The Butler University community can look forward to one more tradition being added to its annual calendar of events—the JCFA Artist Showcase.
Butler’s Arts & Culture Club is hosting the showcase Friday in Lilly Hall in an attempt to bring arts students together. The progressive event will showcase music, theater, dance and visual arts. A reception will be held afterward with refreshments from Yat’s and Flying Cupcake.
“In art, music, dance, theater—we’re all ridiculously busy throughout the year,” Lydia Zacharias, president of the club and a senior arts administration and public relations major said. “It’s hard to get to each other’s performances even if you want to.”
The entire performance will take about an hour and a half, with the audience seeing the music piece first, then theater and dance with the visual art hung in the area where the reception is located. There will be at least two or three pieces for each section.
For example, the theater section will feature an improv group orchestrated by Becca Muszynski, a junior theater major. The music section will feature a Ke$ha song—among others—performed on ukulele by Caitlin Haycock, a senior arts administration major. The art section will feature ceramics from Elsa Carodenuto, a senior German business and psychology major, a dance duet set to “Blackbird” and a candy-inspired project by Lindsey Drake, a freshman exploratory major.
That’s just a sampling.
The performers are looking forward to both the event and the event’s future as a Butler mainstay.
“It allows JCFA to become more of a community as opposed to four separate schools within the college,” Emily Bax, a junior music education major said, who is also in the show.
Drake, who’s also the marketing head for the event, said the event will be a successful way to showcase Butler talent to not only friends and families, but also the university’s neighbors in Indianapolis.
The program’s first run hasn’t been all smooth sailing, though.
Zacharias said the feedback has been mostly positive from the JCFA, but it took some convincing for some of the professors. She said she is extremely grateful she had so much help from Michelle Jarvis, current interim dean of JCFA.
Zacharias also said she is slightly disappointed that the timing of the event conflicted with another major campus event, falling on the same night as Relay for Riley.
In general, April tends to be packed with schoolwork and activities for students as the semester nears its end. However, she said there has been lots of JCFA interest and she’s been approached with many questions from those in the college.
Zacharias is pleased with the event’s progress and the ability of the club to have a project that all involved could be personally invested in. She said the event would never have happened if even one person in the club would have backed out.
She’s excited about the visibility this could bring to the club.
“I’m really proud this even is starting,” she said. “I want this to be the kind of thing I can come back in five years and see what it has become.”
