for me to present this award to Leila Hazelwood, who received the Reeva Shiner Memorial Award. She is
- a former Chapter Career Award, and she is doing phenomenal things in Indianapolis right now. And I'm
- just so proud of the leadership she's taken to continue to develop contemporary dance
- Indianapolis, so I'm thrilled to present this award. Thank you. And finally, the judges were so impressed
- with this recipient's choreographic voice, as well as his performance of his work, and that is the Chapter
- Career Award in Contemporary Dance to Cameron Barnett.
- Thank you. Our next category is drama, and Chair Drew Bratton will present those awards. Thank you,
- Ruth. If I could have our drama winners join me on the stage.
- I'd like to start with our first awardee who was unable to join us this afternoon, who is receiving
- the Brighter Merit Award in Drama, and that is Caleb Curtis. And our second award winner also was unable
- to join us today. Winning the Reva Shiner Memorial Award is Courtney Reala.
- Spivak. And now for the phenomenal five that are with us today. The Albert Rusink Memorial Award goes
- to Nicholas Jenkins. Winning the Helen and Linton Caldwell Memorial Award, Emily Sullivan.
- winner of the Dr. Frank Hersmolus Memorial Award, Scott Van Wye. You saw him perform today. The winner
- of the Laura and Reva Shiner Memorial Award, Ryan Klaus. And the winner of the Lineth Brockett
- Carol Moody and Fran Snake Memorial Award in Drama for 2017, Felix Mirbach. Thank you very much. When
- Scott Van Wye won the musical theater competition,
- we had this dream that he would also win the drama competition and perform in both halves of the showcase.
- It didn't quite happen, but he was third in this competition, so it almost happened. I'd like to introduce
- Rick and Lois Hall, who are literature chairs, and we'll present those awards today.
- Again, this year we had wonderful judges and wonderful contestants. Yes, all the literature winners,
- please. Sue Chow won the Josephine Piercy Memorial Award and
- Paul Eisenberg is also contributing to that award. Sue Chow. And Lisa Lowe. Lisa Lowe won the David
- Albright Memorial Award. If she's here.
- Tessa Yang. She won the Hayate Merritt Award, and the check is not in the mail, it's in the envelope.
- And Hannah DellaBella won the Chapter Career Award in Literature for 2017, and we're glad to give her
- the award.
- Thank you all. I thought our literature winners did a great job of reading from their work this year.
- It's not easy. I mean, it's a lot easier to be a song and dance person than it is to read from your
- literature at the showcase.
- We had two wonderful competitions in music this year. Ilya Friedberg, who's a PhD student at IU Jacobs
- School of Music, was the chair of the instrumental competition, and he will present those awards now.
- Ilya is a former NSAL winner, having won an award for his piano playing in 2012, and now he's an associate
- award member of our chapter. And here he comes.
- the sun when there's so much shine, huh? There used to be a time when children were born into a safe
- world when they knew that their life will be provided and they didn't have to worry about finding a
- job. Those are not the days now. So I'm so glad to be a member of NSAL and I would like to thank you,
- to thank Ruth
- that we are able to provide some kind of safety and some kind of confidence to the performer, that the
- future is not so, that the future is bright and you need to be you and that's what we want. We want
- the winners to know that we love who you are and we're so happy to have a chance to meet you.
- So please, whoever is here, we don't have too many, but the winners of instrumental competition, please
- come on stage.
- announce all of the winners. And the ones that are not here, I'll just keep their check. Too bad. He
- has the recital today. He's a doctoral student as well. So he cannot be here with us. And he's a winner
- of a Taylor Merritt Award, Lindner, Stroman. Then the Christoph Wagner.
- Also not here, he's playing in the orchestra today, in Evansville, and he's receiving a McDonald's Merit
- Award. And the next one is Layley, who's receiving the Donald Neal Memorial Award. Congratulations.
- Claire, Long and Dyke,
- is unable to be with us, unfortunately. And she's the winner of the Hagerty Merit Award. So we can just
- clap for Claire. The next one is Nayang Kim, and she's the winner of NSAL Bloomington Chapter and Merit Award.
- next we have a lot we have eight we had an amazing competitions and we just we were very happy too bad
- we could only select eight maybe we can next year select more the next one is Zoe Martin Doik she won
- the Ham Merit Award next one is Phil Hobie
- And you heard him today playing the Godowsky paraphrase on the flutter mouse. He's the winner of Donald
- Trout and Paula Sanderman Award. And the Chapter Award winner is Sihi Huang.
- Thank you all, and I hope you take a chance to talk to the winners and to get to know them. Thank you.
- The longtime chair of our voice competition is Mary Alice Cox, who will present those awards and perhaps
- make an interesting announcement.
- Can we get everyone to come down, please? We also had an amazing competition this year. There were 28
- people in the voice competition, and they were all terrific. And we were able to award seven awards,
- and we have four people here today. So we will get started. The winner of the Stephen Pak and David
- Blumberg Award is Ann Sloban.
- Actually, all of the voice winners are very huggable, so. The winner of the Herbert Kubler and Phil
- Evans Award is Yuji Bae. The winner of the Koronek Merit Award and Jacobi Merit Award is Alejandra Martinez.
- The winner of the Donald Traub Memorial Award could not be here today. He's actually performing
- professionally with Pittsburgh Opera. And his name is Terence Chin Loy. The winner of the Lauren, or
- excuse me, the winner of the Helen and Linton Caldwell Memorial Award is Lauren or Liz Culpepper. And
- she is working backstage at Music Man this afternoon.
- The winner of the Mary Alice Cox and Jim Cook Merit Award is Caitlin Johnson. And lastly, our Chapter
- Award winner, Andres Acosta, who is in Florida. I have another special announcement about him.
- This year, our parent NSAL organization has the first annual
- Lincoln, Dorothy, Smith, Classical Voice Competition. And all of the chapters across the country are
- allowed to submit two entries to that. Caitlin and Andres were our submissions. And there are three
- awards given, and Andres actually placed second. So we're pretty proud of that.
- George Pinney is our longtime chair of musical theater and he's retiring this year after 30 years at
- IU. At this very, very moment he is rehearsing for his role as the man in the chair for the IU production
- of the drowsy chaperone. I read in the paper this morning that in 30 years this is his first acting
- job at IU. He's been directing all those 30 years. Anyway, it opens on Friday and I think you should all
- want to see it, it's probably going to be lots of fun. Anyway, stepping in to present those awards is
- our drama chair, Drew Bratton. Lest you think that we didn't have a fabulous drama competition this
- year, we did as well as the musical theater competition. And yes, it is true that George cannot grace
- the stage for you today, but as Ruth
- said you should all come and let him grace the stage at the Ruthen Halls Theater and celebrate him.
- Our competition for musical theater is ripe with cast members from the Drowsy Chaperone as well. There
- are a few of the musical theater winners here today. If they will join us on stage. And as you look
- to the rest of your program, you will see that the ones that we are missing
- are definitely at their 10 of 12 today, getting ready for opening on Friday. So we will start with the
- Scott Burgess Jones Tribute Award winner, and that is Emily Rosman. Unable to join us today, the winner
- of the George Penny Tribute Award, Michelle Zink,
- The Hagerty Merit Award and George Penny Tribute Award, Meadow Nui, also unable to join us. The winner
- of the George Penny Tribute Award, Robert Lee Tombs, unable to join us today. The Kovner Merit Award
- winner is Janie Rose Johnson, also in the cast of The Drowsy Chaperone.
- And you saw her perform earlier today, the Robinson Merritt Award winner, Julia Paige Thorne, who left
- to rejoin the rehearsal for the drowsy chaperone. But that brings us to the Mrs. Granville Wells Memorial
- Award winner for 2017, Scott Van Wye.
- Thank you to all of you for applauding and for rewarding these students that work with us and show us
- such great talent. We appreciate you. Let's give these winners all one last round of applause.
- I'd like to thank my behind the scenes crew. We had a few little snafus along the way. We had a great
- rehearsal yesterday and I've always heard that if you have a bad rehearsal, you'll have a good performance.
- So I was a little worried because our rehearsal was good and I thought, you know, is the reverse true?
- Well, as it turned out, you know, people broke their legs, people got stuck in Florida.
- Et cetera. So anyway, a big thanks to the stage managers, Josiah Brown and Kate Peters, and to our lighting
- and sound technician, Aaron Bowersox, who had a whole lot more to do this year.
- than he expected with all of our visuals. And I also wanted to thank Ivy Tech Community College, who
- is an educational partner to the Bloomington Arts community, and they're a big help in what we were
- able to do here. Last but not least, I would like to thank all of you for coming today and supporting
- these young artists. And please join us now for a reception downstairs, one flight down, we will be
- having a reception for the young artists and it's a great time for you to come and meet them. Thank
- you so much for coming.