VWRS Presents Mita Mahato: Thursday, March 1 at 7  p.m. in Kimball Theatre, visiting author and artist Mita Mahato will present her work. Mahato specializes in paper arts and comics, and uses cut paper and collage techniques to tell stories.

“Beyond Race” Voice Masterclass and Discussion: Thursday, March 1 at 5 p.m. in Chism Recital Hall, this event features guest artists and Whitman voice students, and is open to the public.

The Trial of the Catonsville Nine: Thursday, March 1 through Sunday, March 4, “The Trial of the Catonsville Nine” will be performed in Harper Joy Theatre. The play recounts the trial of nine Catholic protesters of the Vietnam war who publicly burned draft documents.

Artist Talks: Friday, March 2 at 12 p.m. in Sheehan Gallery, Professors M. Acuff and Nicole Pietrantoni will discuss the artwork they have displayed in the Studio Art Faculty Exhibition in Sheehan.

Battle of the Bands: Saturday, March 3, 8 p.m. at The WEC, Walla Walla University will be hosting a Battle of the Bands. Tickets can be bought online at aswwu.com/botb.

KWCW Open Mic: Thursday, Feb. 22 at 6:30 p.m. in Kimball Theatre, KWCW will have its first open mic of the year. Performances will include music and comedy acts.

Power & Privilege Symposium Films: Thursday, Feb. 22 there will be two film screenings in conjunction with the Power & Privilege Symposium. At 6:30 p.m., “I Am Not Your Negro” will be shown in Maxey Auditorium, followed by “Awake: A Dream From Standing Rock” at 8:00 p.m.

Third World Cinema presents Indigènes (Days of Glory): Friday, Feb. 23 at 7:30 p.m. in Kimball Theatre, there will be a screening of the film “Indigènes,” also known as “Days of Glory.” The movie follows four North African men who fight in the French army during World War II, dealing with French discrimination and spreading Nazism.

Whitman College Music Department Student Composers Concert: Saturday, Feb. 24 at 3:00 p.m. in Chism Recital Hall, this concert will feature musical works composed by Whitman students.

Freequency: Saturday, Feb. 23 at 6:30 p.m. in Reid Coffeehouse, this slam poetry event will feature performances by Whitman students.

Women in Leadership Symposium: Thursday, Feb. 15 the Women in Leadership Symposium will feature six women in leadership. At 11:30 am in the Reid ballroom there will be a lunchtime event to introduce the panelists, and at 7:30 pm in the Olin Auditorium, the panelists will share their stories and views on leadership.

One Act Play Festival: Thursday, February 15 through Sunday, February 18, the One Act Play Festival will run at Harper Joy Theater. The festival features plays written, selected, performed and designed by students. Audience members can vote for their favorite play, and the winner will receive a cash prize. Showtimes and ticket information can be found online at the Whitman College Events Calendar, or at the theater box office.

Finding Your Future: Communications & Media, Fine & Performing Arts: 4:00 pm on Friday, Feb. 16 in Fouts 201 there will be a panel on careers in Fine & Performing, followed by a panel at 5:00 pm on Communications & Media.

Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration: Friday, Feb. 16 from 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm, the China at Whitman Club and the Asian Studies House will be presenting a Chinese New Year Celebration in the foyer of Cordiner Hall. There will be Chinese food, a screening of the Spring Festival Gala in China, and activity stations including calligraphy, tea tasting, face painting, paper cutting and lantern riddles.

The Rainmaker: Friday, Feb. 16 – Sunday, Feb. 25 the Little Theatre of Walla Walla will be performing the play “The Rainmaker.” Set in the Depression era, the play follows a young woman named Lizzy through a drought in her rural town and the arrival of a Rainmaker who promises to make it rain. For performance times and ticket reservations, visit the Little Theatre of Walla Walla on their website.

A blend of humor and well-meaning advice finds its home in the recently-started KWCW radio show “The Curl of the Burl.” Hosted by Koby Haigerty ’21 and Ethan Treadwell ’21, the show serves as Whitman’s very own advice radio show.

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First years Ethan Tredwell and Koby Haigerty getting goofy in preperation for their KWCW show

“The Curl of the Burl” is no ordinary source of advice; it is also a source of laughter, stemming from the humorous, joking nature of the show. While it is an advice show, both Haigerty and Treadwell emphasized that neither of them are experts on giving advice. Many of the questions they receive, in fact, are humorous in nature.

“We’ve gotten everything from just questions that are meant to incite a debate like “how should dogs wear pants” to … there was one that was actually a more serious question which was from a friend of mine, who wants to be closer to her brother but only talks to him when they’re both on break and back at home, and then when they’re both at college they don’t communicate,” Treadwell said. “So we gave a more serious set of advice for that question, but obviously joked about how dogs should wear pants.”

Their responses to funny questions can quickly grow into the realm of hilarity, providing for an entertaining hour on air. Haigerty spoke about one such question that incited an unexpected, good-humored rant.

“Last week we had a question where someone’s friends recommended them a book, and they felt uncomfortable about reading the book in a public space because of what the cover looked like, and they were asking whether or not they should read the book,” Haigerty said. “So we looked at the cover and analytically broke down the cover for a solid thirty minutes just talking about, ‘how would you judge this if you saw this kind of thing? Like there’s already four different fonts on this cover, I’m not exactly sure this is reading material,’ and we just kind of went on this huge rant about this book’s cover.”

The two hosts do occasionally give sincere advice to those questions that call for it.

“There are questions that might come in that relate to something that has happened to us in our past … so in that regard, there are some things that are important to us that we do want to answer truthfully,” Treadwell said. “Otherwise, it’s just meant to be entertainment and kind of bring a smile to people’s faces before they go out on a Saturday night. So I think in both ways it’s kind of beneficial in some way to the audience, but it’s not really meant to be that ‘come to us with your problems and we’ll fix them’ kind of show.”

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First years Ethan Tredwell and Koby reading fan mail in preparation for their KWCW show

A typical show starts out with some introductions and light banter between the Haigerty and Treadwell before they jump into answering questions. Some of the questions have been sent in prior to the show, but they also have a phone line and take questions if anyone calls during the show. They close the hour with a segment called “The Complaint Box,” in which Haigerty presents Treadwell with a random topic and Treadwell must complain about it for the remaining five minutes of the show.

“It’s kind of our creative hour,” Haigerty said. “We can just let our minds wander wherever we want to go, it’s so liberating—even if nobody’s listening … it’s just so much fun to have the sense that maybe somebody is, and we’re doing this really cool almost improv theater stuff for them.”

The show is very much an engaging one, with natural banter and laughter arising between the two hosts.

“We’re both pretty good at just taking a topic and finding the funny there, or if not funny, just finding something within that and then once I’m going on something he’ll see what I’m doing and build off of it,” Haigerty said. “That’s why I’m really glad I’m doing it with him because we’re really good at playing off each other’s strengths as far as, if it sounds like he’s [Treadwell’s] faltering on something, I’ll pick up the slack where he’s going and then bring it along … If you have a friend, you can just riff off each other forever.”

Haigerty added, “I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I think we’re actually pretty funny sometimes. And for us it’s just so much fun, and for the people who have listened and given us comments on it, they had a really good time, because we do actually give real answers every now and then, and when we do, it’s really cool advice, and when we are just goofing around it’s actually sort of funny, so it’s kind of a fun little mix of serious and silly and all that kind of stuff rolled into one hour-long package.”

Listeners can send their questions in at any time, including during the show. Otherwise, tune in to KWCW 90.5 Saturdays from 7-8 p.m. for an hour of laughter on “The Curl of the Burl.”

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First years Ethan Tredwell and Koby reading fan mail in preparation for their KWCW show

“Creating Kin(d)” Stevens Gallery Opening: Thursday, Feb. 8 at 4:00 p.m. in the Stevens Gallery, there will be an opening reception of “Creating Kin(d),” a photography exploration of connecting with others and Walla Walla.

Latest News from the Cosmos: Sunday, Feb. 11 at 7:30 p.m. in Kimball Theatre, the Tournées French Film Series will present the movie “Dernieres Nouvelles Du Cosmos” (“Latest News from the Cosmos”). The film is a documentary following the life of the autistic poet Babouillec.

Climate Science and Faith: Friends or Foes?: Monday, Feb. 12 at 7:00 p.m. in Olin 138, climate scientist and professor from the University of Washington, Tom Ackerman will speak about the relationship between Christianity and climate change.

Winter Orchestra Concert: Thursday, Feb. 15 at 7:30 p.m., the Whitman College Orchestra will perform several pieces, including Ernest Bloch’s Concerto Grosso and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “The Lark Ascending.”

Those who attended Mariam Eqbal’s talk on Thursday, Feb. 1 experienced different kind of animation than the traditional, mainstream animation of Pixar or DreamWorks. Eqbal, an experimental animator who also teaches at the University of Richmond, came to Whitman to give a lecture on animation, as well as the approach and philosophy behind her own work.

Eqbal’s work has been shown across the globe. It is far from commercial animation; for example, her animation “Choreography for the Scanner” feature photos of dancers scanned hundreds of times paired with static sounds and record players.

In her talk, Eqbal explained the philosophy behind her work. It is very much rooted in process. She explained that movement, the core of animation, has to do with intervals. There is not a whole in animation; it is rather the process that makes the movement. This means creating the frames that fill the space between two key frames, which create movement in the animation in a process called “inbetween.”

“My work has everything to do with the inbetween,” Eqbal said. “I’m very interested in just process itself.”

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One frame from Jay Tyson’s piece from the workshop.

Eqbal described a project she did when she rolled around 3,000 beads out of clay. Each time, she used the same process to create them, but each bead turned out slightly differently. She concluded that one cannot quantify process. Much of what she does is qualitative, rather than quantitative.

“It didn’t matter what I did,” Eqbal said. “I would get quality, not quantity. I would get this very organic process.”

This proved true as well for other pieces when Eqbal would use the same process repeatedly, but each product would be different, and when put together would create one of her animations.

Much of Eqbal’s work incorporates the scanner or printer. In one piece, she repeatedly scanned photographs, each time turning out a slightly different piece to make the animation. In another instance, she printed the same image 200 times.

Eqbal also incorporated art history into her talk, introducing the early filmmaker Eadweard Muybridge, who made panoramas. He made a breakthrough when he helped out Stanford founder Leland Stanford, who had made a bet with a friend over whether or not all four legs of a horse would leave the ground at the same time when it was running. Muybridge set up cameras along a track and photographed a horse running at different points. Not only did he prove that all four legs do leave the ground at the same time, but he also realized that showing all of the images in succession would make it seem like the horse was indeed running, movement — creating a sort of animation.

Professor Justin Lincoln, who teaches new genres courses in the studio art department, organized Eqbal’s visit to campus and also commented on how Eqbal’s work is in conversation with early cinema.

“One of the things that’s distinctive is how aware it is of art history,” Lincoln said. “I think that she’s very aware of what has come before, and her work is in conversation with that. It’s in conversation for example with the work of Eadweard Muybridge and early cinema, but I also think it’s very much in conversation with things that are happening both today and where we’re going in the future.”

Lincoln continued, “One of my dreams is that there will be more independent and experimental animation, not just the corporate model of animation, because the corporate model can be outsourced really easily, whereas I’m excited when an individual can seize the means of production and make their own thing. A lot of us at this point can afford a scanner, and what we can do with a scanner and computer right now, by ourselves, is staggering, but we need to know that the possibility is out there.”

Art and anthropology double major Grace Pyles ’18 spoke similarly about the ways experimental animation opens doors.

“I think it should open people up to the possibility that … the means to make really cool art are at our fingertips, and a lot of people I don’t think realize that,” Pyles said. “I think it’s really cool to open yourself up to expressing yourself in new ways.”

Pyles said that the talk inspired her to try out new ways of animation, especially given how accessible Eqbal’s revealed it to be.

“It’s also less scary to think of animation as changing from point to point and not necessarily as, you have to draw all these complicated things,” Pyles said.

Pyles participated in the workshop Eqbal gave on Saturday in which those interested could pursue this new interest in animation.

Overall, experimental animation opens a new way of creating, leading those involved — including Eqbal — to constant exploration. As Eqbal said during her talk, “The hole that I’m in, it’s impossible to get out of it.”

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Samarah Uribe Mendez

Anthony Reale

The three colleges in the Walla Walla Valley united for a night of music with “The Voice of Walla Walla,” the first ever tri-college singing competition between the schools. Eleven contestants from Whitman, Walla Walla University (WWU) and Walla Walla Community College (WWCC) performed the evening of February 3 at WWU before an enthusiastic crowd, who listened with much excitement and cheering before voting at the end of the night for their favorite acts.

Whitman’s very own Anthony Reale took first place singing “Corner of the Sky” from the musical “Pippin.” Sherman Scheid of WWU was voted second place winner with his performance of “Evermore” from “Beauty and the Beast” (2017) and third place went to WWU student Amanda Harrison, who sang “Hollow” by Tori Kelly.

While these three performers were named the official winners, the amount of talent each of the performers showed was astounding. From singing original compositions to well-known songs, the contestants all proved themselves worthy of being a part of “The Voice of Walla Walla.”

The music that night varied widely, showing off the diverse range of voices in the Walla Walla Valley. Danielle Rivera of WWU got the audience clapping with her energetic performance of Beyoncé’s “Halo,” while Whitman’s Amara Killen sang a soulful rendition of “Mama Says” by Ibeyi, accompanying herself on the piano.

Timothy Kosaka, the Social Vice President for the Associated Students of WWU, came up with the idea for the singing competition. The student body presidents of all three schools had long wanted to collaborate on an event, and Kosaka pitched the idea for the singing contest in the summer of 2017. It was received with excitement.

Kosaka explained his thoughts behind the idea of “The Voice of Walla Walla.”

“I thought that something that really would interest all three groups was a music contest, because music is something that everybody loves, whether you like singing or playing an instrument, or whether you just like listening to music or singing in the shower,” Kosaka said.

Auditions for the competition were open to students from all three schools and were judged by the three student body presidents: Whitman’s AnnaMarie McCorvie, WWU’s Adam Hagele and WWCC’s Ricardo Aguilar. The judges chose eleven finalists to perform in “The Voice of Walla Walla.”

For Tehani Louis-Perkins, the Chair of the Whitman Events Board, watching the tryouts was especially enjoyable.

“I think just seeing the different students come out and try out [was the most rewarding part], especially because you kind of know who are the people who participate in a capella, or who play for Crossing Isaacs and all that kind of stuff — you always hear them sing, but to hear other people come out and try out who normally you wouldn’t see, or you haven’t heard, it was pretty awesome,” Louis-Perkins said.

From there, the event organizers put together a spectacular show framed with fog machines and flashing lights, complete with theme music from “The Voice” that played between each performance. The three judges sat onstage and congratulated contestants after they sang. Indicative of the success of the event can perhaps be seen in the full house that gathered to watch, bringing together audiences from all three schools.

Whitman student Annelise Ellingboe, who opened the night singing “Mistakes” by Lake Street Dive with her band, expressed enthusiasm for this collaboration, noting that the three schools do not often interact.

Kosaka echoed similar sentiments and cited benefits of this kind of collaboration.

“Collaborating together, and working together, and bringing those different ideas together to have a shared event and a shared mission teaches us about working together, and opens up our minds to different ideas and different backgrounds, and helps us to have a fun night together,” Kosaka said.

This event did indeed succeed in bringing together the different communities. Regardless of what school each contestant was from, the audience voiced their support with wild applause. For example, when Riley Handy from WWCC sang “At Last Then” by Etta James, students from all three schools cheered loudly. The decisive move of solidarity came about during first-place winner Reale’s encore, in which he reprised “Corner of the Sky” and was met with the phone lights of audience and fellow contestants swaying in the air. When he finished, the contestants connected in a group hug onstage.

Kosaka hopes “The Voice of Walla Walla” will become an annual tradition.

“I’d love for it to happen every year,” Kosaka said. “It’s something I’m going to definitely recommend to the next Social VP. And I would love personally to see it go from school to school, like every three years it would be at Walla Walla, every three years it would be at Whitman and then the CC, and I think that would make it a true tri-college event … If we make it an annual thing and every year we do it at a different school, I think that would really be exciting and it would make it something that would last for years to come.”

The History of Animation: Thursday, February 1 at 4 p.m. in Fouts 201, experimental animator Mariam Eqbal will give a lecture on the history of animation, as well as on her own work. She will also give an animation workshop on Saturday, February 3 from 10 am-4 pm. There is room for 15 participants, who can register by contacting Amber Connor.

Hari Kondabolu: Friday, February 2 at 7 p.m. in Reid Coffeehouse, stand-up comic Hari Kondabolu will give a performance. He addresses subjects such as race and inequality, and he recently released a documentary called “The Problem of Apu.”

As I Open My Eyes: Sunday, February 4 at 7:30 p.m. in Kimball Theatre, the Tournées French Film Series will present the movie “À peine j’ouvre les…” (“As I Open My Eyes”). The movie takes place in Tunisia, a few months before the Arab Spring, and follows a young, rebellious woman.

The Revolution in Jordan: Neolithic Developments in the 9th – 6th Millennia BCE: Thursday, February 8 at 7 p.m. in Olin 129, Whitman Anthropology Professor Gary Rollefson will give a lecture as part of the AIA Lecture Series.

Art pieces of all forms now make their temporary home in the gallery space and hallways of Fouts Center for Visual Arts. The eleventh Annual Winter Student Art Salon opened there on January 16 and will continue through February 7. The salon features work by both art majors and non-art majors, who submitted pieces for review just before winter break. A jury of three Whitman art professors—Charly Bloomquist, Rick Martinez and Justin Lincoln—selected pieces to be displayed in the salon.

Art on display ranges from photography and prints to sculptures and paintings, all unique and engaging. Creativity knows no bounds in the studio, and some students took the opportunity to experiment and blend their art across genres and mediums.

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Piece by Anna Dawson ’18. Photo by Carson Jones.

Art major Anna Dawson ’18 considers herself primarily a photographer, but also enjoys playing with paper. Her interest in both mediums resulted in two of her pieces displayed in the salon: “In Between,” a collection of photographs displayed as swirls that hang from the ceiling in the gallery, and “Mom and Dad,” a photograph that has raised ridges, which makes it so that the viewer sees a different face while looking at it from either side.

“I kind of just tried to combine the two [mediums], like how can we look at photographs that are 2D but interact with them as objects or a sculpture, or how can paper represent something more concrete as such a delicate material in comparison to wood or metal sculpture,” Dawson said. “It was kind of an experiment of the two things I’m interested in, and it turned out to be very engaging.”

Dawson also spoke about the meaning behind her piece.

“It’s about how we are the product of two people, at least,” Dawson said. “For me, it’s really clear that it’s about being mixed race–Asian and white–and so for me that’s what it’s about. But for a lot of people, I think it’s just about being the product of two. So if you go to one side you’ll see a picture of my mom, and the other side’s a picture of my dad, and I’m just flat, so it’s kind of supposed to be the lenticular part equals the flat one. But a lot of people seem to like it because you can interact with it by moving around. It’s very logical, kind of like an equation; it makes a lot of sense and can be relatable to a lot of audiences.”

Katina Henderson, who works in the Olin Division Office and took the class Material Translations as a non-traditional student, also took photography in another direction. Her piece, titled “Time Road,” melded together photographs of various roads, starting from a footpath, leading to a wagon road, and traversing various other roads before coming to a photo of Highway 299 in northern California and ending with a time lapse of car taillights turning a corner.

“The prompt for that was to document time passing, and I thought, when it comes to roads, we walk the roads of our ancestors, all the time, all the way back to the ancestors who were just coming out of the ocean,” Henderson said. “[My piece] kept building on the human experience … so it starts out on a footpath and ends up with these red lights, and the time passing there was really amazing to me because it not only spoke about the physicality of the roads themselves, but also where we’ve gone as a species.”

Henderson was glad to have the opportunity to take this art class at Whitman because she feels she has not had the chance to exercise her creativity. Roads, which she explored through her art, also provided her with an opportunity to learn more about herself, as she has spent a lot of time on the road in her life.

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Photo by Carson Jones.

“I did [come to a new understanding], which was a surprise to me,” Henderson said. “I realized I was making roads that traversed time and space and brought me out the other side knowing a little bit more about not just myself, but the world.”

Dawson was also pleasantly surprised in making her pieces that were in the Salon.

“I think it surprised me–the response that I got–because I didn’t know what to expect, because it’s not really a traditional way to present photographs, and I’m not really using photographs in a way that highlights them,” Dawson said. “I think, in a way, it kind of takes away from photographs, the whole entertainment aspect of [‘Mom and Dad’ and ‘In Between’], but I think people like the interaction, and I think people like the glimpse rather than just the straightforward photograph … I think I’m just surprised every day when I do art.”

In addition to the reward of seeing one’s work on display, the Student Art Salon also gives some students the Louis B. Perry Merit Award for pieces that jurors feel are exceptional. Art major Hans Mills ’19 received one of these awards for his piece, “The Ballad of Poor Robert Johnson.”

The piece is a pop-up book detailing the story of Robert Johnson, who trades his soul to the devil in return for the ability to play guitar, in well-crafted images and lyrical language.

“I’d kind of always wanted to do some play on a kid’s book for a long time now,” Mills said. “I came across the story of Robert Johnson, sort of like this mythical story, and it seemed to lend itself pretty well to that format. There’s a couple different morals that you can get from it, which is kid’s book-like, but it’s also simple enough that you can tell it easily.”

Mills also explained part of the inspiration for the aesthetic of his piece.

“In terms of the artwork, there’s an artist called Edward Gorey who did a kid’s book, and it’s sort of similar,” Mills said. “It’s black and white–there are pen drawings, though–and that’s kind of the feel that I wanted to get for those, though.”

The process of making the book took many hours and required many steps, but was worth it in its culmination of a complex piece of art. Furthermore, the Student Art Salon is a great place to exhibit it.

“It’s great because [the Salon] is very accessible,” Mills said. “I’ve never submitted my own artwork for anything and I would be very nervous to do it in any other sort of situation because art’s very personal, so this affords you a place that you feel safe doing that kind of thing.”

Being such a safe space, the Salon is a great opportunity for students who are not art majors to display their pieces. In addition, it simply provides a place where people can see the kind of artwork students are making.

“Ultimately, it really gives me hope when I see these things in there because the people who are creating this art, they’re going to go out and, whatever it is they do with their lives, they’re taking that with them and putting it out there,” Henderson said. “And I haven’t seen anything in there that was dark or awful. Everything’s very interesting, if not hopeful and optimistic, at least intelligent, and that’s really important.”

Whitman’s Women Composers

Friday, January 26 at 4:00 p.m. in Chism Recital Hall

The event will feature works by Professors Riika Pietilainen-Caffrey and Kristin Vining. Professor Susan Pickett will talk about her research on female composers, followed by a Q&A.

Murder Mystery Dinner:

Saturday, January 27 at 5:30 p.m. in Lyman Dining Hall

The Renaissance Club will be holding their annual Murder Mystery Dinner. It is an interactive night of intrigue, costumes and good food. Tickets will be sold on Friday, January 26 in the middle of Ankeny.

Visiting Writers Reading Series presents Juan Martinez:

Thursday, February 1 at 7:00 p.m. in Kimball Theatre

Fiction writer Juan Martinez will read from some of his work and answer questions from the audience.