Photo courtesy of MCT

Did you see any familiar faces during the Super Bowl Halftime show on Sunday?

Besides Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Cee Lo Green, M.I.A. and the boys from LMFAO, of course.

About 20 students from the Jordan College of Fine Arts were a part of the 200-voice choir that accompanied the “Queen of Pop.”

The choir also included students from Indiana University, members of the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir and other local singers.

Barred from discussing the details of the show by confidentiality agreements, the group rehearsed in secret throughout Indianapolis preparing for the 12-and-a-half minute set.

When it came time to face the almost 70,000 people in Lucas Oil Stadium, sophomore Molly Anderson said that she was ready.

“The fact that I was so excited outweighed everything else,” Anderson said.

Whether you loved the halftime show or not, it was a capstone to a week of parties, zip-lines and giant Lombardi trophies.

It was  a week that highlighted the Butler community and found students, staff and a certain four-legged mascot brushing shoulders with fame at every corner.

Jordan College of Fine Arts students and faculty members will soon have more room for expression.

Renovations are under way to turn the former Jordan Academy of Dance building into the Jordan College of Fine Arts Annex.

About 50 percent of the space in JCX will be dedicated to the art + design program, with the other half available for dance studio space and other JCFA functions starting next fall.

Elizabeth Mix, an associate professor of art, said that gaining two large spaces—one that will serve as a studio and the other as a classroom—will allow art + design students to work in a dedicated space.

“We desperately needed actual art studios,” she said. “We were making art in music rooms, and that’s not really conducive to making art.”

The move will also allow art faculty members to have offices together that are close to their classrooms. Currently their offices are spread around the Fairbanks Building while most of the classes are taught in Lilly Hall.

While the walk to the building may be a little longer, Mix said the move will benefit students.

“Students who are here right now realize that they don’t have this kind of space,” she said.

Laura Kramer, a senior strategic communication and art + design major, said having to move projects around and empty a room at the end of class can hurt the artistic process. Other than simply being a place to store art, the new studios will help with this routine.

“You’ll be able to know that it’s going to be a creative environment, and you’ll be surrounded by other students who are also working,” she said.

Ben Fox, a junior philosophy and art + design major, said that it can be difficult to work on art projects in dorm rooms or around other people. He said the new space will attract more students to the program and help the existing students work better.

“Quality goes up when you have space to work in,” he said. “You get a lot more thoughtful work.”

A petition signed by 542 students for key card access to Lilly Hall has Jordan College of Fine Arts students hoping to get their foot in the door with Butler University’s top players.

“Students must be afforded the opportunity to access academic facilities at all times during their collegiate careers,” the petition stated. “The buildings and tools within these facilities are necessary to ameliorate a student’s academic life. Having proper access to these facilities is essential to the educational quality at Butler University.”

Students held a forum last Monday to inform other students of the petition, which was started by junior vocal music education major Katie Bolinger. It also provided an opportunity to sit down and talk to JCFA Dean Ronald Caltabiano.

Caltabiano faced a barrage of questions, ranging from the petition for modifications of JCFA curriculum to concerns about practice space availability. Having been at Butler for only five months, Caltabiano said he is very eager to hear from students about what is going on in the college, as well as to inform them of the administration’s view of the petition.

Key card access to Lilly Hall is important in the eyes of many students, considering the doors are locked at midnight, just recently moved back from 11 p.m. by Caltabiano, and often locked earlier.

“This year especially, more people have been locking the doors earlier and earlier, which is really frustrating,” Bolinger said. “I got [to Lilly] at 10 o’clock one night and it was locked, and I couldn’t practice.”

Sophomore ballet major Elizabeth Simoens said she shares Bolinger’s frustration, noting that most students can study anywhere, but for dance students, specialized rooms aren’t always available.

“We can’t study in our rooms or the library,” she said. “Not being able to get into the only rooms where we can practice makes life really difficult. People can write their essays at one in the morning, but if you need to compose music and you need a piano, you can’t do it any later than 11 p.m. if you can’t make it there in time.”

The petition is on the Student Government Association’s radar, as Council on Presidential Affairs  Chair Mike Tirman points out.

“I really think it puts music students at a disadvantage because so many instruments, like a piano, for example, cannot be carried back and forth from the dorm to the college,” he said.

“And the same holds true for Fairbanks as well. It puts students at a disadvantage because they need access to those facilities when their schedule permits.

“If all students feel this is an important matter for their education, I hope to see this on student government’s contribution list. This is one instance where students have come together to make a change on campus, and SGA wants to provide as much help as possible.”

The proposed change would come at a high cost. Even if the petition goes through, installing key card access to Lilly Hall will cost between $80,000 and $90,000 and won’t be installed until next summer at the earliest. At the moment, it is first on the list of buildings to receive key card access and second on the list of general facilities projects. Jordan Hall’s roof problems are first.

In the meantime, JCFA students said they are happy to see that their issue is being acknowledged by the university and hopeful for progress in the right direction.

To check out the petition, visit www.change.org and search for  “Lilly Hall key card access.”

In the past two years, Butler University has seen many changes in its top leadership.

We’ve seen a change in the presidency, the deans of the Jordan College of Fine Arts and Liberal Arts and Sciences and the beginning of a search for a dean of the new College of Communication.

Most recently came the announcement that Jamie Comstock asked to step down from her role as provost and vice president for academic affairs at the end of the fall semester.

Comstock said in an interview with The Collegian that in the last five years she has seen a change of over 30 percent in the make-up of Butler’s faculty.

It all feels like a lot of change for an institution as close-knit as Butler.

Students, faculty and staff express the legitimate concern that it is difficult for an institution to sustain its spirit and traditions with all of this shuffling of the upper leadership.

Any change is sure to cause a readjustment period, but we at The Butler Collegian believe that change can and will empower and revitalize the university to adapt to the larger, ever-changing world.

It is clear in the current economy that open minds and new approaches to old problems are necessary. The new wave of administrators offer an excellent example to students of what Butler students should become, forces of change and problem solving.

All administrators need to listen to their students and respect the values of the community, but nothing prevents new deans, presidents and provosts from doing this just as well as those already holding the positions.

And some entrenched administrators, regardless of their personal achievement or merit, become divisive figures.

Perhaps because Butler is a small school, changes in the administration seem like a bigger matter than at larger institutions.

In many ways, the small campus forms a community that might be easily disrupted by any changes.

When administrative changes happen, the productive learning environment is distracted by a community of curious, intelligent individuals who are eager to speculate about the future of their beloved institution.

This speculation and curiosity is almost always misplaced as fear of what is to come.

With two top administrative positions still open and more changes on the way, it is fair to say that students, faculty and staff do not know what entirely to expect in the spring 2012 semester.

But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

In President Jim Danko’s short time at Butler, he already has shown remarkable support for the university’s core spirit while also bringing fresh eyes to old obstacles.

He’s working to tackle tough administrative, financial and structural concerns, all of which require the collaboration of the entire university community.

Danko and several other administrators have thus far made communication with students, faculty and organizations as transparent as possible.

At a certain point, the university community should accept that change is usually a good thing, and that the administrators at this institution were hired for a reason: to make changes—some of which may make some waves in a community of intelligent academics and students and always ready to turn the inquisitive and critical eye to any situation.

All of the changes in the administration may be exactly what Butler needs to grow into its next era—hopefully an era of possibilities and new financial and leadership opportunities that catapult Butler to the top of those ranking lists that we all love to hate.

The legacy of any administrator can be positive or negative.

In the last five years, Butler has seen a lot of growth in both class size and national attention, especially from back-to-back NCAA men’s basketball championship appearances.

A lot of that attention has been positive, such as the academic achievement of students and the previously mentioned basketball teams.

However, the university has also faced controversies such as the case of Butler University v. John Doe aka Soodo Nym, and increased scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in the form of a Title IX compliance review.

No one can predict the future, and even the best institutions are bound to face challenges.

But as long as the top level of the university’s leadership works to both preserve Butler’s core values and grow the community in new ways, The Collegian welcomes the leadership changes.

Photo by Lauren Thorne

The student-produced play “Pieces,” which ran Friday and Saturday, was yet another fine work courtesy of Butler University’s theater department.

The short work, written and directed by fifth-year theater major Lauren Thorne, follows a young woman fighting the pain of a debilitating disability in the hospital while her mind tries to escape its harsh reality.

Thorne herself is disabled, and she used her own experiences to color the narrative.

“‘Pieces’ is kind of a multimedia representation of my constantly fluctuating journey,” she wrote in her program notes.

She said the play was a great personal achievement.

“Being who I am, I knew myself pretty well, but [‘Pieces’] has brought me to a place where I actually appreciate myself,” Thorne said.  “There are stories only I can tell.”

Thorne, in her debut as a playwright, has crafted “Pieces” into a succinct, relevant and personal exploration into the mind’s relationship with the body during times of stress.

In a wise decision, Thorne wrote three “characters” to represent the young woman: one playing the Mind, another the Body, with a third being a synthesis of the two who exists as an outside voice.

Alaina Bartkowiak, a sophomore vocal performance major who played the Body, said it was a challenge to get all three actors to function as one person.

“We had to work to understand each other’s thoughts,” she said.

In the end, the actors were supremely successful.  Their chemistry and timing allowed Thorne’s witty dialogue to come across marvelously clear.

Indeed, the cleverness of the play was its most impressive feature.  The set design, with puzzling elements like a deflated birthday balloon draped over the hospital bed and clothespins hanging from the ceiling, was extremely well integrated in the script.  Each element served its own function in developing the characters and advancing the narrative.

Each element was so well- incorporated that the play might have benefited from more ambiguity and non-sequitur elements.

Quinn Leary, a junior theater major, said the play demonstrated Thorne’s characteristic wit.

“I am so proud of Lauren,” he said.  “This is the perfect capstone to her time here.”

The play also incorporated large amounts of audio and visual material, with the latter projected onto the set from above.

Despite Thorne’s craft, however, the pacing of the play was lackluster.  The main conflict, the Mind wrestling with the idea of leaving the Body forever to escape pain, was tempered by an awkward stage movement scene and the absence of a scene showing the condition of the Body without its Mind.

The pacing muddled any sense of a real climax, which made the ending, when the Mind returns to the Body, seem extremely sudden.  More development of the climactic and resolution sections would have helped bring the play’s end up to par with its beginning.

That said, Thorne and the cast and crew have much to be proud of.

While not perfect, it foreshadows great works that will be exactly as Thorne envisions them: “living, breathing experiences enveloping and holding captive the audience.”

This beloved holiday tradition is the story of a girl who dreams of a Nutcracker prince and a fierce battle against a Mouse King with seven heads.  After winning the battle, the Nutcracker prince takes her away to a world of dancing sugar plum fairies.

Countless hours in front of the mirror to perfect every, position and routine lead up to the performance day of a classic story and Butler University holiday tradition.

Lindsay Moncrieff, a senior dance-arts administration major and one of this year’s sugar plums in “The Nutcracker” tries to keep her performance day as sweet as the part she plays on stage.

Moncrieff said that the night before she performs is not always filled with dreams of dancing coffee, hot chocolate and a nutcracker prince, no matter how rested she wants to be.

“It is sometimes difficult to sleep with all of the excitement and adrenaline building up,” Moncrieff said.

After trying to rest as much as possible, Moncrieff makes sure to arrive at Clowes Memorial Hall about two hours prior to the performance to begin warming up and to get a head start on hair and make-up.

Once behind the curtain, she joins the other members of the Butler Ballet on stage for a warm-up class taught by one of the professors.

Moncrieff is one of 110 dance students performing this year.

“It’s like a community,” Moncrieff said.

After warming up, it is time to get ready.  When she is prepping for the performance Moncrieff said she is surrounded by her good friends and listening to fun music, trying not to think about the performance.

“We have plenty of time to get nervous,” Moncrieff said.

In her quiet moments of rehearsing alone, Moncrieff listens to Ingrid Michaelson on Pandora because it is relaxing.

Watching her classmates from the wings of the stage, Moncrieff and her dance partner keep each other focused before they go on.

“My dance partner is one of my best friends, so we have a special little ritual to shake off the nerves before we go on stage,” Moncrieff said.

As soon as she starts dancing, Moncrieff said the nerves go away.

“It is a dream,” Moncrieff said.  “[We] are taking a part in someone else’s dream.”

When the dream ends and the curtain closes, Moncrieff often heads to a local late night favorite, The Northside Social, with her parents for some good old fashioned macaroni and cheese.

The Nutcracker is not just a favorite holiday tradition for the Butler community, the E.T.A. Hoffmann piece holds a special place in Moncrieff’s heart.

“I don’t know what I would do if I weren’t performing in it,” Moncrieff said.  “It’s a part of me.”

But at the end of the show, it’s not the sugar plums or the growing Christmas tree that warm this dancer’s heart.

“I love the response of the audience,” Moncrieff said.  “If we get a standing ovation, it feels really good, because we’ve all worked so hard for that. It’s totally worth it.”

What would you tell someone who has never seen The Nutcracker?

“Follow the story, enjoy the musical score by Tchaikovsky played live.  The score is magic in itself, and I hope you are touched by the magic.”           – Michelle Jarvis, professor of dance

“It truly is a magical experience.  It definitely puts me in the holiday spirit and gives me a great feeling all over.”
- Larry Attaway, dance department chair and  director of the Jordan Academy of Dance

 “It is a charming, happy and easily understandable story to one of the greatest scores by Tchaikovsky performed by a live orchestra; it boasts outstanding dancing, bright costumes and handsome scenery. No previous experience or knowledge of ballet is required.”
- Stephan Laurent-Faesi, professor of dance

Did you know?

• “The Nutcracker” has made an annual appearance at Butler University since 1982.
• Before Nov. 12, the student dancers logged 120 hours of pre-dress rehearsal.
• Collectively, over 130 performers come together to make The Nutcracker happen: 110 dance students and 20 children from the community.
• “The Nutcracker” first premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1892, and it was not well-received by the audience, because it took too long for the Sugar Plum fairy to appear on stage.

                                                Showtimes

Dec. 1 at 7:30 p.m.
Dec. 2 and 3 at 8 p.m.
Dec. 3 and 4 at 2 p.m.

Admission

$28.50, $21.50 adults; $23, $17 child/student/senior; $20, $14 groups of 15 or more (+ $2.00 renovation fee per ticket)

Photo by Maria Porter

This year, Butler University is looking to planet Earth to stimulate academic conversations throughout its colleges.

The Earth Project, run by a committee of faculty and staff through the provost’s office, is designed to support cross-campus collaborative activities and promote collegiality among the faculty, staff, and students.

“I think it’s interesting that although the themes have all been planet-related, there has been a wide diversity of interpretations of these themes, some of which are explicitly environmental and some of which are not,” said Timothy Carter, director of the Earth Project and director of the Center for Urban Ecology.

Events this semester have included an author’s presentation, a local food convention, an alternative cooking demonstration and lectures on biodiversity conservation and environmental justice.

Titled “Yin Yang Ruminations: Mahler’s Song of the Earth,” the next event in line celebrates the centenary of the death of composer Gustav Mahler by investigating his song cycle “Das Lied von der Erde” (“The Song of the Earth”).

Xiaoqing Liu, an assistant professor in the department of modern languages, is presenting this event with professors from the Jordan College of Fine Arts.

“Yin Yang Ruminations,” according to the proposal submitted by Liu and others will delve into the song cycle to illuminate the relationships between Mahler’s German lyrics and the classical Chinese poems that inspired them.

The proposal says that the translations of these poems from Chinese to French, and then to German, and their adaptation by Mahler have transformed the poems into a complicated picture of Chinese aesthetic.

This cultural mixture will be expounded upon in the event, which will include both lecture and performance elements.  The implications of such a mixture are also an important element of the event, according to Liu.

“Artists communicate with one another across time and space,” she said. “That’s one thing that I especially want the Butler students to be aware of. They should open their minds to a much larger world, rather than their immediate lives and environment.”

Another Earth Project event, open through Friday, is a student photo gallery exhibition throughout Jordan Hall, featuring photographs by Butler students of the land in and around Rome.

Over the summer and throughout this semester, the committee members have been accepting proposals from faculty, staff and students for events related to an investigation of the Earth.  The committee chooses events to sponsor and offers grants to help offset the costs.

Carter said next semester’s events so far include a lecture by Wes Jackson on the relationship between land and one’s sense of place, an exploration on the history and practice of brewing cider and a presentation on literary and film genres relating to eco-horror and eco-fantasy.  The committee is still accepting proposals.

Specific information regarding these events is forthcoming on the Earth Project’s Facebook page, “The Butler University Earth Project,” and on Butler’s website through the provost’s office.

The next Earth Project event takes place today at 7:30 p.m. in Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall.

Photo by Maria Porter

Last fall, art became an official major in the Jordan College of Fine Arts.  This fall, art students are reviving an organization that brings art back to the students.

The Visual Arts Student Organization is open to everyone and welcomes students of all levels of talent and majors.

Elizabeth Mix, an associate professor of art and adviser of the club, said she hopes VASO will help to bring about arts recognition and acknowledgment from people both at Butler University and in the community.

“Several times since I joined Butler, individuals outside our community have said to me ‘I didn’t know that Butler had an art program,’” Mix said.

The revival seeks to fix this.  However, VASO is not a new concept or organization.

Created when the department only offered a minor, VASO ended when the students who had minors graduated. Now, Mix said the revival is taking on a new purpose.

“The old VASO was a refuge for students who loved art but found it mainly absent from Butler’s campus,” Mix said.  “The new VASO can celebrate and promote the creation of a freestanding program, the new major and  new spaces in the Jordan College Annex.”

Angela Mion, senior psychology major and treasurer of VASO, said the club welcomes all majors and levels of talent because art is everywhere, and one of the club goals is to bring art back into the lives of the students.

“Art is essential to culture, and I want to bring that back to Butler,” Mion said.

Mix said that the approach to bring the art back to Butler is two-pronged: exhibitions and outreach to the Butler community and field trips to the art scene of Indianapolis including places like the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Harrison Center.

Mion said  the organization  has interactive projects in mind that will incorporate fashion design, painting, photography, graphic design and more.

“I’m most interested to see what happens when stores of untapped creativity are pooled together to make something for the whole university,” Mion said.  “I think the possibilities are endless.”

Despite the fact that an art major is relatively new at Butler, Mix said that art in general is important, no matter the major or number of people in the major.

“It changes people’s perceptions of their environments,” Mix said.  “It provides an outlet for creativity.”

Mion said that she hopes the club will be a resource for students to broaden their artistic horizons and bring each other to a new level.

“This is a place [where] a pharmacy major can learn to paint from a biology major,” Mion said, “where an English major can sharpen her photography skills with a marketing major.”

For more information, contact President Maria Porter or Vice President Rachel Anderson at mcporter@butler.edu and reanders@butler.edu, respectively.

VASO is open to all students and Mion said there will be a call-out meeting Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m.  Room to be announced.

The Butler University Symphony Orchestra will perform the world premiere of an orchestral commission by renowned composer Akira Kobayashi next week. The concert is part of the inauguration celebration for new Butler University President Jim Danko.

The piece, entitled “Astraea,” was written specifically for the BSO and accompanies the “Fire of Desire” art symposium at the Jordan College of Fine Arts, which features Kobayashi and other scholars from Japan, Buffalo, N.Y., Cincinnati, and Butler.

Astraea is a star-maiden, and goddess of justice in Greek mythology. Kobayashi said the piece comes from his enjoyment of watching twinkling stars in the clear night sky and his belief that stars bring good luck.

Kobayashi teaches music composition and theory at the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music in Nagoya, Japan. The school is described as the Juilliard School of Japan by Butler music professors.

Sophomore oboe performance major and BSO member Jessica Robinson said “Astraea” is an atonal piece centered around unison rhythmic motives against a backdrop of other musical material, which produced an interesting texture.

“It’s disjointed, but there’s also unity,” she said.

Robinson also said this material is punctuated by sudden and startling “empty measures,” or short, complete silences by the whole ensemble.

“In this piece, I tried to produce colorful sounds and focused on contrast,” Kobayashi said. “This piece starts with a short, quiet part, followed by a violent section. Alternating between static and dynamic moments, the piece gains momentum, developing in intensity and excitement before reaching a tense climax.”

Kobayashi said the piece ends with a return to the quiet section.

Junior string bass performance major Brianna Nielsen said she is excited to meet Kobayashi, who is attending the BSO’s final rehearsals and performance.

“I’m interested to know if there are any cultural elements [of the music] that he can explain that we might have missed,” Nielsen said.
Along with “Astraea,” the Butler Symphony Orchestra is performing Edward Elgar’s “Cello Concerto,” with soloist Marianne Roszyk, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F Minor.

Kobayashi’s work is also the centerpiece of a concert by the JCFA’s Composers Orchestra on Thursday, Nov. 10 at 8 p.m. in Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall.  This concert will feature Kobayashi’s solo work, as well as some chamber music written by Butler student composers.

The Fire of Desire symposium offers events all week to Butler students, faculty and community members, with lectures including “Counterfeit Van Gogh,” “New Music for Guitar” and “Tonality as the Object-Cause of Desire.”

The concert will take place on Sunday, Nov. 13 at 3 p.m. in Clowes Memorial Hall.

A group of 20 dance majors from the Jordan College of Fine Arts will illustrate what it means to be a body in motion and perform among the crowds of the Indianapolis City Market and the Circle Centre Food Court Nov. 4 and 5 as part of the 2011 Spirit and Place Festival.

Dance Professor Cynthia Pratt and Associate Dance Professor Larry Attaway worked together to choreograph and assemble a structured improvisational piece that showcases how the body moves.

The piece, entitled “@Work, @Rest, @Play,” highlights people going about their everyday lives.

“The dancers [will] be moving in and among regular people as they go about their daily business,” Attaway said.

It will be more than the average “flash mob,” and Attaway said he expects the audience to react as if they are witnessing a mob but hopes they make a connection with the performance.

Erica Johnston, a sophomore dance performance major, said the piece will add unique interpretation to actions that people do on a daily basis.

“Everyone who sees this presentation of movement should be able to find something they can emotionally relate to,” Johnston said.

In order to prepare for the piece, the group met to determine what it meant for the body to be at work, at rest or at play under the supervision of Attaway and Pratt.

In addition to the choreography, Attaway composed the music which Johnston said opened up many creative possibilities to the dancers as they worked through the stages of the piece.

By discussing these different definitions, the group devised a structured performance that allowed for elaboration and creativity in two different settings.

“You could say we’re not performing a pre-choreographed piece but improvising with our surroundings to convey our idea of what the body looks like during work, play and rest,”said Cameron Clark, a freshman dance performance major.

Clark said the choreography in an urban setting calls for simple and uncomplicated movement so as not to lose the  meaning.

Senior dance performance major Sean Sessions said dancing outside of a performance hall adds a new level to performing and having an unprepared audience will only add to the excitement.

“Dancing outside of a performance setting is invigorating,” Sessions said. “It will be a new challenge,  having an audience that is unprepared and an actual part of the project is sure to be exciting.”

Circle Centre Food Court

Head straight down Meridian Street, around the monument and take a right on Illinois Street. Park underground and take the elevator to Level Three.

Indianapolis City Market

Take Interstate 65 south to Exit 111 for Ohio Street, turn right on Ohio Street and left on Alabama Street, turn right on E. Market Street.