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(03/30/09 1:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The fifth annual Turkish Film Festival, in alignment with this year’s
theme “Women in Turkish Cinema,” broke misconceptions about Turkish
women through the power of film in “Innowhereland,” which played
Saturday.
The film centers around the story of Sukran, a woman in her 40s, and her desperate search for her missing son Veysel.
Sukran follows clues and her own intuition from Istanbul to Mardin, a
small town in southeastern Turkey, to find her son. Mardin represents
the concept of being in a strange land and being forced to adapt to
strange customs.
The cinematography of the film captures both Sukran’s desperate plight
and the emptiness of feeling like she is in the middle of nowhere by
using color schemes of the desert during her journey in Mardin.
The dramatic irony of the film lies in the fact that all along, the
audience knows her son is dead. In the end, Sukran continues to wait
for her son, holding out hope that he will turn up someday.
“The film shows the power of a mother’s love and how it can overrule
any belief in a reality, no matter how blatant it appears,” freshman
Farrell Paules said. “Any woman would probably do what Sukran did.”
Graduate student Kako Koshino also said the film captured an issue that
was not particularly exclusive to Turkish women, but was realistic.
“A mother’s love for her son is found all throughout the world,” she
said. “It is interesting that the main character just happened to be a
Turkish woman.”
The political themes of the film rested on the reality of Sukran’s
situation once she got to Mardin. In Mardin, the only other female
character to appear was an older woman who prophesied that her son was
waiting behind a door.
Graduate student and presenter for the festival Sinem Siyahhan said the
world of Mardin, which seemed to be dominated by men, was set up
purposely and that it connected with the reality of women’s situations.
“It was a good way to show the reality of how differently women are
treated in Mardin, coming from Istanbul, which is a very liberal
place,” she said. “Women in the southeastern region, which tends to be
more strictly controlled by government and the military, are only
allowed in public spaces at particular times.”
Siyahhan said if Sukran was oppressed in any way, it was likely through her delusions of her son’s state of living.
A female character in the early part of the film sympathizes with Sukran’s maternal struggle.
“Humankind is such a low creature,” she says. “It gets used to anything. You’ll wait in vain and nothing will come of it.”
Graduate student Sobhi Mohanty said the presentation of the film
probably broke stereotypes of Turkish women for those who have never
been exposed to Turkish culture.
The festival, which is free and open to the public, continues at 8 p.m.
from Thursday to Saturday in Ballantine Hall room 109, with screenings
including English subtitles.
“Turkish women are not just these oppressed beings that people think
of,” Mohanty said. “For the most part, they are very progressive and
modern just like everyone else.”
(03/30/09 12:57am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In preparation for her first doctoral recital, graduate student Sara Ann Radke said she has to master the nuances of a foreign language, which includes elements of meaning, diction and acting.The last third of Radke’s recital is sung entirely in Russian. She will perform at 8:30 p.m. today in Ford Hall. Radke said it is the first time a graduate student has performed a recital with a Russian set in about 20 years. She said although it’s a requirement for all doctoral voice candidates to take one year of German, French and Italian, she chose to perform seven songs in Russian, presenting their own challenges for her first recital.She said the way she performs the entire recital can make or break her career as a soloist. And this recital is just one of three.“Doctoral committees attend each of my recitals and decide, based on my performance, if I have to do another one,” Radke said. “The key to each performance is preparation. You wouldn’t perform if you weren’t ready.”Radke said she is especially nervous about the Russian set, “Seven Romances on Poems,” composed by Dmitri Shostakovich from poetry by Alexander Blok.In preparation for the “very challenging” music, Radke said she is getting help from a Russian diction coach.“He has been very helpful in terms of sitting with me and speaking over the language,” she said. “When you sing you have to modify vowels in order to get the best resonance for your voice, so he’s been helping me do that.”Radke said she has also learned the importance of word stressing in a language. She said even stressing the wrong syllable of a word can completely change its meaning. Marcello Cormio, Italian diction coach for the IU Opera production “Giulio Cesare,” said communicating a foreign language to an audience also involves a special level of mastery.“The ultimate goal of singing in a foreign language is to create art,” Cormio said. “But you have to sound as though the language you’re singing is also your native tongue.”Graduate student Daniel Bubeck, who played the lead in “Giulio Cesare,” said that while there is a lot of technicality in terms of accurate diction and pronunciation, the process of singing in a foreign language is more poetic.“When we sing, we also have to be actors,” he said. “There are certain levels of emotion that go into every piece, every word that you sing.”Bubeck said there were people who came to “Giulio Cesare” just to see the onstage actions of the performers and listen to the poetic nuances of every piece. On the other hand, he said that despite the beauty of the work, an audience must be able to understand what the poet is meaning to say.Cormio said the process of performing in any language is a lot like stage makeup.“From far away it is so beautiful,” he said. “But then you see them backstage and realize how much detail goes into the makeup. Singing is a lot like that – a lot of detail for the goal of creating art.”Radke said that while singing in Russian has been a great learning experience, it can be physically and emotionally taxing.“The set was written for a famous Russian opera singer, Galina Vishnevskaya, and her husband, who was a cellist,” she said. “So it is very hard. There are moments where just on one word, or a syllable of a word, I am required to give it all I’ve got.”
(03/26/09 12:20am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Three graduate students are on a mission to dispel misrepresentations of Turkish women through the power of film in the fifth annual Bloomington Turkish Film Festival.The films will run at 8 p.m. every night from Thursday to April 4 in Ballantine Hall room 109. The festival will feature six films with English subtitles. The festival was first organized in 2005 by Abbas Karakaya and Burcu Karahan, who were Turkish doctoral students in Central Eurasian Studies, according to the event’s Web site.The event is organized every year by friends who hope to carry on the tradition.Graduate student Ozan Say said the tradition has been successful thus far.“Every year, three or four new Turkish grad students form a committee and re-organize the festival as others leave to pursue other ambitions,” he said. “We all live around each other and are still in contact. It’s refreshing to get new ideas going every year.”This year, the festival’s theme is “Women in Turkish Cinema.” When it came to deciding what the theme would be, grad students and committee members Say, Ihsan Topaloglu and Sinem Siyahhan sat down and watched a series of Turkish films depicting women in various lights.“In most Turkish cinema, women are typically portrayed one way,” Siyahhan said. “With the festival, we were hoping to show films that captured the spirit of all types of women in Turkey.”One way of doing that was by showing a range of film genres, such as documentaries and cult films, for the first time. This year, the festival is showing a cult film called “The Girl with the Red Scarf” and a documentary called “The Play,” according to a Turkish Student Association press release. Siyahhan said the documentary, which has a female director, empowers women to express themselves in ways that don’t limit them.“Ideas about women are changing,” she said. “They are becoming more conscious of who they are and who they want to be in this world.”Topaloglu welcomed the challenges of selecting the films to be presented. He said he wants to show other sides of eastern Europe.“Many films of eastern Europe can be kind of depressing and dark,” he said. “I just wanted to pick films for this year’s festival that were more colorful.”Another way of representing Turkish women in various lights was to show films that shattered stereotypes.“There is an idea that women in Turkey are always submissive,” Say said. “I thought it was important that we show that many Turkish women are also engaged in politics and have different conceptions of love and what it means to them across transnational borders.”Say, Siyahhan and Topaloglu said they all hope to introduce IU to new perspectives that will open student minds to other cultural messages. The event is free and open to the public.“Just like any country, Turkey has its problems,” Siyahhan said. “It is important, however, to understand that within any culture, in any country, there is always diversity.”
(03/25/09 3:36am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The world’s largest student festival, MovieFest, is coming to IU thanks to a student collaboration with a host of campus organizations and local sponsors.The festival provides students with cameras and laptops for free so they can create their own 5-minute films within a week, said senior Jack Shannon.“Just eight years ago, Campus MovieFest was a student organization at Emory University that was established to promote school spirit,” said Brandon Chong, director of educational programs for Campus MovieFest since 2007. “Now we tour the nation’s top universities from USC in LA to Emerson College in Boston.”Chong said this was the group’s first time touring through the Midwest, with IU being one of its first stops. He added that interest in IU was boosted through the efforts of Shannon and the Union Board. Shannon, a business student with an interest in film, said he contacted Campus MovieFest after he heard about it this summer from a friend. The prizes for the winning student team range from more than $2,000 in door prizes to iPods to Final Cut Studio software, according to a press release for the event.Shannon said his organization, Blooming Artists Agency, is a student-run production and management company that grants students of all backgrounds the opportunity to create high-quality productions. The organization contacted Campus MovieFest to get the wheels turning for its visit to IU.He said Blooming Artists Agency was able to conduct a successful fundraising campaign in January to raise money to host Campus MovieFest at IU once he confirmed it would be making the stop.“We had to rent out the Buskirk-Chumley Theater,” Shannon said. “Once the winners are selected for this contest, then it will become a red-carpet affair with paparazzi and everything else, like a real star-studded event at the theater. Friends can see their peers’ work on a big screen.”The final event will be free and open to the public at 7 p.m. April 9 at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, according to a press release.Senior Audree Notoras, films director of Union Board, said she is excited for the turnout of the final event. She said so far 50 two-person student teams have signed up to submit work to the contest.“The finale event should be awesome. In addition to all the giveaways, we’re working on having live music,” Notoras said. “This will be a great learning experience for students who are involved. Students can do something creative that they’ve never done before.”Shannon said he believes IU students have a lot to offer to this project. “There is such a great artists’ hub here in Bloomington,” he said. “There are a lot of talented students here looking for creative outlets. This is a great opportunity for students to get involved and express themselves.”Event sponsors included are the Blooming Artists Agency, Union Board, Residence Hall Association, Office of the Provost, IU Hollywood Hoosiers, Hoosier Eye Doctor, Best Buy and the IU College of Arts and Sciences. Shannon also said he believes in the potential of the work that will be submitted. The outcome of Campus MovieFest might also be a way to promote campus school spirit, which Chong said was the original mission of the organization.“Just because IU may not have the name or prestige that other schools do doesn’t mean we can’t compete,” he said. “Our work is right up there with the best students at NYU or UCLA. IU students have so much to offer.”
(03/23/09 3:37am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Freshman Christopher Bailey didn’t get much of a spring break tan.Instead of vacationing like many other students, Bailey spent part of his break in Atlanta attending and speaking at this year’s 10th annual Linkage Summit on Leading Diversity conference from March 16 to 18.Bailey said the annual conference usually centers on various workshops housing corporate managers from various companies as they strive to improve diversity at their establishments.This year, however, was different.As members of the National Society of High School Scholars, he and several other students from across the country were invited to participate in the conference, sharing opinions about what diversity meant to them to some of the nation’s top companies in several Q&A workshop forums.The students in attendance represented all future youth leaders in the 16- to 26-year-old age bracket called the “Millennials.”The companies attending the conference wanted to know what Millennials felt upon entering the workforce and what they had to offer to GenX members and Baby Boomers as diverse members of society.“The workshop that I participated in was quite full,” Bailey said. “That alone had a huge effect on me. These companies wanted to hear what the voice of America’s youth had to say.”Bailey said he brought an interesting perspective to the conference as a biracial Hispanic and white male. He also relished the opportunity to represent IU and to open people’s eyes about IU’s own diversity initiatives.“It was great to get IU’s name out there to show that we are making strides in pushing for a more diverse campus for long-term educational benefits,” Bailey said.Part of the challenge for other students speaking at the conference was to not only learn more descriptive definitions of diversity, but to decipher what diversity meant to them.Freshman Alexis Carter of Spelman College in Atlanta said the conference was a great opportunity to give a voice to the Millennials as an African-American woman and a member of the National Society of High School Scholars.“One of things we figured out was the difference between companies that support diversity and companies that accept it,” Carter said. “For example, which companies fully accept differences of race and sexual orientation? We asked that we all become accepted for who we are and what changes we can implement in the work force.”Livingston McNeer, a 2006 graduate of Emory University in Atlanta and assistant manager of member services for the society, presented on the society’s behalf well as that of his Millennial generation.The National Society of High School Scholars supports student leaders such as Bailey and Carter by offering them scholarships upon their admission to college. McNeer said this encourages other students to take positions of leadership, which impressed the companies attending the conference.“We were all speaking on behalf of the upcoming generation of young future leaders,” he said. “We are representing different locales, ages and ethnic backgrounds, as well as improving our chances to be represented fairly in terms of what we are believed to offer to the workforce.”Bailey said the conference was a great way to network and meet people with a stake in corporate America, and to him, the conference’s importance overruled getting a tan on the beach.“I did have plans to go to Panama City like everyone else,” Bailey said, “but after reading about the conference on its Web site, this was something I couldn’t ignore.”
(03/23/09 3:35am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In an effort to keep up with growing digital technology demands, the IU Press is launching IU Press Online.The program will feature about 300 titles of books and journals from five subject areas.The five subject areas being launched on the Web site are African Studies, African American/Diaspora Studies, Jewish/Holocaust Studies, Philosophy and Russian/East European Studies, according to an IU press release.Kathryn Caras, director of electronic series and publishing of the IU Press, said while the Web site is still under construction, it is important to note that the project, which is expected to be completed by the end of March or the first week of April, will not operate within a limited database.Caras said users who want to access material on IU Press Online should take advantage of subscriptions and single title sales on the database, which includes individual libraries, a combination of libraries or the whole database.“Our mission is to disseminate scholarship throughout the world,” she said. “One way to do this is to make information of global concern readily accessible to students and professors conducting research at an affordable price.”Subscriptions, Caras said, can be set at a week, a month or a year, and textual materials are even more accessible for people with handheld devices. iPhones users can download requested materials from IU Press Online and will have until the end of their subscriptions to use the information.Though IU Press Online will not necessarily take the place of student textbooks, the service will be rich enough in textual material to support research in certain areas of global scholarship, officials said.“It’s perfect for grad students doing a dissertation,” said Pat Hoefling, marketing and sales director of the IU Press.Hoefling said a source of inspiration for the creation of IU Press Online is credited to libraries’ becoming more electronic. She said many academic and general publishers that are still producing print media are migrating to the Internet and other electronic services for simpler access.“Students and professors will finally be able to access current readings from academic publishers online anywhere,” Kate Matthen, assistant sales manager of IU Press, said in an e-mail. “They will be able to download whole books, do full text research on topics, and citing sources will become easy.”She added that students will have easy, instant access to assigned readings and pages from e-books and students can use social networking bookmarks such as Digg and Delicious.While still anticipating the launch of IU Press Online, Caras said future developments include launching an extensive music library, which she said she hopes will be available by fall 2009, in addition to an anthropology library.Also possible are extensions on professors’ privileges with IU Press Online. Caras said this will incorporate a subscription plan that goes by semester and allows professors the space to review books to see if the material can be used in their classes.Accessibility of materials on IU Press Online, however, is not limited to students and faculty at IU.“What the print industry really needs is a cross platform that is all about efficiency and accessibility,” Caras said. “We want to do that with IU Press Online and make it where anyone around the world has access to simple research materials – anyone from Bloomington to Moscow.”
(03/13/09 1:16am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>They perform in living rooms, dirty basements that “violate all sorts of fire codes” and just about any place that has electricity – all in the name of live performance art. The Missoula Oblongata, a three-person, unconventional touring theater company, will come to Bloomington to perform “The Moon, The Raccoon, The Hot Air Balloon” at 7 p.m. March 17 at Boxcar Books. Admission is $5, but theatergoers can donate more to help support the group.Steven Stothard, general coordinator of Boxcar Books, said the touring company has performed in Bloomington before and sought out the local bookstore as a venue. “The way The Missoula Oblongata does performance work and high art would be similar to the way we operate,” Stothard said. “They perform radical plays that cater to radical themes found in Boxcar.”For Boxcar, this means catering to the needs of Bloomington’s artistic community. Its shelves are stocked with zines, comics and books from local artists that promote abstract ideas about social justice, politics and media, according to its Web site. The store itself is independently operated and run by volunteers.For The Missoula Oblongata, expressing radical ideas employs a similar do-it-yourself sensibility, said Donna Sellinger, co-founder and performer in The Missoula Oblongata.“Everything you see as far as set, props and lighting we made and do ourselves,” Sellinger said. “For smaller performances like the one at Boxcar or in someone’s living room, we have a 6-by-6-foot square as our stage.”Sellinger said inspiration for show ideas comes from making a list of “impossible dreams” with co-founder Madeline Fitch and director Sarah Lowry, who complete the trio. The list for their latest show “The Moon, The Raccoon, The Hot Air Balloon” includes “eating giant cakes, flying on stage and playing detective,” Sellinger said. This brainstorming process led to the creation of the characters, which are “an obese raccoon, her trainer and an allegedly Panamanian magician whose lives all collide at the World’s Fair,” according to a press release for the show.Another part of the do-it-yourself sensibility of the touring company includes promoting a political message of independence from traditional theater and inventing new ways to express oneself.“Performance artists are also social artists,” Sellinger said. “We have to be engaged, politicized critical thinkers. Our method of performing that encourages people to think outside the box and come up with new ways to create art is our political process.”Sellinger said she hopes the work of The Missoula Oblongata will inspire others to create unique theater opportunities in their own communities. “We’re always so excited to collaborate and work with other artists if the opportunity comes, but we encourage people to establish their own companies that go on tour to promote a form of live art that isn’t just music,” she said.Becky Renfrow, booking agent for The Missoula Oblongata, said Bloomington was attractive to the company because it embraces artistic expression of many kinds, and local businesses like Boxcar Books lend support to the artists of the community. “We were interested in Boxcar Books because it’s a space that, through books, encourages creative thinking and allows us to think about our place in society and how we can contribute to our communities,” Renfrow said. “I think The Missoula Oblongata does that well. It’s fantastic.”The “impossible dreams” the group lists as inspiration for shows might not be so impossible after all.“The way The Missoula Oblongata does performances is very organic,” Stothard said. “The intimacy they hope to establish with the audience should inspire people who appreciate their work to do it themselves.”
(03/10/09 3:53am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Students interested in getting an inside look at the White House will have a chance to do so through a new internship program.On Feb. 26 the White House Office of Media Affairs announced a new program in which interns will “supplement their learning experience” by attending social events, weekly lectures and community service activities sponsored by the White House, according to a White House press release.The position is unpaid, and participants are responsible for providing their own transportation and housing. The announcement has IU students and faculty united in favor of such an opportunity, regardless of party affiliation.“It’s a great opportunity to everyone to be involved in, despite what your beliefs are,” said Pat Buschman, junior and external vice chair for IU College Republicans. “No matter if it’s George W. Bush or Barack Obama, you should keep a balanced viewpoint when applying to a position like this.”Some said President Barack Obama’s internship program is a great way to call students to public service.“Something like this is great because it encourages younger people to get involved in the political process,” said IU staff member Jeff Beveridge. “There’s a lot of apathy out there.”Christine Barbour, a political science professor, agreed.“I imagine the competition will be intense, but I am all in favor of anything that gets students interested in public service,” she said in an e-mail.Graduate student Rich Powell said Obama’s influence on the nation’s youth should encourage students to apply.Last year’s presidential election drew record numbers of the youth to the polls and made Indiana a blue state for the first time since 1964.“College students were a huge part of the deciding vote in favor of electing Barack Obama president,” Powell said. “The fact that he is willing to open the White House to interns must be a good thing.”Shawn Walter, president of IU College Democrats, said there is more to earning this internship besides staking out the competition.“To me, the likelihood of earning an internship in the White House is good,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where you go to school, but rather what you do while you’re there.”
(03/09/09 2:17am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“This struggle is not just their struggle, it’s our struggle,” said human rights activist and photographer Jonathan Moller at a reception for his photography exhibit “Our Culture is Our Resistance.”The event, sponsored by the IU History Graduate Student Association, took place Friday at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures in conjunction with the 2009 Paul Lucas Conference in History at IU, titled “Making Memory, Making History: Ideas and Identities Beyond Borders.” Moller discussed his experiences chronicling the genocide and civil war in Guatemala with an intimate audience. He said the worst examples in the past 25 years of state-sponsored genocide in Central America occurred in Guatemala against the indigenous people, who represent between 60 and 65 percent of the population. The events of the civil war left 200,000 people dead.“It began to get some attention just 25 years ago, but the world, blinded by the media and racism, never knew,” he said. Moller’s mission to expose the atrocities developed while he was in art school in the mid- to late 1980s. “My parents raised me to be conscious of social issues within other cultures,” he said. “I decided to chronicle Guatemala when I heard of the U.S. involvement in the Guatemalan civil war. I wanted to combine art and activism to depict this story.”In the eight years he spent in Guatemala, Moller took black-and-white photographs of refugees who established small, self-governed communities. He said these nomadic communities boasted the slogan “Resistir para vivir,” Spanish for “Resist in order to live.”He said that throughout his stay, many of these people went missing and were brought to United States-sponsored internment camps with other displaced Guatemalans. He said they were often killed, and their remains were scattered across the land by the Guatemalan military. Moller captured these experiences through what he called “technical photographs,” which displayed fractures and wounds on bones found in exhumations.In connection with the theme of the presentation, the power of memory, Moller shared a quote from one of the refugees with whom he spoke with about the process of uncovering the remains.“‘Exhumations should represent good news and moments of joy instead of reflections on the past,’” Moller said, reading the refugee’s words. “‘Exhumations help to heal the wounds of pain and sadness from the loss of loved ones.’”Moller concluded with another quote from a Guatemalan resident. “Would you be willing to convey our message to other lands?” the quote read.Jing Jing Chang, a presenter in the conference from the University of Illinois, said Moller conveyed his message successfully. “This presentation gave another perspective that wasn’t academic about the situation and showed the human side to the suffering of the people,” Chang said. “... He wants the pictures to speak for themselves.”Senior Sarah Anderson agreed. She said students with an interest in human rights should see Moller’s exhibit because it is “important to not forget about what happened.”“It’s powerful,” Anderson added. “It increases awareness and brings forth issues people don’t know about.”Audience member Bryce Martin said he advocates the necessity of remembering the tragic events in Guatemala.“Some of this is still going on, and as long we have amnesia about this, genocide will persist,” he said. “If more students knew about this, it may call them to action. Just seeing the photographs will tear your heart out.”
(03/09/09 2:16am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In the spirit of the recent presidential election, a new, high-energy musical premiered Friday through Sunday at Bloomington’s Harmony School as a test run before its debut in New York this summer.Ryann Ferguson, co-writer of “VOTE!,” flew in from New York to see the show. Though Ferguson was not present during the rehearsal process, she said the students involved in the show’s production brought her vision to fruition.“I wrote the show from the perspective of multiple levels of humor,” Ferguson said. “There’s something for everyone, from slapstick to political jokes to historical references. There was a physicality involved in the humor, and I knew once the show got on its feet that humor would come across. And it did.”Ferguson said she wrote the show from her own interest in politics and relished the idea of capitalizing on the “campiness of the political process” by placing the show in a high school setting. “It’s a cartoon musical masquerading as live action,” Ferguson said.Junior Sam Glover, an audience member, agreed. “The show was very lively. It should go to Broadway,” he said. “It keeps you on the edge of your seat.”Muffin Pasquinelli, played by sophomore Jen Saltiel, is the musical’s main character. She is in competition with Mark Boyd, played by sophomore David Coleman, and Nikki Murphy, played by sophomore Taryn Pryor, in a high school election for student body president. Mark is an overachiever and Richard Nixon fanatic, and Nikki is an advocate for all the good in the world.Muffin comes off like a high school version of the “Legally Blonde” movies’ Elle Woods. Her campaign manager and best friend Trish Yoder, performed by sophomore Danielle Sacks, worries that Muffin’s highly processed appearance would cause Mark to run a negative campaign against her. In a plan to sabotage Muffin’s campaign, Mark takes pictures of Muffin kissing Trish’s snowboarder boyfriend, unbeknownst to Muffin, during the song “D-Gates.” Trish’s hopes for Muffin to get the popular vote of the students are dashed when Mark shows her the incriminating evidence, and they decide to join forces. Their plans backfire when Muffin, through sheer determination, exposes her dream of becoming a stewardess, or as she said in the show, “flight attendant, the more politically correct term.”Muffin’s recognition of her actual dreams achieves the show’s larger messages of expressing individuality despite the fear of failure and understanding the impact of a single vote despite a crooked political system. Senior Quinto Ott said the musical got its message across.“It was clever for the show to have a high school venue as a way to show what the democratic process was about,” Ott said. “It was topical, but not pretentious.”Ferguson said she was impressed with the audience turnout and was glad to finally see the audience reacting positively to the subversive material in the script. Of course, she said her main mission is not to be a subject of controversy. The message hits home in the final lyrics of the show:“To vote is to try, no matter how naive, to take a chance and wear your dream on your sleeve. You can’t change the weather, but you can put on a coat! You may not like who wins, but you’ve at least got to vote.”
(03/05/09 2:09am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“Vote!,” a “sharp, entertaining” new musical from New York about three high school students competing for the title of student body president, premiers Friday at the Harmony School in Bloomington. It’s a premiere thanks to YouTube and a series of chance circumstances.Eric Anderson, a recent Jacobs School of Music graduate and music director of several musical theater productions in Bloomington such as “Reefer Madness” and “Songs For a New World,” was searching for his next project more than a year ago when he stumbled upon a video blog post by Andrew-Keenan Bolger. The post discussed the reading of a new musical called “Vote!” in New York that was looking for help getting off the ground. Anderson followed up the post by looking for the music of “Vote!” on YouTube.“I listened to some demo tracks from the musical on YouTube and found Ryan J. Davis, who was decided to be the director, on Facebook,” he said. “I e-mailed Ryann Ferguson, one the writers, telling her I liked the show. I never thought she’d get back to me.”Anderson’s interest paid off.“I got a green light for the show back in September 2008, and I created a Facebook group,” Anderson said. “Davis got here on February 8, a month ago. We’ve had less than a month to put it all together.”Anderson said it turned out that Ferguson and Davis were good friends, and she sold Davis on Anderson’s ideas. He eventually became the producer and musical director of the show.Davis is an established director and political activist in New York. He said he had been involved with “Vote!” for almost a year in New York City before coming to Bloomington. Anderson said that part of bringing Davis to Bloomington to work on “Vote!” was convincing him of the active arts community and the big talent pool of student artists.“Bloomington found us,” Davis said. “This was the perfect opportunity for a young college cast, and Anderson offered to bring me out to do this.”Sophomore Jen Saltiel, the lead actress in the show, welcomed the chance to work with New York talent in Bloomington.“It was refreshing to have an outside opinion and a different spin on things from how productions are done at IU,” she said.Saltiel said this involved staying true to the material of writers Ferguson and Steven Jamail while being allowed the opportunity to “bring who we are to the characters.”Part of staying true to the material meant having an authentic setting. Since the musical centers around high school students, the shows will take place in Bloomington’s Harmony School, which producer Anderson said was a charming, bare-bones building that was perfect for what he wanted. Davis added that inside the building there will jumpstart be flyers and banners of candidates to further the experience for audience members the minute they walk in the door.Saltiel believed the setting, along with the multi-faceted cast, helps to capture the essence of the show and the spirit of the recent presidential election.“That event was good for a lot of people, and I believe this show will resonate with students on that level.” she said. “It’s about voting and taking a chance to make an impact on the world. It’s about who you are as a person and taking a stand.”Davis agreed.“With this great experience, we’ve learned so much about what works and what doesn’t,” he said. “It’s been a great way to bring young artists together.”