WFIU: Arts Moments

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WFIU's “Arts Moments” are a series of short features highlighting various events and people that have affected the arts in our society. These features are in honor of Arts Weeks 2004, running from February sixth through March second.

Arts Weeks is Indiana University’s showcase for the best and most exciting work in the creative and performing arts. From the intimate theater of local actors and playwrights to the stirring artistry of IU’s Grammy® Award-winning faculty, Bloomington continues to offer world-class, memorable experiences in virtually every style and genre of creative expression. Artists that intrigue, challenge, and inspire-these are the essence of Bloomington.

Support for Arts Weeks comes from the IU offices of the President, Vice President for Research, and Director of Arts and Cultural Outreach.

James Joyce	Norman Rockwell	Talking Motion Pictures	Beatles Arrive in America	Fugue in Red and Gray
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James Joyce (Feb.2) 2/2/04

Celebrate the arts -- with this glimpse into the life of James Joyce.
"…and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."
These are the final lines of Ulysses, the 1922 literary masterpiece by James Joyce, born February 2, 1822 in Dublin, Ireland.
Widely considered to be Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses chronicles the events of a single day in the life of Dubliner Leopold Bloom. Ulysses is a massive work that deals in minute detail with eighteen hours in the lives of its characters, in loose correspondence with the eighteen books of Homer's epic of the same name. Now heralded as one of the great early works of modernist literature, Ulysses was banned in America until 1933 and Britain until 1934 due to its impolite, vulgar, and erotic content, which did not suit the literary tastes of the day.
Joyce's work is characterized by experimentation with language, and he was one of the earliest authors to use a compositional technique called stream of consciousness to create a web of free association that is often intentionally disorienting for the reader.
Other works by James Joyce include, Dubliners, an early collection of short stories, the autobiographical Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and his late masterpiece Finnegan's Wake. (250)
Support for this Arts Moment has come from the IU offices of the President, Vice President for Research, and Director of Arts and Cultural Outreach. I'm Lauren Robert.

Norman Rockwell (Feb.3) 2/3/04

Celebrate the arts -- with this glimpse into the life of Norman Rockwell.
An icon of twentieth century America, painter and illustrator Norman Rockwell is remembered as one of our country's greatest visual storytellers.
Born Feb. 3, 1894 in New York City, Rockwell fancied himself an artist from a very early age and left high school to attend art school at the Art Students' League in New York. He graduated and found almost immediate work as an illustrator with Boy's Life Magazine, the official publication of the Boy Scouts of America. This collaboration with the Boy Scouts continued for much of his life.
Rockwell first and foremost considered himself an illustrator and was always self-conscious of his artistic work. He never received the critical acclaim that his contemporaries Jackson Pollock and Robert Rauschenberg received.
Rockwell is best known for the more than 300 covers he painted for the Saturday Evening Post. His career with the post spanned over 40 years from his first commission in 1916, allowing him to capture nearly a half-century worth of images from early days of horseless carriages to the first man on the moon. Through these covers he reached a larger audience than perhaps any other twentieth century American artist, and as a result it is often his images that have shaped our perception of mid-twentieth century America.
During the 1960's, Rockwell turned from his primarily utopian view to a more realistic and socially conscious view of American life. His subjects during this period ranged from civil rights to poverty to the Space Age.
Rockwell passed away in 1978 at the age of eighty four, a year after he received America's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom for "vivid and affectionate portraits of our country". (279)
Support for this Arts Moment has come from the IU offices of the President, Vice President for Research, and Director of Arts and Cultural Outreach. I'm Lauren Robert.

Talking Motion Pictures 2/4/04

Celebrate the arts -- with this glimpse at the beginnings of "talkies."
On February 4, 1927, the first talking motion picture, or "talkie" was released. "The Jazz Singer", starring jazz singer and superstar Al Jolson, was the first feature length Hollywood film to feature spoken dialogue synchronized with the dramatic action. Actually only part "talkie", the film also featured performances by Jolson in synchronized musical numbers with accompaniment.
A year earlier Sam Warner, co-founder of the Warner Brothers Studio invested a half million dollars with Western Electric in the Vitaphone sound system, a method of synchronization that employed sixteen-inch disks playing at 33 1/3 rpm. The system was short-lived, and the cost due to breakage and shipping of the disks led Warner Brothers to discontinue their use after only three years. Its successor, a system of recording sound directly onto the film, was first adopted in 1928. This became the dominant method of sound reproduction in film until the advent of the Dolby System and Digital Theatre Sound, or DTS, the systems most commonly used in theatres today. These modern systems each use all digital sound, which is either recorded directly on the film (Dolby Digital), or on a compact disc (DTS). Both systems are a far cry from the early days of talking films, less than a century ago.
Sadly, Sam Warner died prematurely at the age of 40 the day before the wildly successful New York premiere of "The Jazz Singer" on October 6, 1927. The film did however return his investment with a net profit of $3.5 million dollars, establishing the market for talking motion pictures and ensuring the success of the Warner Brothers studio for decades to come. (270)
Support for this Arts Moment has come from the IU offices of the President, Vice President for Research, and Director of Arts and Cultural Outreach. I'm Lauren Robert.

Beatles Arrive in America (Feb.7) 2/6/04

Celebrate the arts -- with this glimpse into the arrival of the Beatles in America.
It took less than two weeks in February of 1964 to redefine an entire generation of American popular culture. On February 7, the British Rock sensation the Beatles touched down at New York's JFK airport to begin their first visit to America. Greeted by throngs of screaming teenage girls, the media dubbed the event "Britain's revenge for the Boston Tea Party".
Two days later, the boys from Liverpool made their now legendary first appearance on the "Ed Sullivan Show" before a record audience of 73 million viewers. That night they thrilled listeners with 5 of their hit songs, including "All My Loving" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand". The success of these performances led to two more appearances on the Sullivan show that month.
In the coming weeks they appeared live in Washington D.C. and at New York's Carnegie Hall, capturing the imagination of a new generation of young Americans and marking the beginning of the generation gap.
Quite apart from their wit and musical innovation, the Fab Four's visit also touched off an outbreak of Beatlemania. Before long Americans were imitating their haircuts and clothing styles, snatching up everything from Beatles lunchboxes to hairbrushes to board games.
The Beatles' visit in February of 1964 came less than three months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November of 1963. Ultimately, the event not only defined a generation of American popular culture, but also went a long way to help the healing process of a nation in mourning. (251 )
Support for this Arts Moment has come from the IU offices of the President, Vice President for Research, and Director of Arts and Cultural Outreach. I'm Lauren Robert.

"Fugue in Red and Gray" Dance Performance (Feb.6 Buskirk) 2/6/04

Celebrate the arts -- with this look at "Fugue in Red and Gray."

"Fugue in Red and Gray", a choreographic project, is being presented at the Buskirk Chumley Theatre in downtown Bloomington as part of the Indiana University Faculty Dance Concert.
"Fugue in Red and Gray" features the choreographic talents of IU faculty member Laura Poole, and is set to original music by IU doctoral composition student James Holt. The dance is based on a painting by William Itter of the same name and explores the color, depth, and visual complexity of this painting through three sections which each comment on a different aspect of the painting. Professor Itter has created a translation of the painting to a stage backdrop to provide the environment for the dance, and the performance features additional scenic design by Mark Smith, lighting by Michael Paolini, and costumes by Alexandra Morphet.
The dance will be performed by five university dancers in IU's fledgling modern dance program and will feature IU composer James Holt's "Colligare" for 4 voices, 3 percussionists, and violin, in a live performance by members of the IU School of Music.
The performance will also feature Elizabeth Shea's "These Hands" with original music by vocal soloist Caitlin Burke, and choreographer George Pinney's "Just Between Friends" performed by Jeff Tanski to music of Bela Bartok. The final performance is Friday, February 6, at 8 pm at the Buskirk Chumley Theatre. (195 )
Support for this Arts Moment has come from the IU offices of the President, Vice President for Research, and Director of Arts and Cultural Outreach. I'm Lauren Robert.