Jordan College of the Arts Signature Series

A High-Impact Artist and Scholar Residency Program for Student Enrichment and Community Enjoyment

SANDEEP DAS AND FRIENDS

Public Performance: Sandeep Das: Delhi to Kabul: A kaleidoscopic journey of music, storytelling, and dance

Wednesday, September 3, 2025, 7:30 PM
Schrott Center for the Arts

Sandeep Das, Tabla
Qais Essar, Afghan Rabab
Rajib Karmakar, Indian Sitar
Antara Bhardwaj, Kathak Dance

Sangeetam paramanandam shanta rasa pravartakam, a Sanskrit shloka, meansmusic is the ultimate bliss and the creator of peace and tranquility. Das’ vision of bringing together music traditions from across the world has produced an eclectic repertoire that is simultaneously deeply rooted in tradition and yet uniquely innovative. With a focus on the arts of India and Afghanistan, Delhi to Kabul showcases the shared heritage of two countries that are as ancient as they are modern, and as diverse as they are captivating.

This evening’s program will feature iconic instruments from each country: the tabla (a pair of hand drums from North India), rabab (a lute-like instrument from Afghanistan also common to many Central Asian countries), and sitar (string instrument from India) are joined by Kathak dance (a classical storytelling dance from India) and a narrated story written by Afghan author Homeira Qaderi.

Panel Discussion: The Rhythm of Life: Healing through Rhythm and Music
Thursday, September 4, 2025, 7:30 PM, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Join us for an interactive, interdisciplinary panel discussion exploring the healing power of North Indian Classical Music through the lens of culture, tradition, and modern science. Rooted in time theory, philosophy, and precise melodic and rhythmic constructions, North Indian Classical Music has long been recognized for its therapeutic effects on the body and mind. This conversation will bring together Grammy-winning tabla maestro Sandeep Das and Indian sitarist Rajib Karmakar to delve into how practices like riaz (disciplined practice), spiritual compositions, and meditative soundscapes foster mental and emotional well-being.

Together, we will examine this ancient art form as both a cultural treasure and a powerful modality for healing in the contemporary world.

TIM MILLER, theatre artist

Public Presentation: An Evening with Tim Miller

Monday, September 22, 2025, 7:30 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Tim Miller is an internationally acclaimed performance artist. Miller’s creative work as a performer and writer explores the artistic, spiritual, and political topography of his identity as a gay man. Hailed for his humor and passion, Miller has tackled this challenge in such pieces as POSTWAR (1982), COST OF LIVING (1983), DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA (1984), BUDDY SYSTEMS (1985), SOME GOLDEN STATES (1987), STRETCH MARKS (1989), SEX/LOVE/STORIES (1991), MY QUEER BODY (1992), NAKED BREATH (1994), FRUIT COCKTAIL (1996), SHIRTS & SKIN (1997), GLORY BOX (1999), US (2003) 1001 BEDS (2006), LAY OF THE LAND (2009), ROOTED (2016), and A BODY IN THE O (2020). Miller’s performances have been presented all over North America, Australia, and Europe in such prestigious venues as Yale Repertory Theatre, the Institute of Contemporary Art (London), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He is the author of the books SHIRTS & SKIN, BODY BLOWS and 1001 BEDS, which won the 2007 Lambda Literary Award for best book in Drama-Theatre. His solo theater works have been published in the play collections O Solo Homo and Sharing the Delirium. Miller’s book 1001 BEDS, an anthology of his performances, essays, and journals, was published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2006. Miller has taught performance at UCLA, NYU, the School of Theology at Claremont, Cal State L.A., and at universities all over the US. He is a co-founder of two of the most influential performance spaces in the United States: Performance Space 122 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, CA.

JEANETTE MCCUNE, non-profit executive leader

Public Lecture: The Role of DEI in Effective Community Engagement

Monday, September 29, 2025, 7:30 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are critical building blocks to ensuring that all who are part of your community are recognized as important and valued participants in your work. The goal is not to disfavor or disadvantage one group over another, but to thoughtfully and intentionally consider perspectives and experiences to build a cohesive and representative community. In this session, presenter Jeanette McCune, with more than two decades of experience in community-building programming for students, schools, and systems, will share examples and tips for programming that supports participation for all.

Jeanette McCune has been appointed as Executive Director of SchoolTalk, a nonprofit organization committed to ensuring equitable access to education and successful postsecondary outcomes for youth with disabilities in the District of Columbia. In this role, Jeanette will oversee SchoolTalk’s strategic direction, operations, and programs that support youth with disabilities as they navigate secondary education and transition to postsecondary opportunities. She will also work closely with community partners, schools, government agencies, and families to advocate for inclusive policies and practices. Jeanette brings over two decades of invaluable experience from The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where she most recently served as Senior Director of School and Community Programs. In this role, she provided strategic vision, budget oversight, and led a team overseeing local and national arts education programs for students from Kindergarten through 12th grade.

ANDERSON & ROE

Woman in black dress stands next to man in black suit seated at piano.

Public Performance

Wednesday, October 8, 2025, 7:30 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

The Anderson & Roe Piano Duo has been called “the most dynamic duo of this generation” (San Francisco Classical Voice), “rock stars of the classical music world” (Miami Herald), and “the very model of complete 21st-century musicians” (The Washington Post). These superlatives are grounded in what can only be described as ineffable connectivity: the technically masterful Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe exude an organic and seamless completeness when they perform together, working in sync to unearth the essence of each piece they play from their genre-transcending repertoire, and testing the boundaries of their instruments. That special alchemy immediately captivates their audiences: “Even the most jaded of concert goers sat forward in their seats and dropped their jaws in amazement as these two just re-wrote the book of the tedious concert recital” (Sarasota Herald-Tribune).

ALEXANDRA MCNICHOLS-TORROLEDO, photographer

Alexandra McNichols-Torroledo with a camera under a tree.

Public Exhibition and Lecture: Honoring Indigenous Communities who are Protecting and Restoring the Earth from Climate Change through Photography

Monday, November 3, 2025, 7:30 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Alexandra McNichols-Torroledo, Colombian-born photographer, uses her photographic practice as a journalist and artist to work in collaboration with ancestral indigenous communities in North and South America who are protecting water, sacred plants, and the rainforest from climate change.

Alexandra McNichols-Torroledo is a Colombian-American photographer living in Indiana. Her artwork has centered on immigration issues in America and the fight of Indigenous communities in North and South America to protect sacred plants, water, and the rainforest from climate change. Alexandra’s practice bridges the fields of artistic and documentary photography, using a range of alternatives and processes to produce handmade photographs that appear to be antiques or sculptures. This approach achieves an aesthetic result that transports the spectator to the past within the reality of the present. She uses antique photographic processes and digital techniques to print on trees, stones, hand-made paper from coca leaf fiber, and recycled paper and canvas.

She has published two photo poetry books and four photobooks: Encounters, Dream and Nightmares, Stone Faces, and Diaries of Death. Her articles and photos have been published in El Espectador (Colombia), The Guardian (UK), Semana Sostenible (Colombia), Trib-Star (Indiana), and Bloom Magazine (Indiana). McNichols-Torroledo’s work has been exhibited and lectured about in museums and galleries in America, Colombia, Brazil, and England, including El Museo Cultural Santa Fe, Palacio Das Artes, FAR Center for Contemporary Arts, Swope Art Museum, Museo La Tertulia, the Pereira Museum of Art, Guichellar Gallery at Big Car/Tube Factory Art Space, La Cometa Gallery, and Art Pavillion. Last year, she exhibited at Aurora PhotoCenter and lectured on her work at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.

DJ SPINDERELLA

Fireside Chat and Performance

Wednesday, January 21, 2026, 6:00 PM
Shelton Auditorium

Deidra Roper, internationally known as DJ Spinderella, is a Grammy award-winning DJ, producer, rapper, writer, and world-class mother. Spinderella is one of the original pioneers of hip hop music, beginning her career as a member of the iconic rap group Salt-N-Pepa, selling over 15 million albums and singles worldwide. Over two decades after her groundbreaking entrance into hip hop, the Brooklyn native still sets the standard for “turntablist” all over the world and is still a force to be reckoned with in the music industry. With countless lifetime achievement awards, including the VH1 Hip Hop Honors, Global Spin Breaking Barriers’, Black Girls Rock, and BET ICON awards, Spinderella is a notable pioneer in the industry for empowering and inspiring the entire DJing community. Now, in addition to continuing to DJ the world’s largest events, she has become a motivational speaker for aspiring artists.

PITTSBURGH BALLET THEATRE

Male ballet dancer holds female ballet dancer by the waist

Public Performance

Friday, February 6, 2026, 7:30 PM
Schrott Center for the Arts

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre has been Pittsburgh’s premier professional ballet company since 1969. Today, PBT is a nationally recognized ballet company of 32 professional dancers, a training institution for over 1,200 students of all ages, and an incubator for education and accessibility programs in classrooms, libraries, and community centers throughout the region. The company, under the leadership of artistic director Adam W. McKinney and executive director Nicholas Dragga, performs a wide-ranging repertoire of classical ballets, contemporary masterworks, and new commissions in nearly 50 performances annually.

CF PAYNE, illustrator

CF Payne at his drawing table with an illustration of a baseball player at bat.

Public Lecture: Why Illustration Matters

Wednesday, February 18, 2026, 7:30 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

C.F. Payne is an illustrator and arts educator with a passion for drawing. His work has appeared in publications such as Time, Der Spiegel, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, MAD, Boys Life, Atlantic Monthly, AARP, the Wall Street Journal, and many other national and international publications. His work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, Norman Rockwell Museum, Mazza Museum, Cincinnati Art Museum, and others around the world. He is the subject of the movie: C.F. Payne: An American Illustrator.

C.F. started his career in Dallas in 1980. Since then, he has received Gold Medals from the Society of Illustrators in 1993 and 1996, and Silver Medals in 1992, 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2001. He received the Hamilton King Award for excellence in illustration in 1995 and the Society of Illustrators Distinguished Educator Award in 2012. The National Cartoonist’s Society awarded him the Illustration Award in 2002 and the Book Illustration Award in 2003. In 2017, he won the Individual Artist Governor’s Award for the Arts in Ohio. Communication Arts awarded him the Award of Excellence in 2020.

ELIANA PIPES, playwright

Butler Theatre will present Lorena, A Tabloid Epic

February 25-March 1, 2026
Lilly Hall Studio Theatre

Playwriting Workshop (Zoom): Thursday, January 15, 7:00-9:00 PM

Rehearsal Visit (Zoom): Wednesday, February 4

Eliana Pipes is a writer, filmmaker, and performer based in her hometown of Los Angeles. In television, she was a writer on season one of the historical drama SPARTACUS: HOUSE OF ASHUR with Starz and Lionsgate Television. Her plays include BITE ME (world premiere co-production Off Broadway WP Theater and Colt Coeur); DREAM HOU$E (world premiere co-production Alliance Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, and Baltimore Center Stage, published by Concord Samuel French); HOOPS (commissioned, world premiere Milwaukee Chamber Theater); LORENA: a Tabloid Epic (New York Theatre Workshop Dartmouth Residency, The Playwright’s Realm Scratchpad Series); COWBOY AND THE MOON (Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship, NNPN MFA Playwright’s Workshop); UNFUCKWITHABLE (Old Globe Powers New Voices Festival, Drama League DirectorFest); STAND AND WAIT (The Fire This Time Festival), and more.

SEDRICK HUCKABY, painter

Public Lecture: Higher Ground

Wednesday, March 18, 2026, 7:30 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

“Higher Ground” is the name of a recent exhibition of mine that deals with incarceration, liberty, and the continuing spiritual, physical, and social journey of Black Americans in their generational struggle for freedom.

Sedrick Huckaby was born in Fort Worth, Texas. After receiving an undergraduate education from Boston University and a graduate degree from Yale, Huckaby traveled to France, Italy, and Spain studying old master paintings. Eventually Huckaby moved back to his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas.

Huckaby’s work is a complex mixture of ideals that are both personal and universal, scientific and spiritual, historical and romantic. While themes of faith, family, and the Black American experience are the initial subjects, underlying historical criticisms and notions of dimensional existence are secondary ideas. These, coupled with the complexities of the mediums used, give the work true depth.

A Guggenheim Fellowship, American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and a Fulbright Fellowship are a few of the numerous awards he has received. His work is also included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Fort Worth Modern Art Museum, The National Gallery of Art, and many other national and international institutions

CHAD BAUMAN, executive director of Milwaukee Repertory Theatre

Public Lecture: Leading Through Relentless Uncertainty

Thursday, March 19, 2026, 7:30 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

In February 2020, Milwaukee Repertory Theater announced plans to build one of the largest new theater complexes in the United States. Four weeks later, the theater shut down due to COVID-19. Over the course of developing the $80 million, 155,000-square-foot project, Milwaukee Rep confronted a global pandemic, record-high inflation, supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, tariffs, and even a 1,000-year flood that destroyed its production center. Despite these unprecedented challenges, the Associated Bank Theater Center opened on time, under budget, and fully funded. Bauman will share lessons learned from leading a regional theater through extreme uncertainty, drawing on insights from an organization recently profiled by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Chicago Tribune as one of the most successful in the country.

Chad Bauman is the Ellen and Joe Checota Executive Director of Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Since his arrival in 2013, Bauman has overseen a significant period of growth for a company that produces about 700 performances a year, making it “the city’s most prolific performing arts organization” (Milwaukee Business Journal) presenting seasons that can “rival anything in Chicago and beyond” (Chicago Tribune). During his tenure, Milwaukee Rep has eliminated all debt, nearly doubled the endowment, achieved operating surpluses annually, grew net assets from $19 million to $84 million, raised nearly $100 million across three successful capital campaigns, and has started construction on the new Associated Bank Theater Center.

BRIA SKONBERG, trumpet

In concert with the Butler University Jazz Ensemble

Thursday, April 2, 2026, 7:30 PM
Schrott Center for the Arts

Bria Skonberg is a Juno-award winning artist, 10x Downbeat Rising Star, recipient of the Legend Award by the Society for the Preservation of the Great American Songbook, and a 2025 nominee for the prestigious “Academie du Jazz” awards. The trumpeter, vocalist, and songwriter has been called the “shining hope of hot jazz”(NY Times) and is considered “one of the most versatile and imposing musicians of her generation”(WSJ). She has been a featured artist at hundreds of festivals and stages the world over, including New Orleans Jazz Heritage, Kobe, Monterey, Breda, Newport and Montreal Jazz Festivals, and recently at Carnegie Hall. Her debut LP on Sony Masterworks reached #5 on the Billboard Jazz charts. Her most recent studio album, What it Means, was recorded in New Orleans during Mardi Gras featuring top local musicians, and released on Cellar Live. Her music has been streamed over 20 million times. The daughter of teachers, Bria was introduced to jazz by a spirited public school band program and local festival in her hometown of Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. A professional band leader since her teens, she moved to Vancouver and obtained her degree in Trumpet Performance from Capilano University. Since arriving in New York in 2010, she has been at the forefront of a revival of classic American music as both a performer and educator, programming concerts and workshops for students of all ages on behalf of Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Louis Armstrong House Museum, Jazz House Kids, and more. She is a co-producer of the NY Hot Jazz Camp, now in its 10th year. Bria is an active member of the Women in Jazz Organization, the International Trumpet Guild, a Bach Conn-Selmer artist, and became a mother in 2020.

DARRON WEST, sound designer

Guest sound designer for Butler Theatre’s devised production of Empty When Full

April 15-19, 2026
Lilly Hall Studio Theatre

Darron L. West is a Tony and Obie Award-winning sound designer whose work for theater and dance has been heard in over 600 productions nationally and internationally, on Broadway and off. His accolades for Sound Design include a Tony, an Obie, the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel, and AUDELCO Awards. He is also a two-time Henry Hewes Design Award winner, and a proud recipient of the Princess Grace Award. Broadway credits include The American Plan, To Be or Not To Be, The Royal Family, Top Girls, and Time Stands Still, among many others.

Darron is also renowned for his work with SITI Company, where he was a member from 1993 until the company’s closure. He first collaborated with Anne Bogart in 1990 while resident sound designer at Actors Theatre of Louisville. In addition to creating countless award-winning sound designs with SITI, he also served as co-director of SITI Company’s War of the Worlds – The Radio Play, Radio Macbeth, and Christmas Carol. Recent Sound Design credits from 2025 include Uncle Vanya at Shakespeare Theatre Company, Romeo and Juliet at Hartford Stage, and the New Play Festival at Round Hose Theatre.

JCA SIGNATURE MASTER CLASS SERIES

ILAN MORGANSTERN, trombone

Sunday, October 5, 1:00-3:00 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Bass trombonist, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

STEFAN JACKIW, violin

Thursday, October 9, 2025, 6:30-8:30 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Performing with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, October 10-11

Ethan Slater in yellow shirt holding a pineapple.

ETHAN SLATER, theatre artist

Friday, October 17, 11:00 AM-12:30 PM
LH 328

The original SpongeBob on Broadway!

A.D. WEAVER, theatre artist

Friday, December 12, 2:00-4:00 PM
LH 328

Performing as George Washington in Hamilton, December 2-14, Murat Theatre at Old National Centre

MICHAEL SHAPIRO, composer

Thursday, January 29, 5:30-6:30 PM
LH 145

Zoomies! and At the Shore of the Sea: Violin Concerto performed by the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, January 31

JAMIE BARTON, mezzo-soprano

Wednesday, February 18, 4:00-6:00 PM
LH 120

Performing with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, February 20-21

JAMES EHNES, violin

Friday, February 27, 1:00-3:00 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Performing with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, February 27-28

STACY GARROP, composer

Thursday, March 19, 5:30-6:30 PM
LH 145

CHROMA performed by the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, March 21

JOYCE YANG, piano

Thursday, April 23, 7:00-9:00 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Performing with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, April 24-25

WAYNE C. WENTZEL LECTURE SERIES

“Listening, Making Art, and Teaching in the Age of AI: Hearing Julius Eastman’s Music through Kintsugi”

Distinguished Professor of Music, Society, and Culture at the University of Toronto

Friday, February 20, 2026, 7:00 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

DR. ELLIE M. HISAMA

This talk brings together parts of composer/singer/pianist Julius Eastman’s fractured archive and performances of his music, focusing on his radical sonic expressions of and commentary on black being. In thinking about Eastman and his music through carework, this project suggests ways we might make our pedagogies and everyday listening practices more inclusive. I propose ways of considering Eastman’s life and music through Kintsugi, the Japanese practice of restoring broken pottery with lacquer, and share new pedagogical strategies in the age of generative AI.

Ellie M. Hisama is a Distinguished Professor of Music, Society, and Culture at the University of Toronto. She joined the University of Toronto in 2021 as Dean of the Faculty of Music, having previously taught at Columbia University, Brooklyn College, and Ohio State University. Her research and teaching have addressed issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, the social and political dimensions of music, and public engagement. She is the author of Gendering Musical Modernism: The Music of Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon, which was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title, and co-editor of the volumes Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Worlds: Innovation and Tradition in Twentieth-century American Music and Critical Minded: New Approaches to Hip Hop Studies.

JCA PRESENTS!

THE ISO AT BUTLER CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES
Wednesdays at 7:30 PM in the Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

September 17, 2025 – Beethoven and Mendelssohn String Quartets
November 12, 2025 – Woodwinds and Piano
January 28, 2026 – Mozart and Dvorak
April 8, 2026 – Brass Quintet

CHORO DAS 3, Brazilian Choro Ensemble

Wednesday, September 11, 2024, 7:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

World-renowned Brazilian band Choro das 3 is made up of the three Meyer-Ferreira sisters: Corina, Lia, and Elisa. Recognized in their home country as master musicians, they have traveled the world sharing the lively music of choro! Born in the kitchens and courtyards of Rio de Janeiro more than 100 years ago, choro continues to delight audiences everywhere with its heady blend of European, Brazilian, and African rhythms and harmonies. In Brazil, Choro das 3 has presented their unique style on national television, to huge regional festivals, and even the president! Welcomed by music lovers all over the world, the band also toured the US annually from 2013-2019, playing concert venues, festivals and universities from coast to coast, and sharing music from their 11 CDs.

In their signature family arrangement, oldest sister Corina plays flute and piccolo, middle sister Lia plays 7-string guitar, and youngest sister Elisa play bandolim, clarinet, banjo, piano, and accordion. Elisa also composes many of their original tunes. From the time of the bands founding, their father, Eduardo Meyer-Ferreira, played percussion. This is the first US tour for Choro das 3 since the pandemic, and is dedicated to the memory of Eduardo, who was struck down by Covid in 2019.

STEPHEN NACHMANOVITCH, musician/author

Public Lecture-Recital: Monday, September 16, 2024, 7:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Stephen Nachmanovitch is an improvisational violinist who performs and teaches internationally at the intersections of multimedia, performing arts, ecology, and philosophy. He is the author of two books on the creative process, Free Play (1990/2024) and The Art of Is (2019). Born in 1950, he graduated in 1971 from Harvard with a degree in psychology and in 1975 from the University of California, where he earned a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness for an exploration of William Blake. His mentor was the anthropologist and philosopher Gregory Bateson. He has taught and lectured widely in the United States and abroad on creativity and the spiritual underpinnings of art. Since the 1970s he has been a pioneer in free improvisation on violin, viola, and electric violin. He has presented master classes and workshops at many conservatories and universities, and has had numerous appearances on radio, television, and at music and theater festivals. He has collaborated with other artists in media including music, dance, theater, and film, and has developed programs melding art, music, literature, and computer technology. He has published articles in many fields since 1966 and has created computer software including The World Music Menu and Visual Music Tone Painter. He is currently performing, recording, teaching, and writing. He lives with his family in Charlottesville, Virginia.

#HipHop50 with ROXANNE SHANTE

Monday, September 23, 2024, 6:00 pm, Shelton Auditorium

Roxanne Shante was raised in the Queensbridge Public Housing Projects in Queens, New York. She released her first single at the age of 14 titled Roxanne’s Revenge, the first Response record for the UTFO song Roxanne Roxanne. She prompted The Roxanne Wars which included over 86 response records, aimed directly at Roxanne Shanté. She was the first female Rapper to have Platinum singles and Gold albums. She was the first nationally known female Rapper. Roxanne Shante also helped launch the careers of such Hip Hop lcons as Big Daddy Kane- Unsung, Biz Markie-Hip Hop History Documentary, McShan – Where it all began, Beef I and I, NAS-as stated in the motion picture llmatic. She has been an influence and role model for many, not just FemaleEmcees.

ELLEN LARSON, art historian

Public Lecture: “Ephemeral Architectures: Archiving contemporary moving image art from China”
Friday, September 27, 2024, 7:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Dr. Ellen Larson (she/they) is a Chicago-based curator, designer, writer, and educator. She is currently the 2024 Margaret F. Williams Memorial Asian Art Curatorial Fellow, supported by the Asia Foundation and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. They have organized exhibitions, screenings, and cultural symposia throughout China and the United States, and their writing has appeared in many prominent publications, including Art+Australia, ARTMargins by MIT Press, Millennium Film Journal, The Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Hemisphere: Visual Cultures of the Americas, and LEAP: International Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art. Dr. Larson’s research has been recognized and supported by the US Fulbright Program, the Getty Foundation, the Asia Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Dunhuang Foundation, the Center for Contemporary Art Research in Japan Program, and the University of Chicago’s Provost’s Global Faculty Award and Center for the Art of East Asia.

THEY DON’T PAY? WE WON’T PAY! with Emily Wilson and Jos Houben, 2024 VITA Artists

Performances are Wednesday-Sunday, October 9-13, 2024 Lilly Hall Studio Theatre

Born in San Francisco, Emily Wilson studied theater at George Washington University in Washington D.C. and then at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris. She co-creates with two accomplices of the Lecoq School, Cabaret Decay Unlimited and Improbable Aïda, two clown and burlesque shows which will be performed more than a hundred times across France and Europe. She is very interested in the new American dramaturgy and participates in readings then features some key pieces, notably Appels en Absence by Sarah Ruhl. Emily teaches theater at the Plus Petit Cirque du Monde and at the CRR/DSJC in Paris.

Jos Houben was born in Belgium and studied theatre at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq, and with Philippe Gaulier, Monika Pagneux and Pierre Byland. As an original member of Complicité, he co-created and starred in the landmark, A Minute Too Late, which changed the landscape of British theatre in the mid-1980s. Jos’ celebrated one-man, The Art of Laughter, has been touring worldwide for more than fifteen years and continues to fill houses from Paris to Buenas Aires to New York. Jos has taught at École Jacques Lecoq since the year 2000.

PROJECT B: Barbara Levine and Paige Ramey, Vernacular Photography and Curatorial Projects

Public Lecture: “Levine & Ramey’s PhotoCircus: Experience the thrills of vernacular photography!”
Wednesday, October 9, 2024, 7:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Barbara Levine and Paige Ramey are collectors, artists, and curators specializing in vernacular photography. Their photography collection, known as PhotoMania, was recently acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and their first collection of vintage photograph albums was acquired by the International Center of Photography in New York. They run Project B, an archive and collaborative curatorial venture. Their books published by Princeton Architectural Press include Caption This (2023); People Kissing: A Century of Photographs (2019); People Fishing: A Century of Photographs (2018); People Knitting: A Century of Photographs (2016); Finding Frida Kahlo (2009); Around The World: The Grand Tour in Photo Albums (2007); and Snapshot Chronicles: Inventing the American Photo Album (2006). Their self-published book, CAMERA ERA (co-authored by Martin Venezky) was named a best photobook by photo-eye.

Paige Ramey has a background in dance, video art, documentary production, and analog preservation, education, and performance art. Barbara Levine trained as a photographer at the San Francisco Art Institute followed by a graduate degree in Museology. Ms. Levine served as deputy director of The Contemporary Jewish Museum, and as exhibitions director at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. They live in Houston, Texas, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

JIANPENG FENG, percussion

Lecture-Recital: “Traditional Chinese Percussive Arts and their usage in Western Compositions for Percussion”
Thursday, October 10, 2024, 7:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Dr. Jianpeng Feng is a very active percussionist and educator with international influence. He has been performing at the top level in recent years in Broadway, Off- Broadway, concertos, and international events. Since 2021, Dr. Feng has served as the percussionist for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. The album he played on for the Off-Broadway show “Soft Power” was nominated for the 63rd Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Previously, he was the solo musician for the revival of the Tony Award-winning show “M. Butterfly” on Broadway. As a virtuosic marimbist, he was invited to perform as a soloist in a concerto with the Master Sinfonia Chamber Orchestra in San Francisco and San Jose, CA. Dr. Feng has been featured in solo and chamber concerts multiple times by the Percussive Arts Society in Indianapolis and its other chapters and locations, including New York, China, and Japan. In addition to serving as the guest timpanist and percussionist for the China Movie Orchestra, he has also played with the U.S. Coast Guard Band, New Britain Symphony Orchestra, Beijing Symphony Orchestra, and other orchestras in the U.S. and China. He has worked closely with directors, actors, and musicians who have won Grammy, Oscar, Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe awards.

As a percussionist with an international reputation, Dr. Feng serves in several professional affiliations and has organized many important events. As the co-founder of the Percussive Arts Society China Chapter, he has organized international percussion festivals in Beijing, China annually since 2016. In addition, he organized summer and winter camps at The Hartt School, Eastman School of Music, and the University of Minnesota Duluth and worked as a director.

As an educator, Dr. Feng has always been dedicated to building diversity in the music community. As an expert in Chinese percussive arts, he has taught masterclasses and given lecture recitals at many universities, colleges, and conservatories. Since 2020, he has run his music channel, Feng’s Music Channel, also known as Dao-Dao-Feng, on multiple platforms with almost one million subscribers across the internet. On his channel, he not only discusses music from different genres such as classical, jazz, contemporary, musicals, and pop, but also explores music from various cultures, including Chinese, West African, Middle Eastern, American, and many others.

Currently, Dr. Feng is teaching at The Hartt School Community Division, and sponsored by Innovative Percussion.

VIJAY GUPTA, violin

Public Lecture: “Music for Change: Healing through Collaboration”
Friday, October 11, 2024, 7:30 pm, EDRH Solo appearance with the Butler Symphony Orchestra, Sunday, October 13, 2024, 3:00 pm, Schrott

Vijay Gupta is a violinist, speaker and citizen-artist dedicated to creating spaces of wholeness through music. Vijay’s work embodies his belief that the work of artists and citizens is one: to make a sadhana – a daily practice – of the world we envision. Hailed by The New Yorker as a “visionary violinist…one of the most radical thinkers in the unradical world of American classical music,” Vijay leads a protean career as a thought leader, performer, collaborator, and communicator.

Vijay is the founder and Artistic Director of Street Symphony, a community of musicians creating spaces of connection for people in reentry from homelessness, addiction, and incarceration in Los Angeles. Vijay is also a co-founder of the Skid Row Arts Alliance, a consortium dedicated to creating art for – and with – the largest homeless community in America. For his work in “bringing beauty, respite, and purpose to those all too often ignored by society,” Vijay was the recipient of a 2018 MacArthur Fellowship.

A riveting speaker, Vijay has shared his work with dozens of corporations, campuses, conferences, and communities across America over the past 10 years, including The Richmond Forum, The Aspen Institute, Hallmark, Accenture, Mayo Clinic, US Psychiatric Congress, American Planning Association, and the League of American Orchestras, just to name a few. Vijay delivered the 33rd annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy for Americans for the Arts and his 2010 TED Talk, “Music is Medicine, Music is Sanity,” has garnered millions of views. Gupta is a member of the Free at Last Coalition, which serves to end the slavery loophole in the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution.

Vijay has performed as an international recitalist, soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician for over 20 years, playing his solo debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta. Vijay was a member of the first violin section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 12 years, and has collaborated with the Kronos Quartet, the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, and Yo-Yo Ma, and appears regularly with the Strings Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

A dynamic recording artist, Vijay recently released Breathe, an album of the piano chamber music of Reena Esmail, under his own label. His solo violin album When the Violin, a solo violin album featuring the music of Esmail, J. S. Bach, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, was released on Bandcamp in June 2021.

Vijay currently serves as the Senior Artistic and Programs Advisor for Young Musicians Foundation. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Marist College, and a Master’s in Music from the Yale School of Music. His principal teachers have included Ani Kavafian and Glenn Dicterow. Vijay plays a 2010 violin made by Los Angeles-based luthier Eric Benning, and can be found on Instagram @guptaviolin.

QUI NGUYEN, playwright

Butler Theatre performances of She Kills Monsters are Wednesday-Sunday, November 13-17, 2024, Schrott
Public Lecture: Friday, November 15, 2024, 5:00 pm, Schrott Performance Talkback: Saturday, November 16, 2024, 10:00 pm

Qui Nguyen is a screenwriter, director, playwright, and Co-Founder of the OBIE-winning Vampire Cowboys. He and his work, known for its use of pop-culture, stage violence, puppetry, and multimedia, have been called “Culturally Savvy Comedy,” “Tour de Force Theatre,” and “Infectious Fun” by the NY Times, TimeOut, and Variety.

Qui is currently with Walt Disney Animation Studios where he wrote Raya and the Last Dragon and wrote/co-directed Strange World. Other TV/Film includes Dispatches from Elsewhere (AMC), The Society (Netflix), Incorporated (SyFy), Peg+CAT (PBS), and Marvel Studios.

As a playwright, notable plays include Vietgone, Poor Yella Rednecks, Revenge Song, and the critically acclaimed Vampire Cowboys productions of She Kills Monsters, Soul Samurai, The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G, Alice in Slasherland, Fight Girl Battle World, and Living Dead in Denmark. Notable honors include a 2016 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Preschool Animated Program (Peg+Cat), 2016 Steinberg New Play Award (Vietgone), 2015 NY Community Trust Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, 2014 Sundance Institute/Time Warner Fellowship, 2013 AATE Distinguished Play Award (She Kills Monsters), and 2012 and 2009 GLAAD Media Award nominations for his plays She Kills Monsters and Soul Samurai.

He is a proud member of the WGA, The Animation Guild, Dramatists Guild of America, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Ma-Yi Writers Lab, Youngblood, and the Marvel Studios Writers Program. Currently, Qui is developing new plays with Manhattan Theater Club/Geffen Playhouse, The Atlantic, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and Center Theatre Group/The Goodman.

DAYTON BALLET

Friday, February 7, 2025, Schrott

The second-oldest ballet company in the United States, Dayton Ballet proudly celebrated its 80th season with the 2017–2018 season. Dayton Ballet is known nationally as “The Company of Premieres,” being one of the top three dance companies in the nation that produces and presents new work, as well as the only dance company to establish a fund designated specifically to create new full-length 21st-century ballets. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Brandon Ragland, Dayton Ballet hosts a season of four to five performances that includes familiar traditional story ballets, such as Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet, and Swan Lake; the classic family-friendly holiday staple The Nutcracker; and new and innovative works.

ANOOSHA SYED, illustrator and character designer

Public Lecture: “Inclusivity in Children’s Illustration”
Thursday, February 27, 2025, 7:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Anoosha Syed is a Pakistani-Canadian author, illustrator and character designer for animation.

As a third-culture kid, she grew up in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Pakistan, Switzerland, and the US, and is now finally taking a breather in Canada. She graduated with a BFA in Illustration at Ceruleum: Ecole d’arts Visuels in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2015. Since then, she worked as a character designer for preschool series in development working with studios like Disney, Netflix, and Nick. After illustrating over forty books for children, she is now working on several author/illustrator titles including That’s Not My Name! and Lost Stick.

In her spare time, Anoosha hosts a YouTube channel focused on accessible illustration education.

AUBREY BERGUAER, CEO, Changing the Narrative

Public Lecture: “Run it Like a Business” Thursday, March 20, 2025, 7:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Hailed as “the Steve Jobs of classical music” (Observer) and “the Sheryl Sandberg of the symphony” (LA Review of Books), Aubrey Bergauer is known for her results-driven, customer-centric, data-obsessed pursuit of changing the narrative for the performing arts. A “dynamic administrator” with an “unquenchable drive for canny innovation” (San Francisco Chronicle), she’s held offstage roles managing millions of dollars in revenue at major institutions including the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As chief executive of the California Symphony, Bergauer propelled the organization to double the size of its audience and nearly quadruple the donor base.

Bergauer helps organizations and individuals transform from scarcity to opportunity, make money, and grow their base of fans and supporters. Her ability to cast and communicate vision moves large teams forward and brings stakeholders together, earning “a reputation for coming up with great ideas and then realizing them” (San Francisco Classical Voice). With a track record for strategically increasing revenue and relevance, leveraging digital content and technology, and prioritizing diversity and inclusion on stage and off, Bergauer sees a better way forward for classical music and knows how to achieve it.

A graduate of Rice University, her work and leadership have been covered in the Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Thrive Global, and Southwest Airlines magazines, and she is a frequent speaker spanning TEDx, Adobe’s Magento, universities, and industry conferences in the US and abroad.

BREE LAMB, photographer

Public Lecture: “Double Vision” Monday, March 24, 2025, 7:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Visiting Artist Bree Lamb will present a public lecture, “Double Vision” sharing insight into both her personal artistic practice and her collaborative practice, Muscle Memory Collective, with ceramicist, Joshua Clark. Lamb centers her research around the complexities of modern-day image-consumption, examining our shared desires to identify, connect, and indulge through images. In her current visual practice, she pulls from public caches of social photographs to create new works, siphoning visual information and shifting context to highlight intersections of commodity, fantasy, and social currency.

Bree Lamb is an artist, educator, and editor based in New Mexico. She is Assistant Professor of Photography at New Mexico State University, and holds an MFA from the University of New Mexico and a BFA from Pennsylvania State University. She is a Beaumont Newhall/Van Deren Coke Fellow, and is represented by Gallery19 in Chicago. Her work is held in permanent collections at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center, the University of Iowa, Arizona State University, and the Southwest Center for Research. Recent artist lectures include Colorado College, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, the Society for Photographic Education’s West/Southwest Conference, and the Las Cruces Museum of Art. For the last six years, Lamb has been the Managing Editor for Fraction Magazine, an online venue for contemporary photography. She has reviewed portfolios at national and international events including Review Santa Fe, Medium Festival of Photography, New England Portfolio Reviews, Mt. Rokko Photography Festival, and Photolucida.

WILL BOND and ELLEN LAUREN, theatre artists

Public Lecture: “What are we Doing?” Wednesday, March 26, 2025, 7:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital

What are we Doing? A public gathering and conversation with Ellen Lauren and Will Bond of NYC’s SITI Company about the relationship between theatre makers and audiences.

Any act of theater making involves selecting and organizing images to express a message. But how does that come about, who selects, what are the criteria used in the process? Most of all, as we face this period of national transition, does theater making have a responsibility to a broader context globally? What is happening to that conversation? What is the relationship of the audience and the theater maker now? What’s going to keep us going? What messages are we tasked with and is the medium of theater still a viable way to exchange energy and time together….what are we doing?

Will Bond is a founding member of the New York City-based SITI Company. His credits include Scrooge in Falling and Loving, The Persians, The Bacchae, Antigone at Getty Villa; bobrauschenbergamerica at BAM; Seven Deadly Sins and Lilith at New York City Opera; Lost in the Stars with the LA Chamber Orchestra; and Bob (drama desk award nomination) with the New York Theater Workshop. Will was an Emeritus Senior Artist-in-Residence at Skidmore College from 2004-2019. He is published in the edited volumes Movement for Actors, Allworth Press 2002; The Routledge Companion to Stanislavski, Routledge Press 2013; and This Is Not a Handbook: the story of SITI Company, Yonkers International Press 2023.

Ellen Lauren was a founding member and co-artistic director of the SITI Company. She has served as the Education Director for all SITI’s training programs nationally and internationally and designed and administered SITI’s four none-month Conservatory programs. She has been on the faculty of The Juilliard School of Drama at Lincoln Center for over 30 years and directed four productions on the mainstage as well as at UCLA MFA TFT program. She is also an associate artist with the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) directed by Tadashi Suzuki and based in Japan. She will be featured the Toga International Festival’s 50th Anniversary season this summer. She recently was a co-creator of Space Bridge at La Mama, a program to highlight the stories of refugee children currently living in New York shelters. She received the Erskine Faculty prize at Juilliard for this work. Ms. Lauren was the first recipient of the TCG Fox Fellowship for Distinguished Achievement in the US.

THIS PERFORMANCE IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC; NO TICKET IS REQUIRED.

WYCLIFFE GORDON, jazz trombone

In performance with the Butler University Jazz Ensemble
Thursday, April 10, 2025, 7:30 pm, Schrott

Wycliffe Gordon experiences an impressive career touring the world performing to great acclaim from audiences and critics alike.

Last year, Jazz Journalists Association named him 2022 “Trombonist of the Year” for the record-breaking 15^th time, and he’s topped Downbeat Critics Poll for “Best Trombone” for an unprecedented six times (2020, 2018, 2016, 2014, 2013 & 2012). Recent awards include the “Louie Award”, the International Trombone Award and the Satchmo Award, among others. Wycliffe is a prolific recording artist and isextremely popular for his unmatched signature sound, plunger technique and unique vocals. He can be heard on hundreds of recordings, soundtracks, live DVD’s and documentaries, and has an extensive catalog of original compositions that span the various timbres of jazz and chamber music. His arrangement of the theme song to NPR’s “All Things Considered” is heard daily across the globe.

In addition to a successful solo career, Gordon tours regularly leading the International All Stars performing at festivals and performing arts centers worldwide. Gordon is also one of America’s most persuasive and committed music educators and is highly sought after as a clinician and guest speaker.

Wycliffe Gordon is a Yamaha Performing Artist and has his own line of Wycliffe Gordon Pro Signature Mouthpieces by Pickett Brass. Visit www.wycliffegordon.com.

JCA SIGNATURE MASTER CLASS SERIES

TAMIYA LEWIS, dancer

Monday, September 30, 2024, 11:00 am-12:15 pm, LH 310
Performing on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, November 1-3

CHANTICLEER

Friday, October 4, 2024, 12:30-2:30 pm, Second Presbyterian Church
In performance at Second Presbyterian Church at 7:30 pm

ALLISON BLACKWELL, Broadway vocalist

Tuesday, October 8, 2024, 2:30-4:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall
Performing with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, October 11-12

AWADAGIN PRATT, piano

Thursday, January 30, 2025, 4:30-6:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall
Performing with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, January 31-February 1

SIRENA HUANG, violin

Thursday, January 30, 2025, 7:00-9:00 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall
Performing with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, February 1

JOYCE YANG, piano

Wednesday, February 26, 2025, 7:00-9:00 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall
Performing with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, February 28-March 1

WAYNE C. WENTZEL LECTURE SERIES

Friday, February 21, 2025, 7:00 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

DR. NAOMI ANDRÉ, the David G. Frey Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, received her B.A. in music from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. in musicology from Harvard University. She was previously a professor at the University of Michigan in the Departments of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and the Residential College.

Dr. André’s research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Her publications include topics on Italian opera, Schoenberg, women composers, and teaching opera in prisons. Her books, including, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2006) and Blackness in Opera (2012, co-edited collection) focus on opera from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and explore constructions of gender, race and identity. African Performance Arts and Political Acts (2021, co-edited collection) focuses on how performance and the arts shape the narratives of cultural history and politics on the African continent. Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (2018) is a monograph on staging race and history in opera today in the United States and South Africa. She has served on the Graduate Alumni Council for Harvard University’s Graduate School of Art and Sciences, the Executive Committee for the Criminal Justice Program at the American Friends Service Committee (Ann Arbor, MI), and has served as an evaluator for the Fulbright Senior Specialist Program.

In 2019, Dr. André was named the inaugural Scholar in Residence at the Seattle Opera which has continued to the present. In her role, she advises Seattle Opera staff and leadership on matters of race and gender in opera; consults in artistic planning as it relates to representation of race and gender; and participates in company panel discussions, podcast recordings, and contributes essays to opera programs. She has continued to work with major and regional opera companies through panels, short residencies, and program essays.

In addition, Dr. André has worked with every major opera company in the United States and many regional opera companies and festivals. This summer she is a scholar-in-residence for the Des Moines Metro Opera. She has written program essays for recordings of Blue (CD, Tesori and Thompson, 2022) and Fire Shut Up in My Bones (DVD Blanchard and Lemmons 2022). On February 4, 2022 she testified before the Committee on the Judiciary as a Witness for House Resolution 301 hearing “Examining the History and Importance of ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ to become a National Hymn” (sponsored by Congressman James E. Clyburn, South Carolina).

JCA PRESENTS!

THE ISO AT BUTLER CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES
Wednesdays at 7:30 pm in the Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

September 4, 2024 – Timeless Works for Brass
October 16, 2024 – Folksy Flute and Strings
January 22, 2025 – Sphinx with Kevin Lin
March 5, 2025 – Mozart and Brahms

20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL
Friday, November 8, 2024, 7:30 pm Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Presented in partnership with the Ukrainian Society of Indiana
With post-movie panel discussion

DONORS

The Jordan College of the Art gratefully acknowledges the support for the JCA Signature Series provided by the following:

Office of the Butler University Provost, Dr. Brooke Barnett
Anonymous
Lori and James Todd

ARCHANA SHEKARA, graphic designer

Public Lecture: “Being Brown in Design: Addressing Equity + Inclusion + Representation” Monday, September 18, 2023, 7:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Archana Shekara is a Professor of Graphic Design, Co-Director of the Ethnic Studies Program, and Creative Director of Design Streak Studio, a research-based social innovation lab focusing on human-centered service design at Illinois State University. She is the Coordinator of the Graphic Design partnership with Wonsook Kim School of Art and Tianhua College of Art + Design at Shanghai Normal University. Shekara has twenty-seven years of professional experience designing for diverse industry clients. She uses design as a tool to build cross-cultural understanding, acceptance, and respect. As a socio-cultural researcher, she investigates her transnational identity as an Indian American by understanding racial equity and decoloniality through a brown cultural lens and creates cultural awareness using ethnographic narratives. Her medium for creative expression takes on various forms such as type design, curating immersive participatory experiences, and interactive installations using mixed and various emerging digital media which evoke multi-sensory responses. Shekara’s scholarship in teaching includes design pedagogy related to cross-cultural awareness and identity, social justice, and community engagement. Her teaching and research have been featured in peer-reviewed national and international academic and professional publications, and conferences including Association Typographique Internationale (AtypI), Virtual Design Education Forum (VDEF23), Typography Day, Digitally Engaged Learning (DEL), MODE Summit, Electronic Visualization and the Arts (EVA) London, Society of Experiential Design (SEGD), AIGA Design Educators Conference (DEC), College Art Association (CAA), Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC), and UCDA Design Educators Summit. She has also participated in DesignInquiry, an international peer-reviewed residency for experimental graphic design research. Shekara was featured in AIGA’s One Designer, One Work; she recently was a guest speaker at Manipal University, Jaipur, and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) to promote Mumbai, India. Shekara is the founder and chair of South Asian Design Educators Alliance (SADEA) which aims to promote and share South Asian design histories, pedagogies, and perspectives globally. Shekara received an MFA in Graphic Design from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a BFA in Painting from the State University of New York in New Paltz.

Website address: https://www.theHERproject.art/

SIMON SHAHEEN, oud and violin

Public Performance: Thursday, September 21, 2023, 7:30 pm, Schrott Center for the Arts

Simon Shaheen dazzles his listeners as he deftly leaps from traditional Arabic sounds to jazz and Western classical styles. His soaring technique, melodic ingenuity, and unparalleled grace have earned him international acclaim as a virtuoso on the ‘oud and violin. Shaheen is one of the most significant Arab musicians, performers, and composers of his generation. His work incorporates and reflects a legacy of Arabic music, while it forges ahead to new frontiers, embracing many different styles in the process. His newest project, “Zafir” explores the Arab roots of Flamenco music and features fiery dancer, Auxi Fernandez, and guitarist/pianist, Juan Perez Rodriguez.

ANGELA BROWN, soprano

Public Performance: “Opera from a Sistah’s Point of View: Generation Next”
Monday, September 25, 2023, 7:30 pm, Schrott Center for the Arts

Soprano Angela Brown’s multi-genre career has been lauded on the front page of The New York Times, CNN, CBS, in Oprah Magazine, and Reader’s Digest. She has graced the leading opera and symphonic stages on six continents including Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, National Opera of Paris, Vienna State Opera, Capetown (South Africa) Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Edmonton Opera, Calgary Philharmonic, Shanghai World Expo, Moscow Performing Arts Center, The Metropolitan Opera, Bilbao Opera, Teatro La Fenice, Hamburg Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Cincinnati Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, and more. She has been presented in solo recitals throughout the United States, Canada, Spain, New Zealand, China, and Africa. Drawing on the impact of her signature show, Opera…from a Sistah’s Point of View©1997, Angela founded Morning Brown, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to programming with multicultural role models to inspire and encourage the next generation of singers. She is the co-host of Melanated Moments in Classical Music, an award-winning podcast from Classical Music Indy with an audience in over 100 countries. She is featured in two PBS documentaries on the life of Marian Anderson: “The Whole World in Her Hands” from American Masters and “Voice of Freedom” from American Experience. The Willson Center for Humanities and the Arts of the University of Georgia named Angela the 2023 Delta Visiting Chair for Global Understanding

BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS, playwright

Saturday, October 7, 2024, Lilly Hall Studio Theatre

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is Professor in the Practice of Theater and Performance Studies at Yale University. Jacobs-Jenkins is a playwright whose plays include Girls (Yale Rep), Everybody (Signature Theatre; Pulitzer Prize finalist), War (world premiere, Yale Rep; LCT3), Gloria (Vineyard Theatre; Pulitzer Prize finalist), Appropriate (Signature Theatre; OBIE Award), An Octoroon (Soho Rep.; OBIE Award), and Neighbors (The Public Theater). A Residency Five playwright at Signature Theatre, his most recent honors include the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright from the London Evening Standard, a London Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwriting, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama, the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Steinberg Playwriting Award, and the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award. Jacobs-Jenkins has taught at NYU, Juilliard, Hunter College, and the University of Texas-Austin.

IMANI WINDS

Public Performance: Friday, January 26, 2024. 7:30 pm, Schrott Center for the Arts

Celebrating over a quarter century of music making, the twice GRAMMY-nominated Imani Winds has led both a revolution and evolution of the wind quintet through their dynamic playing, adventurous programming, imaginative collaborations, and outreach endeavors that have inspired audiences of all ages and backgrounds.

The ensemble’s playlist embraces traditional chamber music repertoire, and newly commissioned works from voices that reflect historical events and the times in which we currently live. Their international presence includes concerts throughout Asia, Brazil, Australia, England, New Zealand, and Europe. With a deep commitment to education, the Imani Winds were appointed in 2021 as the Curtis Institute of Music’s first-ever Faculty Wind Quintet.

SARAH LOUISE COWAN, art historian

Public Lecture: “Abstract Art and Liberation”
Monday, February 5, 2024, 7:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Sarah Louise Cowan is an assistant professor of art history at DePauw University. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary art of the Americas with a particular focus on the intersection of art and activism. Sarah’s book, Howardena Pindell: Reclaiming Abstraction (Yale University Press, 2022) is the first book-length scholarly publication about any aspects of the multifaceted career of artist, activist, curator, and writer Howardena Pindell. Her writing has also appeared in Art Journal, The Journal of Modern Craft, and Woman’s Art Journal. She is launching a second book project about contemporary art and grief.

AILEY II

Public Performance: Tuesday, February 6, 2024, 7:30 pm, Schrott Center for the Arts

Ailey II is universally renowned for merging the spirit and energy of the country’s best early-career dance talent with the passion and creative vision of today’s most outstanding and emerging choreographers. Founded in 1974 as the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble, the company embodies his pioneering mission to establish an extended cultural community that provides dance performances, training, and community programs for all people. Sylvia Waters was selected by Mr. Ailey to be its founding Artistic Director, serving in that role for the Company’s first 38 seasons and helping Ailey II to flourish into one of the most popular modern dance companies, combining a rigorous touring schedule with extensive community outreach programs.

In September 2021, Francesca Harper stepped into the role of Artistic Director of Ailey II. Ms. Harper – who trained at The Ailey School and who has choreographed for both Ailey companies – brings fresh perspectives to Mr. Ailey’s legacy, while nurturing new creative voices and propelling the company forward.Dance Magazine calls Ailey II “second to none,” and The New York Times declares, “There’s nothing like an evening spent with Ailey II, the younger version of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.”

DONNA WALKER-KUHNE, not-for-profit leader and strategist

Public Lecture: “The Intersection of Arts, Community, and Joy!”
Thursday, March 21, 2024, 7:30 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Donna Walker-Kuhne is an award-winning thought leader, writer, and strategist for community engagement, audience development, and social justice. She is President of WalkerInternational Communications Group, a 30-year-old boutique marketing and audience development consulting agency. She was formerly Director of Marketing for both The Public Theater and Dance Theater of Harlem. She was also Vice President of Marketing and Vice President of Community Engagement at New Jersey Performing Arts Center. She provides consulting services to numerous arts organizations throughout the world and has generated over $22 million in earned income. She is also Senior Advisor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Currently her portfolio includes social justice initiatives and Equity Diversity Inclusion workshops. She is a lecturer and keynote presenter for international arts conferences in Blomfontein, South Africa, Croatia, and Australian Arts Conferences. She is an adjunct professor at New York University and Columbia University. She is the recipient of over 50 awards including the 2022 Margot Adams Signature Award, 2021 SGI-USA Distinguished Pioneer Award, and the 2019 League of Professional Theatre Women Rachel Crothers Leadership Award. Her first book, Invitation to the Party: Building Bridges to Arts, Culture and Community, was published in 2005 and her second book, Champions for the Arts: Lessons and Successful Strategies for Building Anti-Racist Arts Organizations, was published in February 2023. She has a weekly blog, “Arts and Culture Connections,” that explores cultural efforts to expand diverse audiences. She is also a Board member for Newark Arts Council, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, Signature Theater (NY), HARLEM WEEK, and The Harlem Arts Alliance.

DMITRY KRYMOV, theatre artist and designer

Public Workshop
Saturday, March 30, 2024, 1:00-4:00 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Dmitry Krymov has designed more than eighty plays for leading Russian theatres. Since 1990, he has dedicated himself entirely to painting, graphics, stage design, and theatre directing. Currently a professor at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts and the Head of the Experimental Theatre Project of the Union Theatre of Europe. Krymov is a recipient of Stanislavski (2006), Turandot (2007 and 2009) and Golden Mask (2008) awards, the highest theatre achievement awards in Russia. In 2007 he received the highest award for stage design of the Russian Pavilion at the Prague Quadrennial. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (As You Like It) was commissioned for the 2012 World Shakespeare Festival and won the Bank of Scotland Herald Angel Award at the 2012 Edinburgh International Festival.

KENNY BARRON, jazz piano

Public Performance with the Butler University Jazz Ensemble
Friday, April 5, 2024, 7:30 pm, Schrott Center for the Arts

Honored by The National Endowment for the Arts as a 2010 Jazz Master, Kenny Barron has an unmatched ability to mesmerize audiences with his elegant playing, sensitive melodies, and infectious rhythms. The Los Angeles Times named him “one of the top jazz pianists in the world” and Jazz Weekly calls him “The most lyrical piano player of our time.”

Barron consistently wins the jazz critics and readers polls, including Downbeat, Jazz Times, and Jazziz magazines. The famed Spanish ceramist Lladro honored Mr. Barron with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and he was awarded Honorary Doctorates from his alma mater SUNY Empire State in 2013 and from the Berklee College of Music in 2011. In 2009 he received the Living Legacy Award from Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, was inducted into the American Jazz Hall of Fame, and won a MAC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. He is a six-time recipient of Best Pianist by the Jazz Journalists Association.

JCA SIGNATURE MASTER CLASS SERIES

KRONOS QUARTET

Public Performance for Ensemble Music Society
Open sound check and Q and A: Wednesday, October 11, 2023, 4:00-5:30 pm, Schrott Center for the Arts

MIKAEL BURKE, theatre artist

Recipient of Butler Alumni Award Theatre Workshop: Friday, October 27, 2023, 3:00-5:00 pm, LH 328

NANCY AMBROSE KING, oboe

Performing Miguel del Aguila’s Concierto Con Brio with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra
Oboe Master Class: Wednesday, November 15, 2023, 6:00-8:00 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

RYAN KING, clarinet

Performing Miguel del Aguila’s Concierto Con Brio with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra
Clarinet Master Class: Wednesday, November 15, 2023, 7:00-8:00 pm, LH 141

MIGUEL DEL AGUILA, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence 2023-24

Composition Seminar: Thursday, November 16, 2023, 5:30-6:30 pm, LH 145

TOMMY MESA, cello

Performing for An Evening with Sphinx (ISO) Cello Master Class: Tuesday, January 16, 2024, 7:00-8:30 pm, LH 141

JULIAN RHEE, violin

Performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra Violin Master Class: Thursday, January 18, 6:00-8:00 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

ANTHONY McGILL, clarinet

Performing Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ Violin Concerto in A Major, arranged for clarinet by Derek Bermel, with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
Clarinet Master Class: Thursday, January 18, 2024, 6:00-8:00 pm, LH 141

MICHELLE CANN, piano

Performing Peter Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra Piano Master Class: April 4, 2:00-4:00 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

WAYNE C. WENTZEL LECTURE SERIES

LOREN KAJIKAWA
“Rapping Republicans: Hip Hop and the Multiracial Right”
Friday, February 23, 2024, 7:00 pm, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Though long assumed to be an incubator for leftist Black radical politics, hip hop culture and rap music are increasingly being utilized in service of right-wing political movements and priorities. Beginning with an overview of hip hop’s political history and relationship to both major US parties, this lecture explores right-wing politicians’ and commentators’ embrace of particular aspects of hip hop as well as explicitly right-wing rappers’ use of hip hop music and culture. By tracing how hip hop and rap music are discussed and deployed in conservative spaces, this lecture challenges assumptions about the function of hip hop and race in contemporary US politics.

Loren Kajikawa is chair of the music program at The George Washington University’s Corcoran School of the Arts & Design. His main area of research and teaching is American music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with special attention to the dynamics of race and politics.

Kajikawa’s writings have appeared in American Music, Black Music Research Journal, ECHO: a music-centered journal, Journal of the Society for American Music, and Popular Music and Society, among others. His book Sounding Race in Rap Songs (University of California Press, 2015)explores the relationship between rap music’s backing tracks and racial representation. In addition to his publications, Kajikawa is a former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Society for American Music (Vol. 12-13) and he currently serves as co-editor of “Tracking Pop,” the University of Michigan Press’s series of books about popular music.

Kajikawa has been invited to give the AMS/Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Lecture in Cleveland, Ohio, and he regularly presents his work at annual meetings of the American Musicological Society, American Studies Association, International Association for the Study of Popular Music, and Society for American Music, among others. As a graduate student, he received the 2008 Mark Tucker Award for the best paper presented at the Society for American Music conference in San Antonio, Texas.

From 2009 to 2018, Kajikawa was employed at the University of Oregon’s School of Music and Dance, where he taught a variety of courses in music history, ethnomusicology, and musicology, while also serving as a participating member of the UO Department of Ethnic Studies and a core member of the UO Folklore Program.

DCONSTRUCTION ARTS

Love Is… Iteration #101, Saturday, September 10, 2022, 7:30 pm, Lilly Hall Studio Theatre

The concept of Love Is… is the original creation of DConstruction Arts that through movement (aerial and dance), video projection, and sound design explores the various ways that people define and experience love.

Love Is… Iteration #101 is a two-person experimental aerial, dance and theatrical performance that examines love from the perspective of artists. Tavi Stutz and Jane Rose McKeever interpret postmodern choreography on five different traditional and non-traditional aerial apparatus to a soundscape of artist voices gathered from 2016 to present. The juxtaposition of movement, voice, and projected video – featuring performers from around the world – weaves together an experience that invites the audience to discover for themselves how the elements support each other. Throughout the evening, Stutz and Rose McKeever continually break the 4th wall, appearing on stage as the audience enters, inviting the audience to contribute a definition of love that will later be read as a part of the evening, and directly addressing the audience through monologue and movement. Stutz and Rose McKeever ground their work through their own personal experiences. That, mixed up with the tapestry of artists’ voices and video, allows the audience to contemplate how they support each other and even discover themselves and their ideals in the various expressions of love.

DConstruction Arts was founded in 2014 by Tavi Stutz and Jane Rose McKeever. Prior to and in addition to his work with DConstruction Arts, Tavi Stutz has performed with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, Cirque du Soleil, Cirque Berzerk, and Circus Vargas. In addition to this he has directed and choreographed productions in and around the greater Los Angeles area including the Loft Ensemble Theater and Sacred Fools. Jane Rose McKeever has worked in audio and visual design for theater, film, and television, including work with Walt Disney Imagineering and the HBO show The Nevers. She is also a tenured professor and the Head of Production in the Department of Television, Film, and Media Studies at California State University, Los Angeles.

Drawing upon their individual professional backgrounds, Stutz and Rose McKeever have conceptualized and produced many multimedia-infused productions, including the multiple award-winning two-person show Definition of Man (Ovation nominated for Best Stunt Choreography, LA Fringe winner for Best in Dance/Choreography), collaboration on Dreya Weber’s one-woman show Witch Piece/Hexen, and many different productions of Love Is… between 2016 and 2022, most recently completing a collaboration with Donald Byrd and Spectrum Dance Theater in Seattle WA.

CRISTINA PATO, gaita (Galician bagpipes)

Public Lecture-Recital: “The Inbetweener: An Artist’s Journey to Cultural Sustainability,” Thursday, September 15, 2022, 7:30 pm, Schrott

“The Inbetweener” is a journey navigating across the musical worlds I learned through my instruments and a journey through the different ways of understanding the role of culture in society. As a professional bagpiper (Galician bagpipes), and as a classical pianist (collaborative piano), I learned how to appreciate the beauty and importance of difference by living in between popular and classical music. As a teacher, I focused my practice in creating collaborative bridges between the sciences and the humanities through the arts. And as an immigrant, I’m constantly learning what it means to belong to a particular community. This lecture explores the questions that arise from that unique space, in between, inviting us to reflect about the role of artists in society.

Musician, writer, educator and producer, Cristina Pato has been hailed as “a virtuosic burst of energy” by The New York Times. Her professional career is focused on exploring the role of the arts in society through teaching and producing.

Cristina has served as artist-in-residence at New York University (NYU), Harvard University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition, she collaborated for over fifteen years with The Silkroad Project, the non-profit organization founded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Since 2017, Cristina writes a weekly column titled “The Art of Restlessness” for Spanish newspaper La Voz de Galicia for which she was awarded the XVII Afundación Journalism Prize: Fernández del Riego.

Cristina divides her time between New York City and Galicia and shares her life with photographer Xan Padrón.

HEATHER SHIREY, art historian

Public Lecture: “Street Art and the Art of Protest,” Thursday, October 6, 2022, 7:30 pm, EDRH

Heather Shirey, PhD, is a Professor of Art History at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her teaching and research focus on race and identity, migrations and diasporas, and monuments, memorials, and street art in relation to public space and communities. Together with the Urban Art Mapping research team, she created and maintains the George Floyd and Anti-Racist Street Art Database, the Covid-19 Street Art Database, and other street art archives. These activist archives are driven by our understanding that it is crucial to document and analyze street art not only because of its ephemerality, but also because it captures the complexity of the experiences shaping the world today. Areas of inquiry include a study of creating, curating, and archiving as a form of activism and healing, and monuments and street art as modes of critical engagement in shared space. Dr. Shirey has published research on monuments in Brazil (African Arts, 2009) and in Great Britain (Open Cultural Studies, 2019). The Urban Art Mapping team’s latest research on street art is available in Urban Creativity Scientific Journal (2020), Art and Gentrification in the Changing Neoliberal Landscape (edited by Tijen Tunali, May 2021), NUART (May 2021), and the Journal of Folklore Research (forthcoming, 2023).

BARDIN-NISKALA DUO, cello and piano

“Celebrating Identity Through Music,” Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 7:30 pm, EDRH

The Bardin-Niskala Duo (cello and piano) uses contemporary music to explore identity, fight racism, promote cultural awareness, and celebrate humanity during this time of division and racial violence. Exploring themes common across all humanity – including innocence, identity, homeland, loss, mourning, hope, and healing – we commission ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, and Native American) composers to write pieces incorporating the folksongs and children’s songs of the composer’s (and our) particular cultures. These commissioned works are performed alongside additional works by ALAANA composers that explore a sense of identity, as well as more-traditional works.

Described as “stunning” by the New York Times, cellist An-Lin Bardin currently freelances and teaches both music and math in the greater NYC area. As the cellist of the Vinca Quartet, she performed extensively throughout Europe and the US, including Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Aspen, and Vilar Performing Arts Center. Bardin’s performances have been broadcast on Deutschlandradio and WNYC. She is a laureate of several international quartet competitions, including the Paolo Borciani Quartet Competitions in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and the Fischoff, the Plowman, the Yellow Springs, Chesapeake, and the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competitions in the United States. A recipient of a DAAD fellowship which enabled her to work with the Vogler String Quartet in Stuttgart, Germany, Bardin also studied extensively with Gunter Pichler and Valentin Erben of the Alban Berg Quartet, Walter Levine, Heime Mueller, and the Artemis String Quartet under the auspices of the ProQuartet program in Paris, France, and with the Emerson String Quartet through the Carnegie Hall Chamber Music Workshops. She was a graduate assistant to the Takacs Quartet at the University of Colorado at Boulder for two years as part of the graduate quartet residency program. A strong proponent of music education, Bardin was a founding member of Music Haven, an intensive mentorship program serving youth from low-income neighborhoods in New Haven, Connecticut. She also founded two ongoing music educational programs in rural Washington State through the Gorgeous Sounds Residency Program. Raised in California by two nuclear physicists, Bardin began her cello studies at the age of eight with Irene Sharp. She holds a B.S. from Yale University in Geology and Geophysics, and an M.M. from the Yale School of

Music, where she studied with Aldo Parisot and was a member of the Grammy-Award-winning Yale Cellos.

A soloist and chamber musician who has appeared in Europe, North America, Russia, Israel, Thailand, and Japan, pianist Naomi Niskala’s performances have been broadcast on BBC Radio, Deutschlandradio, RTV Germany, and NPR’s Performance Today. Niskala performs regularly with Spectrum Concerts Berlin, one of Germany’s leading chamber organizations, and has also recorded two discs with them. Recent performance highlights include the San Francisco Symphony Chamber Series at Davies Symphony Hall, soloist with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic of Russia, and solo and chamber performances with Spectrum Concerts Berlinin the Philharmonie Kammermusiksaal of Berlin, Carnegie’s Weill Hall, in Thailand, and in Kosovo. Her release of the only complete recordings of American composer Robert Helps’s solo piano works on two discs

with Albany Records in 2007 was met with high acclaim, and she has also recorded piano chamber works of Robert Helps and Ursula Mamlok with Spectrum Concerts Berlin for two discs on Naxos, as well as the world premiere of Mamlok’s 2015 quintet “Breezes” for Bridge Records. Niskala is featured in the 2013 German rbb television documentary entitled “ Sehnsucht Musik” (Searching for Music), documenting the work of four members of Spectrum Concerts Berlin towards improving the harsh conditions for young musicians at a music school located in Prizren, Kosovo. Born to Japanese/Finnish-American parents, she began studying piano at the age of three, raised in Rochester, New York and then later in Tokyo, Japan. Niskala holds degrees from the Yale School of Music, Stony Brook University, and the New England Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Claude Frank, Gilbert Kalish, and Patricia Zander. She also worked with pianists Leon Fleisher, Menahem Pressler, Peter Serkin, and Maria Louisa Faini, and violinists Louis Krasner and Eugene Lehner. Niskala is currently Associate Professor of Music at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania, where she teaches piano and theory, and leads a summer chamber music exchange program to Japan.

BERNARDO REY RENGIFO, Christel DeHaan Visiting International Theatre Artist

photo of Bernardo Rey Rengifo in front of painting of a dog

Bernardo Rey is a theatre director from Colombia, specializing in social theatre, actor training, stage design, and in the construction and the use of masks. He studied Theatre at the National School of Dramatic Art in Bogota; participated at the Third Session of ISTA (International School of Theatre Anthropology), directed by Eugenio Barba; and he worked for three years with actors of the Laboratory Theatre and Theatre of Sources directed by Jerzy Grotowski.

He is a founding member of the Labyrinthe Théâtre directed by Ryzard Cieslak, Paris, 1987.

For 30 years, he has devoted his work to the research and application of visual arts, set design, and multimedia in the performing arts, creating and realizing installations, sceneries, masks, theatrical objects, and machines, sculptures, and posters for different groups around the world.

He has taught in different institutions like La Mama Symposium for Directors of Ellen Steward, Spoleto, Italyl International School of Biodrama, Villa de Leiva; Institut International de la Marionnette (together with Donato Sartori), Charleville; Werkstatt of Dusseldorf, Germany; Academia Silvio D’Amico, Rome; Escuela de Formacion de Actores Teatro Libre, Bogota; Fort Lewis College, Colorado, USA; and Butler University, Indianapolis, and he continuously gives workshops around Europe, USA, Africa, and South America.

In 1992, he founded, with Nube Sandoval, the Teatro CENIT (Centre of Theatre Research), creating their own performances, as well as Theatre as Bridge methodology, creating programs for social rehabilitation using art as an instrument for pacification and the resolution of conflicts in zones of war, public schools, jails, and centres of assistance for children of the street.

For ten years, he directed, with Nube Sandoval, the theatre project of the Italian Council for Refugees Victims of Torture in Rome, winning the Fourth Edition of the International Biennale of Theatre and Psychiatry of Padua.

In 2016 he received the Ellen Stewart International Award, NY, and in 2017, the “Catarsi-Teatri della Diversitá” Award given by the National Association of Italian Critics. In 2021-22, he codirected the project DEVELACIONES, Un Canto a los Cuatro Vientos, for the Commission of Truth of Colombia.

He has his centre of work in the jungle of the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

JEANNE DUNNING, photographer

Public Lecture: “Recent Work,” Monday, November 14, 2022, 7:30 pm, EDRH

Jeanne Dunning’s photographic, sculptural, and video work explores our relationship to our own physicality, looking at the strange and unfamiliar in the body, gender, ideas about normalcy, and, most recently, death. Her work has been shown extensively throughout the United States and Europe since the mid-1980s. It has been included in major group exhibitions such as the Whitney Biennial, the Sydney Biennale, and the Venice Biennale. She has had one-person shows at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Konstmuseet in Malmö, Sweden, The Wattis Institute in San Francisco, and The Berkeley Art Museum, as well as at numerous commercial and not-for-profit galleries throughout the world. She is currently a professor in the Department of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University.

THE BIG MUDDY DANCE COMPANY

Public Performance: Friday, February 3, 2023, 7:30 pm, Schrott Center for the Arts

JOEL FULLER, installation and animation artist

Public Lecture: “Journey into Afrofuturism,” Thursday, February 23, 2023, 7:30 pm, EDRH

Joel Fuller is an artist with a background in digital illustration, digital media, and virtual reality. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Art + Design from Butler University and an M.F.A in Digital Art from Indiana University Bloomington. He currently is a Digital Art Instructor at the University of Alabama.

Fuller was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, a city known for its history of degradation and dehumanization of black people during the Civil Rights Movement. He is the nephew of Audrey Faye Hendricks, the youngest child arrested in the Civil Rights Movement at eight years old. His family not only participated in the movement but risked their bodies, economic security, and lives fighting for equal rights. His aunt is no longer here, but he controls the memory of her, and she told him to never let our struggle fade into history.

WILLIAM CHAPMAN NYAHO, piano

Public Recital: Wednesday, March 1, 2023, 7:30 pm, EDRH

Dr. William Chapman Nyaho earned his degrees from St. Peter’s College, Oxford University, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Texas at Austin. He also studied at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève, Switzerland. He currently serves on the piano faculty at Pacific Lutheran University as well as on the summer faculty of Interlochen Center for the Arts. He also has his private piano studio in Seattle, Washington and teaches students of all levels and ages. His students have been prizewinners at competitions and have been well-placed in universities and colleges.

Chapman Nyaho’s professional experience includes being a North Carolina Visiting Artist and Associate Professor of Music at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where he held the Heymann Endowed Professorship and was the recipient of the Distinguished Professor Award. He has served as Visiting Professor of Piano at Colby College, Maine; Artist-in-Residence at Willamette University, Oregon; and piano professor at Adamant Music School, Vermont.

He is an active solo recitalist, duo pianist and chamber musician, giving recitals and concerts in Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean and in cities across the United States where he advocates music by composers of African descent. He actively serves as a regular guest clinician at colleges and universities around the United States. He is also an adjudicator for several national and international piano competitions. He has served on national committees for the College Music Society, Music Teachers’ National Association, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

As an advocate for music of Africa and its diaspora, Chapman Nyaho’s publications include a five-volume anthology Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora published by Oxford University Press. His recordings include Aaron Copland: Music for Two Pianos; Senku: Piano Music by Composers of African Descent; and Asa: Piano Music by Composers of African Descent. His soon-to-be-released new CD will include recordings of piano music from volumes 1 and 2 of his anthology.

JANE CHU, former Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts

Public Lecture: “The Arts – A Common Language That Is Right on Time,” Thursday, March 2, 2023, 7:30 pm, EDRH

The arts provide a common language to honor our multiple ethnicities. As the daughter of Chinese immigrants, Jane Chu will examine ways people were engaged in the arts in the US then versus now, and how the arts play an important role in the cross-cultural understanding of diversity in the lives of others as well as her own.

Jane Chu combines her academic research and professional practice in the arts, philanthropy, and business administration. In 2014, she was appointed to serve as the eleventh chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts, completing her term in June 2018. A practicing visual artist, Chu is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

During Chu’s four-year tenure at the National Endowment for the Arts, Chu traveled to 50 US states and four countries, 200 communities, and made more than 400 site visits to meet with artists and arts leaders, government and civic leaders, philanthropists, and the general public. The NEA awarded $430 million over the four years to support the arts in 16,000 communities covering 50 states, US jurisdictions, and in every Congressional District. In 2016, the NEA was ranked number one in the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government for small agencies.

Prior to coming to the National Endowment for the Arts, Chu served as the founding president and CEO of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, overseeing a $413 million campaign to construct and open the performing arts center in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri.

Jane Chu straddles multiple cultures, having been born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and raised in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, the daughter of Chinese immigrants. She received bachelor’s degrees in piano performance and music education from Ouachita Baptist University, as well as a master’s degree in piano pedagogy from Southern Methodist University. Additionally, Chu holds an associate degree in visual arts from Nebraska Wesleyan University, an MBA from Rockhurst University, a Ph.D. in philanthropic studies from Indiana University, and six honorary doctorate degrees.

Chu lives in New York. Her artwork can be found at https://janechuart.com

LEAH NANAKO WINKLER, playwright

Signature Series Playwriting Workshop and Conversation with Leah Nanako Winkler, Friday, March 31, 2023

Leah Nanako Winkler is a Japanese-American playwright from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington, Kentucky. Her plays include Kentucky (off-broadway- Ensemble Studio Theater/ Page 73), God Said This (World premiere: Humana Festival 2018, off-broadway- Primary Stages, Two Mile Hollow (simultaneous world premiere: Ferocious Lotus/ Theater Mu/Mixed Blood/ Artists at Play LA), Hot Asian Doctor Husband (world premiere: Theater Mu), Death for Sydney Black (off-broadway: TerraNova Collective) and Nevada – Tan (Inaugural Audible Emerging Artist Commission). Her newest play, The Brightest Thing in the World will premiere at Yale Rep in 2022. She is published by Dramatist Play Service, Samuel French and Yale University Press. Awards/Fellowships: Yale Drama Prize, ATCA’s Francesca Primus Prize, the inaugural Mark O’Donnell Prize from The Actors Fund and Playwrights Horizons, the Jerome New York Fellowship, A Peabody Award and the 2020 Steinberg Playwright Award. TV credits include Love Life, New Amsterdam and Ramy as well as several original projects in development. She is a member of Ensemble Studio Theater, an alumnus of Youngblood, Dorothy Streslin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages, Time Warner Fellow of WP Theater and Ma-Yi lab. MFA Brooklyn College. Commissions include WP Theater, EST/SLOAN and Disney/Marvel.

Butler Theatre is proud to welcome back Leah! Leah’s play, Two Mile Hollow, runs through April at The Phoenix Theatre and Cultural Center in Indianapolis.

CANDY CHANG, artist

Public Lecture: “Making Space for Creativity and Innovation,” Tuesday, April 4, 2023, 7:30 pm, Shelton Auditorium

Through the activation of public spaces around the world, Taiwanese-American artist Candy Chang creates work that envisions the future of communal ritual in an increasingly alienating world. Her practice includes participatory public art installations of anonymous, handwritten reflections, as well as reproductions of these reflections through video and mixed media. She is interested in the future of ritual in public life and merging traditional Asian arts with the modern psyche. She is caretaker of over one million handwritten anxieties, hopes, pains, and moments of grace in the early 21st century.

She is most known for her 2011 participatory public artwork Before I Die, which reimagines how the walls of our cities can help us grapple with mortality and meaning as a community today. Over 5,000 Before I Die walls have been created by communities in over 75 counties, and The Atlantic called it “one of the most creative community projects ever.” In the early 2000s, she co-founded a record label, which spurred her to wheatpaste artwork of their music around downtown New York. While studying architecture and urban planning, she used the tactics of street art to create participatory art with communities around the world to reflect on the state of our neighborhoods. After struggling with grief and depression, she used this medium to reflect on the state of our psyches. She has created a monument of over 50,000 anxieties and hopes, secular spaces for confessions, and electrified shrines on emotional barriers. Her ritual on loss was a 2021 New York Times Critic’s Pick. She has worked with organizations including Art Production Fund, the Rubin Museum of Art, Mural Arts Philadelphia, and the Annenberg Foundation. She often collaborates with James A. Reeves and their work can be found at Ritual Fields.

She is a TED Senior Fellow, Urban Innovation Fellow, and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. She is a recipient of the Tony Goldman Visionary Artist Award, EPIC Impact Society Artist Award, and was named a “Live Your Best Life” Local Hero by Oprah Magazine, as well as one of the Top 100 Leaders in Public Interest Design. She is a recipient of grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, Hemera Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation. Her work has been exhibited in the Venice Architecture Biennale, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She has lived in New Orleans, Helsinki, and New York, and is currently a 2022 Innovator-in-Residence at the American School in London.

CÉCILE McLORIN SALVANT, jazz vocalist

In concert with the Butler University Jazz Ensemble, Thursday, April 6, 2023, 7:30 pm, Schrott

Cécile McLorin Salvant is a composer, singer, and visual artist. The late Jessye Norman described Salvant as “a unique voice supported by an intelligence and full-fledged musicality, which light up every note she sings.” Salvant has developed a passion for storytelling and finding the connections between vaudeville, blues, folk traditions from around the world, theater, jazz, and baroque music. Salvant is an eclectic curator, unearthing rarely recorded, forgotten songs with strong narratives, interesting power dynamics, unexpected twists, and humor. Salvant won the Thelonious Monk competition in 2010. She has received Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album for three consecutive albums, The Window, Dreams and Daggers, and For One to Love, and was nominated for the award in 2014 for her album WomanChild. In 2020, Salvant received the MacArthur fellowship and the Doris Duke Artist Award. Nonesuch Records released Ghost Song in March 2022.

Born and raised in Miami, Florida, of a French mother and Haitian father, she started classical piano studies at 5, sang in a children’s choir at 8, and started classical voice lessons as a teenager. Salvant received a bachelor’s degree in French law from the Université Pierre-Mendes France in Grenoble while also studying baroque music and jazz at the Darius Milhaud Music Conservatory in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Salvant’s latest work, Ogresse, is a musical fable in the form of a cantata that blends genres (folk, baroque, jazz, country). Salvant wrote the story, lyrics, and music. It is arranged by Darcy James Argue for a thirteen-piece orchestra of multi-instrumentalists. Ogresse, both a biomythography and an homage to the Erzulie (as painted by Gerard Fortune) and Sara Baartman, explores fetishism, hunger, diaspora, cycles of appropriation, lies, othering, and ecology. It is in development to become an animated feature-length film, which Salvant will direct.

Salvant makes large-scale textile drawings. Her visual art can now be found at Picture Room in Brooklyn, NY.

JCA SIGNATURE MASTER CLASS AND LECTURE SERIES

JAMES GRYMES, author of VIOLINS of HOPE: Violins of the Holocaust—Instruments of Hope and Liberation in Mankind’s Darkest Hour – Saturday, August 27, 2022, 7:30 pm, Schrott In collaboration with the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis

JOHN HARBISON, composer – Thursday, September 15, 5:30 pm, EDRH In collaboration with the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis

EAST COAST CHAMBER ORCHESTRA – Friday, September 23, 2022

Side-by-side of Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings: 10:00-11:30 am, Schrott
Individual string master classes: 11:45 am-1:00 pm, various locations

In collaboration with the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis

SOWETO GOSPEL CHOIR – Tuesday, October 11, 2022, 2:30-4:00 pm, Schrott

BARTHOLD KUIJKEN, flute – Tuesday, November 1, 7:30 pm, EDRH

JULIA BULLOCK, soprano – Thursday, January 12, 4:30-6:30 pm, EDRH

BELLA HRISTOVA, violin – Friday, January 27, 12:00-1:00 pm

HÅKAN HARDENBERGER, trumpet – Thursday, March 16, 6:30-8:30 pm, EDRH

LEAH NANAKO WINKLER, playwright – Friday, March 31, 2023, 10:00 am-12:30 pm, LH 328

DEMARRE MCGILL, flute – Thursday, April 13, 7:00-9:00 pm, EDRH

Hello Gold Mountain, A requiem for lost possibilities of the Jewish community of Shanghai

with composer Wu Fei performing on guzheng, Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz performing on oud, and the chatterbird ensemble

Hello Gold Mountain is a requiem for lost possibilities of the Jewish community of Shanghai.

The piece is inspired by stories of Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai from Europe during World War II. From 1933 until the end of the war, Shanghai was often the only port at which Jewish refugees fleeing Europe could disembark without a visa. In the early 1940s, more than 20,000 Jews lived in Shanghai and contributed to its cultural and civic life.

But the Jews could not stay. As China’s bloody civil war came to a close in 1949, most fled. Many emigrated to the US, often arriving at the port of San Francisco, or Old Gold Mountain.

What musical possibilities were lost because the times did not allow neighbors from these different cultures to grow old together, sharing songs and stories? Similarly, what artistic creations will be lost if Europe and the United States close the door to refugees and migrants from lands in chaos?

Public performance: Thursday, September 9, 7:30 pm, Schrott
Residency Activities TBA

Mikeal Burke directs We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Nambia, Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915, written by Jackie Sibblies Drury

Mikael Burke is a Chicago-based director, deviser, and educator. A Princess Grace Award-winner in Theatre, Jeff Award-nominated director, and proud Butler Theatre grad (‘09), Mikael’s worked with Victory Gardens Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Jackalope Theatre Company, Windy City Playhouse, About Face Theatre, First Floor Theater, American Theatre Company, Chicago Dramatists, and The Story Theatre in Chicago, and regionally with Geva Theatre Center, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Asolo Repertory Theatre, and Phoenix Theatre. Mikael serves as Associate Artistic Director at About Face Theatre in Chicago, is Head of the Directing Concentration of the Summer High School Training Program of the Theatre School, and is an adjunct faculty member there as well as in the Chicago College of the Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. Recent directing credits include we are continuous by Harrison David Rivers; Kill Move Paradise by James Ijames; The Agitators by Mat Smart; Sugar in Our Wounds by Donja R. Love; At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen by Terry Guest. mklburke.com

Jackie Sibblies Drury’s plays include Marys Seacole (OBIE Award), Fairview (2019 Pulitzer Prize), Really, Social Creatures, and We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915. The presenters of her plays include Young Vic, Lincoln Center Theatre, Soho Rep., Berkeley Rep, New York City Players & Abrons Arts Center, Victory Gardens, Trinity Rep, Woolly Mammoth, Undermain Theatre, InterAct Theatre, Actors Theater of Louisville, Company One, and The Bush Theatre. Drury has developed her work at Sundance , Bellagio Center, Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, Soho Rep. Writer/Director Lab, New York Theatre Workshop, Bushwick Starr, LARK, and MacDowell Colony, among others. She has received the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, a Jerome Fellowship at The LARK, a United States Artists Fellowship, a Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, and a Windham-Campbell Literary Prize in Drama. 

Public performances: Wednesday-Sunday, October 6-10, 2021, Lilly Hall Studio Theatre
Workshop for theatre students, faculty, and staff with Ms. Drury: Friday, October 10, 2021, 1:00-3:00 pm
Post-show Q and A with Ms. Drury: Friday, October 10, 2021

Abigail Smithson

Abigail Smithson is a multi-media artist who has exhibited work in the United States and internationally. She received her Bachelor of Studio Arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder and her Master of Fine Arts from Louisiana State University. Her art practice is rooted in the appreciation, translation, and act of archiving objects that record their surroundings. She challenges the traditional ideas of representation and works to create photographs as documents, in a both nuanced and abstract way. The game of basketball has been a longtime muse for her and she follows and believes firmly in the New Craft Artists in Action collective motto, which is Participation vs. Spectatorship when it comes to sports. Through her podcast Dear Adam Silver as well as her other work, she questions the current narrative around sports and art and how the two cultural entities overlap and live side by side. She is currently a Visiting Professor of Art at Lyon College, located in Batesville, AR.

Public lecture: Monday, October 25, 2021, 7:30 pm, EDRH: Breathe in an Alley-Oop
Workshops with art students TBD

Phil Chan

Phil Chan is a co-founder of Final Bow for Yellowface, and author of Final Bow for Yellowface: Dancing between Intention and Impact. He is currently a ‘21/’22 Visiting Scholar at the A/P/A Institute at NYU, and the Manhattan School of Music’s ‘21/’22 Citizen Artist. He is a graduate of Carleton College and an alumnus of the Ailey School. As a writer, he served as the Executive Editor for FLATT Magazine and contributed to Dance Europe Magazine, Dance Magazine, Dance Business Weekly, and the Huffington Post. He was the founding General Manager of the Buck Hill Skytop Music Festival, and was the General Manager for Armitage Gone! Dance. He served multiple years on the National Endowment for the Arts dance panel and the Jadin Wong Award panel presented by the Asian American Arts Alliance. He serves on the International Council for the Parsons Dance Company, the Advisory Board of Dance Magazine, and was a 2020 New York Public Library Jerome Robbins Dance Division Research Fellow. His next project, the “Ballet des Porcelaines,” will premiere at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in December 2021.

Public lecture: Monday, November 8, 2021, 7:30 pm, EDRH: The Multiracial Future of the Arts

Final Bow for Yellowface co-founder Phil Chan takes us through a history of orientalism in the Western performing arts, and explains why preserving a Eurocentric view of “exotic” people and places on our stages isn’t doing us any favors when serving a multiracial audience. How do we navigate conversations around race and tradition in art? How do we depict other cultures on stage without cultural appropriation? How do we become more inclusive and find new ways to innovate while upholding the traditions that are the foundation of our art forms?

The Cassatt Quartet and Lydia Artymiw, presented in partnership with Ensemble Music Society

The Cassatt String Quartet was formed in 1985 and was chosen the first quartet for Juilliard’s Young Artists Quartet Program. Acclaimed as one of America’s outstanding ensembles, the Manhattan based Cassatt String Quartet has performed throughout North America, Europe, and the Far East, with appearances in London for the Sapphire Jubilee Celebration of Queen Elizabeth II, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Tanglewood Music Theater, the Kennedy Center and Library of Congress in Washington, DC, the Theatre des Champs – in Paris and Maeda Hall in Tokyo. The Quartet has been presented on major radio stations such as National Public Radio’s Performance Today, Boston’s WGBH, New York’s WQXR and WNYC, and on Canada’s CBC Radio and Radio France. The Cassatt has recorded for the Koch, Naxos, New World, Point, CRI, Tzadik and Albany labels and is named for the celebrated American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt.

Lydia Artymiw is Emerita Distinguished McKnight Professor of Piano at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis where she taught from 1989- 2020. The recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Prize, Philadelphia-born Lydia Artymiw has performed with over one hundred orchestras world-wide including the Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Detroit Symphony, LA Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestra, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Thursday, November 11, 2021
School of Music Convocation, 1:00-1:50 pm, EDRH
Piano Master Class with Lydia Artymiw, 2:00-3:30 pm, EDRH
Composition Seminar with Victoria Bond, 5:30-6:30 pm, LH 145
Public performance on Wednesday, November 10, 2021, 7:30, Indiana History Center: 19th Amendment Centennial Plus One

Culture Clash

Culture Clash is a performance troupe that currently comprises writer-comedians Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, and Herbert Sigüenza. Their work is of a satirical nature.

Culture Clash was founded on May 5, 1984 at the Galería de la Raza in San Francisco’s Mission District, by the writers José Antonio Burciaga, Marga Gómez, Monica Palacios, Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, and Herbert Siguenza. The founding date is significant due to the importance of Cinco de Mayo to Mexican-Americans, the shared ethnicity of the majority of collaborators. Montoya and Sigüenza had both been involved in the Chicano art scene in the San Francisco Bay Area, Montoya being the son of Chicano poet, artist, and activist José Montoya, and Sigüenza having been involved in the art collective La Raza Graphics, which created works of graphic art to support campaigns of the Chicano Movement.

Culture Clash’s works range from comedic sketches to full-length plays and screenplays, all of which feature political satire and social satire. The troupe’s members have appeared separately and together in several films and received numerous awards, commissions and grants. In 1993 they filmed 30 episodes of a sketch comedy television series, also called Culture Clash. Several episodes were aired on Fox affiliates. In 2006 they premiered two new full-length plays, the comedy Zorro in Hell and “SF: The Mexican Bus Mission Tour with CC!” Their works have been collected in two volumes, Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy and Culture Clash in AmeriCCa: Four Plays. Their papers are housed at the California State University, Northridge (CSUN) Oviatt Library Special Collections and Archives

Public performance: Wednesday, January 12, 2022, 7:30 pm, Schrott
Residency Activities TBA

Dayton’s Contemporary Dance Company

Rooted in the African-American experience, the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company is a culturally diverse contemporary dance company committed to reaching the broadest audience though exceptional performance and arts-integrated education. Dayton Contemporary Dance Company was founded in 1968 to create performance opportunities for dancers of color. Five decades later, the 10th largest modern contemporary dance company in the nation remains rooted in the African-American experience and committed to the development of diverse movement artists on the global stage.

A co-recipient of one of the dance world’s highest honors, the 2016 Bessie Award for Outstanding Revival, DCDC has been presented by American Dance Festival, Paul Taylor American Modern Dance, and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and supported by National Endowment for the Arts and New England Foundation for the Arts among others.

Public performance: Friday, February 4, 2022, 7:30 pm, Schrott
Residency Activities TBA

Julie Tourtillotte

Julie W. Tourtillotte is a Professor of Art and Chair of the Art Department at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana where she teaches drawing, fibers, and video art. Julie received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and BFA from Saint Mary’s College and has exhibited her art work throughout the United States, including Stark Gallery in Phoenix, Arizona, Kent State University Art Gallery, Indianapolis Museum of Art, and The National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. She has received Indiana Arts Commission and National Endowment for the Arts grants in recognition of her work which incorporates natural dyes, handmade felt, shibori resist dyeing, screen printing, and embroidery. Julie and her family maintain 20 organic acres and an art studio adjacent to Potato Creek State Park in South Bend, Indiana.

Public lecture: Monday, February 28, 2022, 7:30 pm, EDRH: Growing Color: Natural Dyes and Sustainable Textiles
Workshops with art students TBD
Exhibition: March 1-3, 2022: Growing Color, with reception on Wednesday, March 2, 5:00-6:30 pm, JC Annex

Alash Ensemble

ALASH are masters of Tuvan throat singing (xöömei), a remarkable technique for singing multiple pitches at the same time. What distinguishes this gifted trio from earlier generations of Tuvan throat singers is the subtle infusion of modern influences into their traditional music. One can find complex harmonies, western instruments, and contemporary song forms in Alash’s music, but its overall sound and spirit remain decidedly Tuvan.

Trained in traditional Tuvan music since childhood, the Alash musicians studied at Kyzyl Arts College just as Tuva was beginning to open up to the West. They formed a traditional ensemble and won multiple awards for traditional throat singing in international xöömei competitions, both as an ensemble and as individuals. At the same time, they paid close attention to new trends coming out of the West. They have borrowed new ideas that mesh well with the sound and feel of traditional Tuvan music, but they have never sacrificed the integrity of their own heritage in an effort to make their music more hip.

Alash first toured the U.S. under the sponsorship of the Open World Leadership program of the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Arts. Since then they have returned many times, to the delight of American audiences. The Washington Post described their music as “utterly stunning,” quipping that after the performance “audience members picked their jaws up off the floor.”

Alash enjoys collaborating with musicians of all stripes. Since their early partnership with the legendary Sun Ra Arkestra, they have joined forces with musicians across the spectrum—from country to classical to jazz to beatboxing. Alash appeared as guest artists on Béla Fleck & the Flecktones’ Grammy-winning holiday CD Jingle All the Way (2008). They joined Chicago’s innovative Fifth House Ensemble in a groundbreaking concert series called Sonic Meditations. Most recently, they were part of the “global jam band” which recorded the soundtrack for the videogame The Pathless.

Beyond performing, Alash has a passion for teaching and promoting understanding between cultures. Their tours often include workshops in which they introduce Tuvan music to students in primary, middle and high schools, colleges, universities, and music conservatories. Children as young as 8 and 9 have learned to throat-sing. As one student exclaimed, “Alash opened my eyes to a whole new world!”

Alash albums: Alash Live at the Enchanted Garden (2006), Alash (2007), Buura (2011), Achai (2015, re-released on Smithsonian Folkways in 2017), and Meni Mana (2020, digital only). The members of Alash are:

Bady-Dorzhu Ondar: vocals, igil, guitar. Kyzyl Arts College, East Siberia State Academy of Culture and Art. Best soloist, 2005 All-Russian Festival of traditional ensembles and orchestras. Best in Maxim Dakpai xöömei competition, 2006. People’s Xöömeizhi, 2007. Grand prize, International Xöömei Symposium, 2008.

Ayan-ool Sam: vocals, doshpuluur, igil, guitar. Republic School of the Arts, Kyzyl Arts College, Moscow State Pedagogical University. First prize, International Xöömei Symposium, 2008. People’s Xöömeizhi, 2015.

Ayan Shirizhik: vocals, kengirge, shyngyrash, shoor, murgu, xomus. Kyzyl Arts College, East Siberia State Academy of Culture and Art. Second prize, International Xöömei Symposium, 2008. Distinguished Artist of Tuva, 2009.

Sean Quirk: interpreter and manager. Studied music in Tuva on a Fulbright fellowship. Distinguished Artist of Tuva, 2008.

alashensemble.com

Public performance: Thursday, March 17, 7:30 pm, Schrott
Residency Activities:
Wednesday, March 16, 12:30-1:50 pm: Workshop with Butler choral students
Wednesday, March 16: time TBD: Meet with a class of arts administration students
Thursday, March 17, 1:00-1:50 pm: School of Music Convocation

LaToya Ruby Frazier

LaToya Ruby Frazier was born in 1982 in Braddock, Pennsylvania. Her artistic practice spans a range of media, including photography, video, performance, installation art and books, and centers on the nexus of social justice, cultural change, and commentary on the American experience. In various interconnected bodies of work, Frazier uses collaborative storytelling with the people who appear in her artwork to address topics of industrialism, Rust Belt revitalization, environmental justice, access to healthcare, access to clean water, Workers’ Rights, Human Rights, family, and communal history. This builds on her commitment to the legacy of 1930s social documentary work and 1960s and ’70s conceptual photography that address urgent social and political issues of everyday life.

Frazier’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at institutions in the US and Europe, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art; Seattle Art Museum; The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; Musée des Arts Contemporains, Grand-Hornu, Belgium; CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux, France; Carré d’Art – musée d’art contemporain de Nîmes, France; The Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh; The August Wilson Center, Pittsburgh; The Frost Art Museum, Miami; The Musée d’art Moderne, Luxembourg; and The Newcomb Museum at Tulane University, New Orleans.

In 2015, her first book about how she, her mother and grandmother survived environmental racism in historic steel mill town Braddock Pennsylvania, The Notion of Family (Aperture, 2014) received the International Center for Photography Infinity Award. In 2017 Frazier published And From The Coaltips A Tree Will Rise which expanded on her collaboration with a historic coalmining village in Borinage Belgium at Musée des Arts Contemporains, Grand-Hornu, Belgium. In 2020 Frazier received the Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award for her eponymous book published by Mousse publishing and MUDAM Luxembourg, which expanded on her exhibition at Mudam Luxembourg Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean and that same year Frazier published The Last Cruze, which expanded upon a 2019 exhibition at the Renaissance Society about her collaboration with autoworkers in historic labor union UAW Local 1112 in Lordstown, OH. That same year, Frazier was named the inaugural recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book prize for her book Flint Is Family In Three Acts about how working-class families survived the man-made water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

Her work is held in numerous public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem; Brooklyn Museum; The Bronx Museum of the Arts; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; The Baltimore Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles; Seattle Art Museum; Dallas Art Museum; Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto; Nasher Museum of Art; Princeton Art Museum; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and many others.

Frazier is the recipient of many honors and awards including an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Edinboro University (2019); an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute (2017); fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s MacArthur Fellows Program (2015), TED Fellows (2015), and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2014); and the Gwendolyn Knight & Jacob Lawrence Prize from the Seattle Art Museum (2013). In 2015, the Allegheny County Council, Pennsylvania, awarded Frazier a Proclamation thanking her for “examining race, class, gender and citizenship in our society and inspiring a vision for the future that offers inclusion, equity and justice to all.”

LaToya Ruby Frazier is an Associate Professor of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she currently lives and works. She is represented by Gladstone Gallery in New York City and Brussels Belgium, and Sant’Andrea de Scaphis in Rome.

Public lecture: Monday, March 21, 2022, 7:30 pm, Schrott
Workshop with art students: Monday, March 21, 2022, 2:30-4:30 pm, JC Annex

Ms. Zennetta S. Drew

Zenetta Drew joined Dallas Black Dance Theatre in 1987 and has seen the company develop from an annual operating budget of $175,000 to over $4.9 million. The company’s yearly services have grown from 30 to over 600 with national and international venues, and audience growth has increased from 20,000 to 150,000 annually. To date, the company has performed in 31 states, 15 countries and on 5 continents and at two Cultural Olympiads.

Prior to joining DBDT, Ms. Drew’s professional background included 11 years of accounting and management experience at ARCO Oil and Gas Co. During this time, she held ten positions of increasing management responsibility. Most notable were her assignments managing offshore oil platform projects in the Gulf of Mexico and as Oil Revenue accounting manager where she was responsible for 50% of corporate revenue.

Ms. Drew has previously served on more than 40 arts organization boards/advisory boards/committees that include Americans for the Arts and SMU/Data Arts and previously served as Board Treasurer for the Cultural Data Project and Treasurer for the Dallas Development Fund. Ms. Drew is a graduate of The National Arts Strategies-Chief Executive Program and is currently Vice-Chair of the Dallas Arts District, a Board member with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and held a position of Adjunct Professor for three years in SMU’s M.A./M.B.A. Arts Management Program where she taught Strategic Planning in the Arts.

A 2016 Distinguished Alumna from Texas A&M University–Commerce, she also received the 2016 Influential Leaders Award from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. She was awarded the 2016 Obelisk Award for Outstanding Leadership Arts Alumnus from the Business Council for the Arts and the 2017 International Association of Blacks in Dance-Excellence in Arts Management Award, and the 2018 Dallas Historical Society Arts Leadership Award. Ms. Drew was also named to DCEO Dallas500 as “One of the Most Powerful Businesses Leaders in Dallas-Fort Worth.” Most recently, she has received Dance/USA’s 2021 Ernie Award and was a nominee for The William Dawson Award – Association of Performing Arts Professionals.

Ms. Drew was the commencement speaker for TAMU-Commerce in August 2014. She has guest lectured on fundraising, accounting, ethics and arts leadership at SMU, TAMU-Commerce, and Syracuse University. Ms. Drew also held a position of Adjunct Professor in SMU’s M.A./M.B.A. Arts Management Program for three years.

Ms. Drew is a graduate of Leadership Arts (1989), Leadership Dallas (1991), Leadership Texas (2010), and Leadership International (2013). She holds a B.B.A. in Accounting from Texas A&M University-Commerce, a Management Certificate in Non-Profit Leadership from Brookhaven College. Ms. Drew is a graduate from the National Arts Strategies Executive Leadership Program at Harvard Business School (2016) and the University of Michigan-Ross School of Business (2017).

Public lecture: Thursday, March 24, 2022, 7:30 pm, EDRH: DEI:Change! Change! Change!
Classes with arts administration students TBD

John Clayton, jazz bass, with the Butler University Jazz Ensemble

John Clayton is a natural born multitasker. The multiple roles in which he excels—composer, arranger, conductor, producer, educator, and yes, extraordinary bassist—garner him a number of challenging assignments and commissions. With a Grammy on his shelf and nine additional nominations, artists such as Diana Krall, Paul McCartney, Regina Carter, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Gladys Knight, Queen Latifah, and Charles Aznavour vie for a spot on his crowded calendar.

He began his bass career in elementary school playing in strings class, junior orchestra, high school jazz band, orchestra, and soul/R&B groups. In 1969, at the age of 16, he enrolled in bassist Ray Brown’s jazz class at UCLA, beginning a close relationship that lasted more than three decades. After graduating from Indiana University’s School of Music with a degree in bass performance in 1975, he toured with the Monty Alexander Trio (1975-77), the Count Basie Orchestra (1977-79), and settled in as principal bassist with the Amsterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in Amsterdam, Netherlands (1980-85). He was also a bass instructor at The Royal Conservatory, The Hague, Holland from 1980-83.

In 1985 he returned to California, co-founded the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra in 1986, rekindled The Clayton Brothers Quintet, and taught part-time bass at Cal State Long Beach, UCLA and USC. In 1988 he joined the faculty of the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where he taught until 2009. Now, in addition to individual clinics, workshops, and private students as schedule permits, John also directs the educational components associated with Centrum, The Port Townsend Jazz Festival, and Vail Jazz Workshop.

Career highlights include arranging the ‘Star Spangled Banner” for Whitney Houston’s performance at Super Bowl 1990 (the recording went platinum), playing bass on Paul McCartney’s CD “Kisses On The Bottom,” arranging and playing bass with Yo-Yo Ma and Friends on “Songs of Joy and Peace,” and arranging playing and conducting the CD “Charles Aznavour With the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra,” and numerous recordings with Diana Krall, the Clayton Brothers, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz, Orchestra, Milt Jackson, Monty Alexander and many others.

In 2013 John launched a new album series titled The John Clayton Parlor Series – a collection of rare duo collaborations with musical friends, released through ArtistShare. Those recordings include a release with his son Gerald which has already been released, and yet to be released recordings with Mulgrew Miller and Hank Jones.

Website: http://www.johnclaytonjazz.com

Public performance: Thursday, April 7, 7:30 pm, Schrott
Residency Activities:
Wednesday, April 6, 2022
Time and location TBA – bass master class
5:00-8:00 pm – Rehearsal with the Butler University Jazz Ensemble, LH 112
Thursday, April 7, 2022
10:30 am-noon – Jazz Improvisation master class, room TBA
1:00-1:50 pm – School of Music Convocation, LH 112
7:30 pm – Performance with the Butler University Jazz Ensemble, Schrott Center for the Arts

SUPAMAN, Native American dancer and hip-hop artist – September 18, 2020

MUSEUMS ARE NOT NEUTRAL, panel discussion – September 30, 2020

MONUMENT(AL) CRISIS, panel discussion – October 12, 2020

NICOLE BREWER: The Movement for Anti-Racist Practices and Its Impact on Theatre and The TETRA – October 16, 2020

DONALD BYRD, Spectrum Dance Theater: Social Justice and Just Causes – November 20, 2020

BLACK VIOLIN – January 2021

LADAMA – February 19, 2021

KIRSTEN LEENAARS, visual artist: (Re)Housing the American Dream and the Politics of Imagination – February 24, 2021

RACHEL CHAVKIN: Upstage: Fusing Avant-Garde and Commercial Theater – March 4, 2021

RONALD K. BROWN/EVIDENCE Dance Company: ‘Mercy’ – March 15, 2021

MELISSA ALDANA, jazz saxophone – April 9, 2021

INNOSANTO NAGARA, graphic artist: Innosanto Nagara: Will Design for Change – April 12, 2021

DOROTHY MOSS, art historian – September 18-19, 2019

ALEXIS BLACK, theatre artist – September 20-21, 2019 and October 11-12, 2019

DELANNA STUDI, theatre artist – October 21, 2019

SANDEEP DAS, tabla virtuoso – October 22-24, 2019

CANADIAN BRASS – November 18-19, 2019

LOUISVILLE BALLET – January 29-31, 2020

MICHAEL ABELS, composer, and PATRICK DE BANA, choreographer – February 5-9, 2020

FRANCES JACOBUS-PARKER, art historian – February 26-27, 2020

EAST COAST CHAMBER ORCHESTRA – September 12-14, 2018

ERIC LUBRICK, visual artist – November 6, 2018

ROOMFUL OF TEETH – October 18-20, 2018

ZACHARY DEPUE, VIOLIN, and AUSTIN HUNTINGTON, CELLO – October 21, 2018

MARCO LULY, Christel DeHaan VITA theatre artist – Fall Semester

A PRESIDENTIAL SALUTE TO LEONARD BERNSTEIN, with soloists from “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band – November 15, 2018

LAURA STENNETT, visual artist – January 23, 2019

TOD MACHOVER, composer – January 24-25, 2019

PERIDANCE CONTEMPORARY DANCE COMPANY – February 6-8, 2019

SITI COMPANY – March 25-27, 2019

STEFON HARRIS, jazz vibraphone – April 3-4, 2019

KEVIN JAMES WILSON, visual artist– October 9, 2017

SANDEEP DAS, tabla virtuoso – October 25-26, 2017

KING’S SINGERS – November 8, 2017

GIORDANO DANCE CHICAGO – November 2-4, 2017

TIM MILLER, theatre artist – November 14-15, 2017

PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY – February 8-9, 2018

SAMUEL VAZQUEZ, visual artist – March 20, 2018

BENNY GOLSON, jazz legend – April 4-5, 2018

The Jordan College of the Arts gratefully acknowledges the support for the JCA Signature Series provided by the following:

Office of the Butler University Provost, Dr. Jay Howard
Anonymous
Jerry and Linda Toomer
The Catalyst Effect