Ellen Denham's Blog, page 3

Summer begins

I’ve done a bit of sprucing up and updating of the various pages here, including uploading some songs from my recent doctoral recital to my Performance page. Drop by and give them a listen!

In other news, I survived a pretty busy semester of doctoral studies, in which I did quite a bit of performing—in addition to my recital, I performed a role in Love Games, a new musical by Joseph Turrin based on a play by Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler. This was lots of fun and involved my character, the Actress, being a total bitch and seducing two very different men. Oh, and singing a song about infidelity while jumping on a bed! I also took a songwriting class this semester, and in addition to performing the songs of other students in the class, I wrote lyrics and composed music for some songs as well. On our final recital, we performed the compositions members of the class had composed and also some of our favorite American songs we had been assigned to sing over the course of the class. I am now very close to completing my doctoral coursework, which is exciting!

Eddie Brennan and Ellen Denham as the Count and the Actress in Love Games

Stephan and I and family took a wonderful trip to Jamaica earlier this month, in which, among other things, we did some backcountry caving which involved slogging through an underground river up to our waists for quite a while, crawling on hands and knees, climbing, and generally getting very wet and muddy. I’ve always wanted to do something like that as opposed to the tamer cave visits with handrails and walkways and electric lights that we have in southern Indiana. Actually, I can’t wait to do some more rough caving! With an experienced guide, of course. Other highlights of the trip included swimming in the absolutely perfect waters, shopping for fruits and veggies in the Falmouth market, jumping in a pristine river at Blue Hole, and relaxing, eating great food, drinking rum and Red Stripes. I absolutely love Jamaica and especially love getting off the beaten path and outside of the major tourist areas.

I’ll be teaching at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp again later this summer. In the meantime, I’m catching up on some writing and submitting (submitted two short stories and one scholarly article over the weekend) and doing some freelance grantwriting and editing projects.

Story sale and other news

Mai tai on Waikiki beach

Wow, this blog has accumulated some dust and cobwebs since I was last here. I thought I should drop in and share some of the exciting things I’ve been doing for the past several months!

For starters, I sold a story to Lightspeed Magazine. I am thrilled that I will be part of the special “Women Destroy Science Fiction” issue this June with my story, “The Mouths,” featuring some aliens so bizarre that even the narrator can’t quite figure them out. You can read more about this exciting special issue here: Women Destroy SF.

I have just completed a run of “Orpheus in the Underworld” with the University of Illinois Lyric Theatre. Which role did I play? Assistant Director! This was part of my cognate, or minor, in Theatre. It was a great experience. I learned a lot and got to do quite a bit of hands-on work, such as individual coaching of singer/actors, taking and giving notes to performers, running dance brush-up rehearsals, etc. The show was a great success. Read more about it and see some photos here: http://www.news-gazette.com/multimedia/photogallery/2014-03-05/orpheus-underworld

In January, I had a wonderful time at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, where I presented my paper “Schubert and Goethe: A Transcendence of Competing Aesthetics.” My paper is available in the Conference Proceedings here. Of course, I also enjoyed a few mai tais on the beach, some hiking, swimming, and watching the sun set over the ocean. Not a bad way to start the year!

Story sale and other news

Mai tai on Waikiki beach

Wow, this blog has accumulated some dust and cobwebs since I was last here. I thought I should drop in and share some of the exciting things I’ve been doing for the past several months!

For starters, I sold a story to Lightspeed Magazine. I am thrilled that I will be part of the special “Women Destroy Science Fiction” issue this June with my story, “The Mouths,” featuring some aliens so bizarre that even the narrator can’t quite figure them out. You can read more about this exciting special issue here: Women Destroy SF.

I have just completed a run of “Orpheus in the Underworld” with the University of Illinois Lyric Theatre. Which role did I play? Assistant Director! This was part of my cognate, or minor, in Theatre. It was a great experience. I learned a lot and got to do quite a bit of hands-on work, such as individual coaching of singer/actors, taking and giving notes to performers, running dance brush-up rehearsals, etc. The show was a great success. Read more about it and see some photos here: http://www.news-gazette.com/multimedia/photogallery/2014-03-05/orpheus-underworld

In January, I had a wonderful time at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, where I presented my paper “Schubert and Goethe: A Transcendence of Competing Aesthetics.” My paper is available in the Conference Proceedings here. Of course, I also enjoyed a few mai tais on the beach, some hiking, swimming, and watching the sun set over the ocean. Not a bad way to start the year!

Aloha, Hawaii!

I am happy to announce that I will be presenting my paper, “Goethe and Schubert: A Transcendence of Competing Aesthetics” at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities. I submitted the paper at the urging of my teacher, and then when it got accepted, realized just how unlikely it would be that I would raise the funds to actually attend. Over lunch with a friend, I was discussing my predicament, and something really amazing happened (this is verbatim from a Facebook post I made on September 5):

***

I have an experience to share that left me feeling grateful and humbled. While having lunch with Christopher Cayari, I was lamenting the fact that I had a paper accepted at a conference in Hawaii, for which I am applying for a travel grant, but the grant has a maximum of [x] and it would take me at least twice that to make it feasible to attend the conference. I think I mentioned that I was hoping to get some matching funds from another source, but had not had much luck. “If I could just get some other source to match [x], I think I could do it!” I must have said. A woman who was about to exit the restaurant laid a $10 bill on the table in front of me and said, “Now you only need [x-10].” This happened so fast that I wasn’t really able to process what she had just said or done until she was out the door, so I did not even get the chance to properly thank her. I’m sorry to admit that the first thing I felt was not gratitude, but a sense of shame that there I was having lunch out in a restaurant (I could have packed a sandwich) and someone I didn’t even know thought I needed financial help. But the second thing I felt was that I had just learned a very profound lesson. I put the $10 in a bottle marked “Hawaii Fund” and it is out on my desk to remind me of the generosity of a stranger and that I can find a way to make this happen, maybe by taking on an additional private student, maybe by doing a fundraising recital, maybe finding another grant (I don’t even know if I’ll get the first one yet). Thank you to the anonymous donor for the cash, and more importantly, the lesson!

***

Since then, I have been awarded a travel grant from the Graduate College of the University of Illinois, and a scholarship from the MONC fund in addition to my first anonymous donation. This should cover my conference registration and about 1/3 of my plane ticket. I am hoping to raise additional funds by presenting a workshop in Indianapolis (Indy folks stay tuned). I don’t like taking money without giving anything in return, however, I did put a Paypal “Donate” button on this blog just in case anyone, like the anonymous donor who got me started on the way, would like to chip in.

My paper topic is about artistic collaboration, which is a subject very near and dear to my heart. Here is the abstract of my paper:

Would Goethe have appreciated Schubert’s settings of his poems? It is not difficult to ascertain what Goethe thought about music—he corresponded with the composer Carl Zelter for more than thirty years, came up with an outline for a theoretical system, wrote texts specifically intended to be set to music (including a sequel to Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte), and commented frequently about music in his writings. It is not clear how to interpret his near-silence about the work of Schubert. This paper examines recent scholarship on the relationship (or lack thereof) between poet and composer, including Lorraine Byrne Bodley’s Schubert’s Goethe Settings, Sterling Lambert’s Re-Reading Poetry: Schubert’s Multiple Settings of Goethe, and Kenneth Whitton’s Goethe and Schubert: The Unseen Bond, presenting both sides of the argument regarding whether Goethe would have appreciated Schubert, some additional speculations, and further analysis. The debate has largely been framed by the question of whether Goethe was musical, which might be the wrong question to ask. Perhaps the greatness of Schubert’s Goethe settings is partly due to, not in spite of, the two men’s different sensibilities. The story of Goethe and Schubert contains a valuable lesson for artistic collaboration: a shared sense of aesthetics is not a prerequisite for creating excellent collaborative art.

I’m very excited to be attending this conference!

Aloha, Hawaii!

I am happy to announce that I will be presenting my paper, “Goethe and Schubert: A Transcendence of Competing Aesthetics” at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities. I submitted the paper at the urging of my teacher, and then when it got accepted, realized just how unlikely it would be that I would raise the funds to actually attend. Over lunch with a friend, I was discussing my predicament, and something really amazing happened (this is verbatim from a Facebook post I made on September 5):

***

I have an experience to share that left me feeling grateful and humbled. While having lunch with Christopher Cayari, I was lamenting the fact that I had a paper accepted at a conference in Hawaii, for which I am applying for a travel grant, but the grant has a maximum of [x] and it would take me at least twice that to make it feasible to attend the conference. I think I mentioned that I was hoping to get some matching funds from another source, but had not had much luck. “If I could just get some other source to match [x], I think I could do it!” I must have said. A woman who was about to exit the restaurant laid a $10 bill on the table in front of me and said, “Now you only need [x-10].” This happened so fast that I wasn’t really able to process what she had just said or done until she was out the door, so I did not even get the chance to properly thank her. I’m sorry to admit that the first thing I felt was not gratitude, but a sense of shame that there I was having lunch out in a restaurant (I could have packed a sandwich) and someone I didn’t even know thought I needed financial help. But the second thing I felt was that I had just learned a very profound lesson. I put the $10 in a bottle marked “Hawaii Fund” and it is out on my desk to remind me of the generosity of a stranger and that I can find a way to make this happen, maybe by taking on an additional private student, maybe by doing a fundraising recital, maybe finding another grant (I don’t even know if I’ll get the first one yet). Thank you to the anonymous donor for the cash, and more importantly, the lesson!

***

Since then, I have been awarded a travel grant from the Graduate College of the University of Illinois, and a scholarship from the MONC fund in addition to my first anonymous donation. This should cover my conference registration and about 1/3 of my plane ticket. I am hoping to raise additional funds by presenting a workshop in Indianapolis (Indy folks stay tuned). I don’t like taking money without giving anything in return, however, I did put a Paypal “Donate” button on this blog just in case anyone, like the anonymous donor who got me started on the way, would like to chip in.

My paper topic is about artistic collaboration, which is a subject very near and dear to my heart. Here is the abstract of my paper:

Would Goethe have appreciated Schubert’s settings of his poems? It is not difficult to ascertain what Goethe thought about music—he corresponded with the composer Carl Zelter for more than thirty years, came up with an outline for a theoretical system, wrote texts specifically intended to be set to music (including a sequel to Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte), and commented frequently about music in his writings. It is not clear how to interpret his near-silence about the work of Schubert. This paper examines recent scholarship on the relationship (or lack thereof) between poet and composer, including Lorraine Byrne Bodley’s Schubert’s Goethe Settings, Sterling Lambert’s Re-Reading Poetry: Schubert’s Multiple Settings of Goethe, and Kenneth Whitton’s Goethe and Schubert: The Unseen Bond, presenting both sides of the argument regarding whether Goethe would have appreciated Schubert, some additional speculations, and further analysis. The debate has largely been framed by the question of whether Goethe was musical, which might be the wrong question to ask. Perhaps the greatness of Schubert’s Goethe settings is partly due to, not in spite of, the two men’s different sensibilities. The story of Goethe and Schubert contains a valuable lesson for artistic collaboration: a shared sense of aesthetics is not a prerequisite for creating excellent collaborative art.

I’m very excited to be attending this conference!

Otherness at the Indy Convergence, or When Art Imitates Life

This blog post was intended to discuss the piece I recently directed at the Indy Convergence on the subject of Otherness, and I will do so. However, considering the nature of the subject and with recent events that highlight just how much Otherness vs. privilege plays a role in our lives, there is some politics involved toward the end of this post. You have been warned.

What is Otherness? In a nutshell, it’s the result, conscious or unconscious, of putting someone in a category that means they are Not Like Us. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If I’m walking down the street, I can’t afford to assume that everyone I meet is a wonderful person who just needs a hug. For my own safety, I don’t choose to stop and have a conversation with the stranger who says, “Hey, baby” as I pass by. But once you’ve put someone in that category of “Other,” they are essentially a non-person. It’s ok if bad things happen to them—things that could never happen to us, because, of course, we’re not like them. We have to be really careful how and in what context we deploy this categorization, be aware of when we’re doing it, and recognize that it often causes more harm than good. It is a pair of blinders we put on when bad things happen that makes us feel safe, because bad things happen to the Other—not to us.

This is a theme I explore frequently in my writing. Fantasy and science fiction are excellent ways to deal with the subject since you can have non-human characters—the ultimate Other. When I was brainstorming about a project I could propose for the 2013 Indy Convergence that could be developed collaboratively based on the input and experiences of all participants, I’d already thought of using dancers in fabric bags to represent something non-human. This is an idea I got from choreographer Kirstie Simson, one of the professors leading the COLAB improvisation class with musicians and dancers that I took in the fall.

Going into the rehearsal process at the Indy Convergence, a two-week arts residency for collaborative work, I first gave a short presentation and led a discussion on the subject of Otherness to help determine the interests of the participants. I knew I wanted to end with a “humans vs. blobs” scene, but wanted to stay open to the thoughts and interests of participants. We practiced vocal improvisation, we storyboarded, we improvised scenes, and eventually we had a piece to present for the Open Lab Performance. The idea of the Convergence is to have just enough time to get something on its feet, giving it the freedom to be a work in progress, and using the audience as a tool to gauge success. With all the talents of the participants, the collaboration became much greater than something that I or any of us could have done alone. Though if we had had more time, I would have liked to put some more polish on things, I was extremely pleased with the overall result. All photos below are by Roberta Wong, lighting and projections are by Ian Garrett, and the set is by Lee Rainboth.

The piece had five sections, including two poems for two voices, which is something we workshopped with participant and poet Leah Falk. One poem, by Leah, dealt with the Otherness between a husband and wife, and the other was inspired by an article by artist Haley Morris-Cafiero,

“How I Got Back at the Strangers Who Mock Me for Being Fat” . Morris-Cafiero does an excellent job of shining a light on the unpleasantness that occurs when we decide someone is Other by having her assistant shoot film of people making fun of her behind her back for her size.

Colleen Laliberte, Laura Krause, Adriana Dimitri, and Ashley Benninghoff read a poem for 4 voices. Photo by Roberta Wong.

Another scene featured a giant puppet, constructed by Christina Feinberg and Colleen Laliberte, who narrated an introduction to the subject of Otherness while accompanied by a soundscape of voices and instruments.

Frankie, puppeteered by Colleen Laliberte, Robert Negron, and Christina Feinberg, talks about Otherness. Photo by Roberta Wong.

The two main scenes were titled “The Other in the Forest” and “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral.” We moved from Otherness on a very personal level (woman gets treated as a non-person because of her physical appearance) to Otherness on an intergalactic level (humans travel to planet where the inhabitants are sentient rocks). In between, we stopped by an enchanted forest to explore a type of Otherness that primarily affects women: slut-shaming and victim-blaming.

“The Other in the Forest” was loosely inspired by a novella I’ve written imagining dryads once lived in the Indiana Territory when the first white settlers arrived. To the accompaniment of voices, violin, and wooden sticks, a young man is told by his parents not to go out into the forest because the Forest People have been seen again—tree spirits, and bird spirits, promiscuous creatures who would “draw you into their nakedness” and drive you insane.

Joshua Morris and Sara Yanney-Chantanasombut tell Tommy Lewey not to go into the forest. Photo by Roberta Wong.

Of course, he goes, and because he has been told they are promiscuous, he believes that he is owed sex.

Caitlin Negron and Ashley Benninghoff as the dryad and tree reject Tommy Lewey and Robert Negron as the young man and his alter ego. Photo by Roberta Wong.

All participants workshopped the rape scene, and the result, though I’m biased, I have to say was pretty devastating. The orchestra of voices represented the voice of the dryad as she is ripped away from her tree.

Participants sing a musical phrase representing the voice of the dryad. Photo by Roberta Wong.

Afterwards, the boy’s parents hunt her down for “ruining his life” and the orchestra joins in a chorus of slut-shaming as she is burned.

“Animal, Vegetable, Mineral” features three explorers who travel to the mineral-rich planet hoping to mine it.

Kristin Bowlby, Colleen Laliberte, and Lee Rainboth arrive to mine the planet. Photo by Roberta Wong.

Unbeknownst to them at first, the “rocks” they see are sentient and have their own dance, accompanied by the orchestra of voices and instruments.

Ashley Benninghoff, Tommy Lewey, Joshua Morris, Caitlin Negron, and Sara Yanney-Chantanasombut dance as blobs. Photo by Roberta Wong.

While the anthropologist discovers the sentience of the rock creatures and tries to get to know them, the other two are only interested in the financial potential. When the second sun is about to rise, the blobs get agitated and move toward the humans in a way that is seen as hostile. Too late, after one of the humans has shot all the blobs dead, the anthropologist realizes that the blobs were trying to shield them with their bodies from the ravages of the deadly second sun.

Kristin Bowlby and Colleen Laliberte are burned to death by the harsh sun of the alien planet. Photo by Roberta Wong.

There’s a lot more I could say about the process, how wonderful the Convergence is, how much I appreciate and value the contributions of every participant, but what strikes me today is how deadly categorization as the Other is in real life, for someone like Trayvon Martin. To quote Mack the Knife in The Threepenny Opera, voicing the views of his creator, Bertolt Brecht, “Art isn’t nice.” I chose Otherness as a subject because I believe it is a real problem in society. How successful the project was in getting this across is debatable, but not, I feel, the fact that art can and should imitate life and sometimes hold up a mirror to show a side of ourselves that we’d rather not see.

Rampant categorization of people as the Other isn’t just a bad idea; it can get someone killed. At its root, the problem is a failure of imagination. President Obama once said that if he had a son, he might look like Trayvon Martin. If I had married an African-American man and had human babies instead of furry ones, I might have a son that looked like Trayvon Martin. But why do we have to look at skin color as the determining factor between someone being Other and someone being just like our son? I grieve for him and his family because he could have been my son, or my friend, my neighbor, my colleague, my student. People who aren’t outraged that an unarmed young man was shot and killed in his own neighborhood without consequence have placed him in a category that such things can happen to and themselves and their families in a category where they can’t. This may sound harsh, but think about if for a minute. If you worried that something like this could happen to your son, would you feel differently?

Perhaps this sounds like I’m preaching, and I don’t mean to. What I would like to do is plead for all of us, myself included, to be aware when we’re categorizing someone as Other and to try, just try, to imagine ourselves in their shoes. And for those of us in the arts, I plead that we all keep holding up that mirror so we can see our ugly faces when we need to be reminded of our collective failures of imagination.

Otherness at the Indy Convergence, or When Art Imitates Life

This blog post was intended to discuss the piece I recently directed at the Indy Convergence on the subject of Otherness, and I will do so. However, considering the nature of the subject and with recent events that highlight just how much Otherness vs. privilege plays a role in our lives, there is some politics involved toward the end of this post. You have been warned.

What is Otherness? In a nutshell, it’s the result, conscious or unconscious, of putting someone in a category that means they are Not Like Us. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If I’m walking down the street, I can’t afford to assume that everyone I meet is a wonderful person who just needs a hug. For my own safety, I don’t choose to stop and have a conversation with the stranger who says, “Hey, baby” as I pass by. But once you’ve put someone in that category of “Other,” they are essentially a non-person. It’s ok if bad things happen to them—things that could never happen to us, because, of course, we’re not like them. We have to be really careful how and in what context we deploy this categorization, be aware of when we’re doing it, and recognize that it often causes more harm than good. It is a pair of blinders we put on when bad things happen that makes us feel safe, because bad things happen to the Other—not to us.

This is a theme I explore frequently in my writing. Fantasy and science fiction are excellent ways to deal with the subject since you can have non-human characters—the ultimate Other. When I was brainstorming about a project I could propose for the 2013 Indy Convergence that could be developed collaboratively based on the input and experiences of all participants, I’d already thought of using dancers in fabric bags to represent something non-human. This is an idea I got from choreographer Kirstie Simson, one of the professors leading the COLAB improvisation class with musicians and dancers that I took in the fall.

Going into the rehearsal process at the Indy Convergence, a two-week arts residency for collaborative work, I first gave a short presentation and led a discussion on the subject of Otherness to help determine the interests of the participants. I knew I wanted to end with a “humans vs. blobs” scene, but wanted to stay open to the thoughts and interests of participants. We practiced vocal improvisation, we storyboarded, we improvised scenes, and eventually we had a piece to present for the Open Lab Performance. The idea of the Convergence is to have just enough time to get something on its feet, giving it the freedom to be a work in progress, and using the audience as a tool to gauge success. With all the talents of the participants, the collaboration became much greater than something that I or any of us could have done alone. Though if we had had more time, I would have liked to put some more polish on things, I was extremely pleased with the overall result. All photos below are by Roberta Wong, lighting and projections are by Ian Garrett, and the set is by Lee Rainboth.

The piece had five sections, including two poems for two voices, which is something we workshopped with participant and poet Leah Falk. One poem, by Leah, dealt with the Otherness between a husband and wife, and the other was inspired by an article by artist Haley Morris-Cafiero,

“How I Got Back at the Strangers Who Mock Me for Being Fat” . Morris-Cafiero does an excellent job of shining a light on the unpleasantness that occurs when we decide someone is Other by having her assistant shoot film of people making fun of her behind her back for her size.

Colleen Laliberte, Laura Krause, Adriana Dimitri, and Ashley Benninghoff read a poem for 4 voices. Photo by Roberta Wong.

Another scene featured a giant puppet, constructed by Christina Feinberg and Colleen Laliberte, who narrated an introduction to the subject of Otherness while accompanied by a soundscape of voices and instruments.

Frankie, puppeteered by Colleen Laliberte, Robert Negron, and Christina Feinberg, talks about Otherness. Photo by Roberta Wong.

The two main scenes were titled “The Other in the Forest” and “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral.” We moved from Otherness on a very personal level (woman gets treated as a non-person because of her physical appearance) to Otherness on an intergalactic level (humans travel to planet where the inhabitants are sentient rocks). In between, we stopped by an enchanted forest to explore a type of Otherness that primarily affects women: slut-shaming and victim-blaming.

“The Other in the Forest” was loosely inspired by a novella I’ve written imagining dryads once lived in the Indiana Territory when the first white settlers arrived. To the accompaniment of voices, violin, and wooden sticks, a young man is told by his parents not to go out into the forest because the Forest People have been seen again—tree spirits, and bird spirits, promiscuous creatures who would “draw you into their nakedness” and drive you insane.

Joshua Morris and Sara Yanney-Chantanasombut tell Tommy Lewey not to go into the forest. Photo by Roberta Wong.

Of course, he goes, and because he has been told they are promiscuous, he believes that he is owed sex.

Caitlin Negron and Ashley Benninghoff as the dryad and tree reject Tommy Lewey and Robert Negron as the young man and his alter ego. Photo by Roberta Wong.

All participants workshopped the rape scene, and the result, though I’m biased, I have to say was pretty devastating. The orchestra of voices represented the voice of the dryad as she is ripped away from her tree.

Participants sing a musical phrase representing the voice of the dryad. Photo by Roberta Wong.

Afterwards, the boy’s parents hunt her down for “ruining his life” and the orchestra joins in a chorus of slut-shaming as she is burned.

“Animal, Vegetable, Mineral” features three explorers who travel to the mineral-rich planet hoping to mine it.

Kristin Bowlby, Colleen Laliberte, and Lee Rainboth arrive to mine the planet. Photo by Roberta Wong.

Unbeknownst to them at first, the “rocks” they see are sentient and have their own dance, accompanied by the orchestra of voices and instruments.

Ashley Benninghoff, Tommy Lewey, Joshua Morris, Caitlin Negron, and Sara Yanney-Chantanasombut dance as blobs. Photo by Roberta Wong.

While the anthropologist discovers the sentience of the rock creatures and tries to get to know them, the other two are only interested in the financial potential. When the second sun is about to rise, the blobs get agitated and move toward the humans in a way that is seen as hostile. Too late, after one of the humans has shot all the blobs dead, the anthropologist realizes that the blobs were trying to shield them with their bodies from the ravages of the deadly second sun.

Kristin Bowlby and Colleen Laliberte are burned to death by the harsh sun of the alien planet. Photo by Roberta Wong.

There’s a lot more I could say about the process, how wonderful the Convergence is, how much I appreciate and value the contributions of every participant, but what strikes me today is how deadly categorization as the Other is in real life, for someone like Trayvon Martin. To quote Mack the Knife in The Threepenny Opera, voicing the views of his creator, Bertolt Brecht, “Art isn’t nice.” I chose Otherness as a subject because I believe it is a real problem in society. How successful the project was in getting this across is debatable, but not, I feel, the fact that art can and should imitate life and sometimes hold up a mirror to show a side of ourselves that we’d rather not see.

Rampant categorization of people as the Other isn’t just a bad idea; it can get someone killed. At its root, the problem is a failure of imagination. President Obama once said that if he had a son, he might look like Trayvon Martin. If I had married an African-American man and had human babies instead of furry ones, I might have a son that looked like Trayvon Martin. But why do we have to look at skin color as the determining factor between someone being Other and someone being just like our son? I grieve for him and his family because he could have been my son, or my friend, my neighbor, my colleague, my student. People who aren’t outraged that an unarmed young man was shot and killed in his own neighborhood without consequence have placed him in a category that such things can happen to and themselves and their families in a category where they can’t. This may sound harsh, but think about if for a minute. If you worried that something like this could happen to your son, would you feel differently?

Perhaps this sounds like I’m preaching, and I don’t mean to. What I would like to do is plead for all of us, myself included, to be aware when we’re categorizing someone as Other and to try, just try, to imagine ourselves in their shoes. And for those of us in the arts, I plead that we all keep holding up that mirror so we can see our ugly faces when we need to be reminded of our collective failures of imagination.

Web site overhaul

It’s been needed. I wasn’t that happy with my old web site, because I was coding with outdated html skills, but every time I wanted to update it with one of those auto page-builders, I got grumpy because I couldn’t control the layout and make it the way I wanted. I’ve had the wordpress blog for a while and wanted to integrate the rest of my content to just make it my web site, but I hadn’t taken the time to do it.

So, *drumroll* I’m unveiling the new page today! I’ve even integrated all my old blog posts from livejournal. I’m a little concerned with how to keep wordpress functioning smoothly, because I haven’t updated to the most recent version (there’s something else I need to make that work and I’m going to have to do some research). When I tried to update the theme, I crashed the whole thing and the nice folks at my hosting company, virtualave.net, had to put it right again.

In other news, Stephan and I had a lovely 14-mile kayak trip on the Blue River yesterday and I’m feeling nicely refreshed.

Web site overhaul

It’s been needed. I wasn’t that happy with my old web site, because I was coding with outdated html skills, but every time I wanted to update it with one of those auto page-builders, I got grumpy because I couldn’t control the layout and make it the way I wanted. I’ve had the wordpress blog for a while and wanted to integrate the rest of my content to just make it my web site, but I hadn’t taken the time to do it.

So, *drumroll* I’m unveiling the new page today! I’ve even integrated all my old blog posts from livejournal. I’m a little concerned with how to keep wordpress functioning smoothly, because I haven’t updated to the most recent version (there’s something else I need to make that work and I’m going to have to do some research). When I tried to update the theme, I crashed the whole thing and the nice folks at my hosting company, virtualave.net, had to put it right again.

In other news, Stephan and I had a lovely 14-mile kayak trip on the Blue River yesterday and I’m feeling nicely refreshed.

Welcome!

Welcome to my web page. I am a classical singer and voice teacher currently pursuing a doctorate and teaching voice at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Previously, I taught voice at Earlham College and a First-year Seminar in the core curriculum of Butler University. I am also a professional writer and a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop.

I’m a classic interstitial artist: I thrive in the places where genres and artistic disciplines intersect. Practically speaking, this means that I incorporate things like yoga in my voice teaching, sing everything from Bach to the Beatles, lead vocal improvisation workshops, write works for performance as well as for the page, and often combine several of my interests in one project. I believe passionately that singing is a vital form of artistic expression and that everyone should be encouraged to develop their own unique voice with a healthy technique. Follow the links above for more information about my work, interests, and publications, or read my blog below.