The Art of Change

In this episode, we find ourselves still working in isolation due to ongoing COVID restrictions and without access to classrooms, offices, or numerous essential tools. But with a new found hope that our lives are slowly returning to a new normal as the pandemic finally recedes. We’re still on Zoom a lot these days, too, and these interviews were conducted on that platform and therefore do have some sound variances.For over a year now, students have persevered with remote learning and have discovered virtual ways to present their work. Lacking crucial materials, being isolated, and facing uncertain futures have all been part of their experience.The Irwin exhibition usually includes a highly anticipated and publicized group show in the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery, complete with a lively opening night party for friends and family, plus a chance show one’s work to the UC Santa Cruz campus community and to the public. The last physical show was in 2019, and last year’s exhibition was the first, and was assumed to be the last, virtual presentation.However, this year’s exhibition will also have to be virtual but with the valuable experience gained from last year, and again, using cutting-edge 3D modeling tools. Entitled, Fabricating Solace, the Irwin Scholarship exhibition, showcases the work of a select group of UC Santa Cruz’s outstanding young artists from the UC Santa Cruz Art Department.Fabricating Solace opens online on June 3, 2021.For more information about the Irwin 2021: Fabricating Solace virtual exhibition and related events, and to find out more about the artists, please visit: art.ucsc.edu.The UC Santa Cruz Arts Division is very grateful for the William Hyde Irwin and Susan Benteen Irwin Scholarship, now in its 35th year. It is the most prestigious award in the Art Department at UC Santa Cruz, and selection is based on the excellence of the nominees' creative work. Students each receive $2,500. This podcast is a production of the UC Santa Cruz Arts Division. Written, edited, hosted, and produced by Maureen Dixon HarrisonTheme music by Eric Mack.All other music by Kevin MacLeod. 

In this episode, host, Maureen Dixon Harrison, had the great honor of talking with theater arts professor and San Francisco Bay Area theater legend Danny Scheie as he was preparing for a live reading event of his signature piece, Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, which will be a fundraiser for the newly established Danny Scheie Scholarship Fund. The play will be presented over Zoom on April 23, 2021 and stars Scheie as the Dromio twins -- a part he’s made famous over the years -- along with an impressive cast of UCSC students and alumni. After over 30years at UC Santa Cruz, Professor Scheie is retiring from teaching, but thankfully not from acting. He’s enjoyed a spectacular career as a stage actor, winning numerous awards, including the Bay Area Critics Circle Award three times for Leading Actor; two times for Supporting Actor, and once for directing. Scheie also has earned consistently rave reviews from major publications like the New York Times, Variety, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several others for the wide array of principal roles he’s performed at top theaters all over the country. As you’ll discover in this insightful talk, he candidly discusses his loves, his loses, his addictions, and even his fears. His sharp and hilarious observations make him the ideal guest, and it’s no wonder that he’s not only a very beloved professor, but also an exceptionally talented actor. We hope you’ll enjoy this lively conversation which, due to continuing COVID restrictions, was recorded on Zoom.This podcast was produced, edited, written and hosted by Maureen Dixon Harrison, Asst. Director of Communications, Arts at UC Santa Cruz.Theme music by Eric Mack."Midnight Tale" by Kevin MacLeod.For more information about the UC Santa Cruz Arts Division and upcoming events, please go to: https://arts.ucsc.edu 

In this episode, the UC Santa Cruz Arts Division is thrilled to kick off our new Arts Lecture Series by celebrating the upcoming 30th anniversary of UCSC’s African American Theater Arts Troupe.Founded in 1991, by UC Santa Cruz drama lecturer, producer, director, and mentor Don Williams, the African American Theater Arts Troupe, or “AATAT” as it’s often called, has had a profound and lasting effect on countless numbers of African American students throughout the years. As you’ll find out in this lively and candid talk with Don and two of his alumni, Niketa Calame-Harris and Dr. Eric Jackson-Scott, Don’s tireless work and dedication have inspired so many. His students have a deep appreciation, and love, for his willingness to address head on, not only what it means to be Black on our campus, but also the importance of exposing African American students, and all students, to the Black experience through presenting plays written by Black playwrights.After starting the African American Theater Arts Troupe, Don also founded, in 1993, the Rainbow Theater in order to give students from various diverse backgrounds the opportunity to experience and create multicultural productions. We hope you’ll enjoy this thought-provoking and dynamic conversation which was originally presented live, via Zoom, on December 1, 2020 and hosted by KZSC radio’s Luisa Cardoza. 

Professor Jimin Lee's work explores themes of mobility, displacement and labor on the personal and social level as seen in traffic, places of transport, or objects that move or are "in transit" -- travel in both the daily and in the migratory sense. She talks with guest host Lyle Troxell about her ongoing work in print media that adopts emerging print strategies in an expanded art context.

Professor Jennifer Maytorena Taylor's work is regularly seen around the world through broadcast, film festivals, and theatrical screenings at venues like the Sundance, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Locarno Film Festivals, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, New York Museum of Modern Art, PBS, Sundance Channel, Al Jazeera, and NHK-Japan. She talks with guest host Lyle Troxell about the fast-paced and unpredictable turns her filmmaking has taken her, from FBI raids to witnessing the effects of incarceration on disenfranchised populations.Professor Taylor’s new verité feature For the Love of Rutland explores three years in the life of a small blue-collar town grappling with deep change in an era of refugee crises, the opioid epidemic, and extreme ideological and cultural polarization. Supported by the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and the Sundance Film Music Program, For the Love of Rutland was recently named one of the “10 Most Exciting Films” at Hot Docs 2020 by Indiewire.

Professor micha cárdenas sees education as a path to liberation, and her teaching focuses on discussion, interactivity and creative practice as research. cárdenas is writing a new algorithm for gender, race and technology. As the director of the  Critical Realities Studio, she talks with guest host Lyle Troxell about this hybrid studio/lab that uses multiple realities, in art, to address critical global issues including climate change, racism and gendered violence.

Professor Michael Chemers, founding Director of the Bachelor in Fine Arts Dramaturgy program at Carnegie Mellon University and Associate Professor of Theater Arts at UC Santa Cruz,  talks with guest host Lyle Troxell about his "Ghost Light" model of dramaturgy, a muscular, creatively engaged, artistically vibrant approach to dramaturgy that requires thorough historical understanding, theoretical training broad and deep, and a passionate dedication to creating powerful, relevant performances of all types. Chemers, the founder of the FrankenCon conference, also has a thing for monsters and reveals to Lyle some of his deepest fears. 

Nominated for an Academy Award for her animated documentary film Last Day of Freedom (co-directed with Nomi Talisman), Professor Dee Hibbert-Jones talks with guest host Lyle Troxell about her work that incorporates animation, installation, public art, and documentary film examining power and politics. She also reflects on how surreal it is to walk the red carpet.

The nine documentaries in this year's SocDoc program are the culmination of an intense two years of immersion by the students into the art of documentary media and craft, scholarly research and analysis, nonfiction storytelling, and the politics of representation. These new media makers are trained to go "Beyond The Story", documenting communities, cultures, issues, and individuals who are marginalized in the current landscapes of representation, and the films shown here are the finished results of these studies.This year, the screening will be available online through August 31, 2020. To see the films, go to: https://film.ucsc.edu/socdocThis year's filmmakers and their films are:  Kyle Baker: The Eighth ProvinceAndrés Javier Camacho: Open LineCarlos Campos: Campos de Sueños-Fields of DreamsMelanie Dang Ho: sống ở đây | to live hereJeanne Rachel Lieberman: Desiertos VerdesMahshid Modares: Sanctions on the SkyBrian Myers: Far From KawthooleiDeepika Shrestha Ross: Momo AmericaBoris Yaikin C.: The Songwriter's MissionFounded in 2005, SocDoc has a contemporary view of documentary that sets it apart from traditional approaches. Students considering enrollment should have a clear idea of a project, a commitment to social justice and human rights, and a desire to study their subject areas in depth.  UCSC's SocDoc program prepares graduates for careers in independent media, documentary, human rights work, and creative contributions to a range of fields.  This podcast was produced, edited, written and hosted by Maureen Dixon Harrison, Asst. Director of Communications, Arts at UC Santa Cruz. 

Rachel Nelson, PhD, talks with guest host Lyle Troxell about her artistic journey that has led her to become the interim director of UC Santa Cruz’s Institute of the Arts and Sciences (IAS). Nelson also teaches in the UCSC’s History of Art and Visual Culture department (HAVC). Currently, Nelson is co-curating a multi-sited group exhibition, Barring Freedom, engaging art, prisons, and justice, which will be shown bi-coastally in New York City, San José, and Santa Cruz.