A sweeping set of performances came to the stage at Harper Joy Theatre for Whitman’s annual Spring Dance Performance, titled “breath, sweat, hair, dirt, dust.” Performances ran from April 12 to April 16 and featured the artistry of student performers alongside some notable guest choreographers.

The program included three pieces, each choreographed in styles distinct to the artists. Visiting Professor Nickels Sunshine performed in, as well as choreographed, “Take Me With You,” that opened the showcase. Accompanied by music that transitioned from ethereal to lyrical, Sunshine and student dancers performed it with beauty, emotion and rawness, using a mixture of fluid and forceful movements.

“Lately, I’ve been making very emotionally driven works that use ballet and modern dance, technical movements … pushing the edges of form and the body,” Sunshine said. “My works are driven by my somatic explorations, so I find that my material is maybe more closely related to my psyche and something that’s more intuitive.”

The second piece, “Beginners’ Club,” was choreographed by Professor Peter de Grasse. The piece used spoken text and also recalled Tanztheater, a combination of dance and theater styles that was partly influenced by German expressionist dance.

Tywen Kelly
“Beginners’ Club” 

“There’s an aspect of [Tanztheater] where you have performers who are not really just themselves dancing, but they’re not creating characters the way that performers would do in a play; it’s something in between,” de Grasse said. “The work with text is part of how they arrive at that persona.”

“Beginners’ Club” engaged all the senses with rhythmic dancing, the smell of a lighted candle and a section of singing. Jokes, loud running and laughter brought together a layered, theatrical dance. Echoing its vocal component, the last thing the audience would hear before the piece ended was remnants of laughter offstage as the door closed behind the performers.

Contrasting from the choreography of Sunshine and de Grasse, the work of guest artist Yvonne Meier incorporated humor and improvisation through a technique she developed called “Scores.”  For this technique, Meier stood onstage reading directions to her dancers during the piece “Sister of Gogolorez,” which the dancers would follow with their own interpretations. Thus, the piece was danced differently during each performance.

Tywen Kelly
“Scores”

Meier noted an interesting way the audience became more engaged with the dancers through Scores, which was evident through the performances in Harper Joy.

“Whenever I would do something like giving them Scores before the show and then they had to do them, I felt there was a wall in between the dancers and the audience,” Meier said. “But when I say the Score and they hear them in the same time, that wall would get erased.”

There was certainly more visible interaction between the dancers and the audience, who would laugh or gasp as the dancers performed funny, beautiful or tragic Scores.

Despite the differences in each piece, there were certain aspects tying them together.

“There’s … something in the air that’s shared by these works,” Sunshine said. “It’s confrontational, maybe.”

De Grasse pointed out the way each piece stems from its physical aspect.

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Tywen Kelly

“If there’s any theme, it has to do with the creative process and what we prioritize,” de Grasse said. “And how we prioritize things has some commonalities in the sense that … what we’re doing starts with the labor of the body.”

Through the hard work and discipline of the dancers and production team, as well as the expertise of all three choreographers, the showcase was a well-attended success that offered a sense of why dance is so valuable.

“It’s a life force,” Sunshine said. “It’s just essential that we move. And dance is a way of communicating, and it is beyond language. It is a consciousness that we can share, and … dance is in every culture, every time, and it’s human and so it’s important.”

The traditional and rich language of Shakespeare, combined with modern forms of mixed media, filled the stage in Harper Joy Theatre’s production of “A King Lear.” The play, performed first for Encounters classes before playing to regular weekend audiences, was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” with some text cut and technology added.

Directed by Professor Christopher Petit, “A King Lear” was the senior project of Delio Antonio Fernandez, Emily Huntingford and Grace Starr, and it was a big production. Four guest designers worked on the show, and Fernandez directed the addition of media and technology elements.

Sophomore Dani Schlenker, who portrayed Regan, shared her thoughts on why the play was adapted in such a non-traditional manner.

Dani Schlenker, as Regan, on right. Photo by Samarah Uribe.

“I think that the director was really trying to make the script accessible for first years,” Schlenker said. “It’s an interesting way to take this … play and try to make it something that can be very engaging for people who aren’t really used to seeing theater all the time.”

Video footage of several Encounters professors, who offered insights into the play, were projected at various points during the show, as were especially critical lines. Music and sound effects added to the intensity of moments. Fernandez sat on stage for the entire duration of the play, controlling all of this media. Sophomore Donovan Olsen, the stage manager, spoke to this important aspect.

“Probably the biggest challenge for me as a stage manager is keeping track of all those moving parts,” Olsen said. “It’s been a really interesting learning experience. Just seeing how these practices and technology can be used in theater has been amazing.”

Another intriguing addition to the show was the element of dance, which took place during a storm in the play. Huntingford, who played King Lear, explained that it reflected Lear’s state of mind.

“The dance is a way of completely breaking out of text and making the psychological more real through gestures,” Huntingford said.

This element helped Huntingford convey the madness and powerful emotions of King Lear throughout the show.

Photo by Samarah Uribe.

Huntingford and Schlenker both pointed out the difficulty of not getting too gloomy in performing and watching such a tragic show. However, there were humorous moments, intentional or otherwise. During the first performance for Encounters classes, a blood packet accidentally sprayed the wrong actor, eliciting appreciative laughs from the audience.

“The atmosphere at the beginning of the play was [like] people were just there for class,” Schlenker said. “Then this scene happened, people laughed, and it really opened it up and it felt like people received it very well.”

Huntingford was glad that humor could be found in the midst of such a tragic play.

“I think laughter is a response to things that people have such a visceral reaction to, or sometimes you don’t know how to respond to things that make you uncomfortable and so you laugh,” Huntingford said.

An often-asked question about Shakespeare is why his plays are still relevant and being performed. Ruby Daniel, a first-year who played Cordelia, explained her take on it.

“The play is about power, and it’s about growing old, and it’s about what is your true nature and what is your relationship to your parents,” Daniel said. “The stories that [Shakespeare] tells are about very basic human problems; they’re just told through beautiful, rich language that we get to explore.”

Building upon that view, Huntingford brought to light the ability to connect with characters and situations that seem unrelated to the viewer.

“In a way, it’s an exercise in empathy,” Huntingford said. “Something that seems so distanced from us isn’t actually … Youth and old age isn’t actually that separate.”

With that in mind, “A King Lear” was a very comprehensible, moving show made accessible and more compelling to a broader audience by an increased use of technology and very invested, hardworking actors.

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Photo by Samarah Uribe.

Excitement and an air of festivity filled the Reid Coffeehouse as performers took the stage to offer tastes of their cultures. This was the sixth annual InterNation Celebration, held on Saturday, Feb. 25. It showcased both international and domestic students, who performed with a wide variety of songs, dances, martial arts and poetry readings.

The event was hosted by the Beyond Borders Club, or BBC, an organization of international students and students interested in the international community at Whitman.

The evening began with a welcome from An Dang, president of BBC, who led the organization of the event. From there, Whitman student Dorothy Mukasa took over, acting as announcer throughout the evening with much energy and humor. The festivities commenced and were well-received by a full audience of Whitman students and Walla Walla community members.

Maggi Banderas, Assistant Director of the Intercultural Center, advised the club and noted the significance of such an event.

“It’s important to have a celebration of the diverse cultures that we have on campus, and I think it’s important for our international students to have an opportunity to feature some parts of their culture and have recognition from campus,” Banderas said.

The evening indeed captured some aspects of these diverse cultures with a flurry of colorful clothing, compelling music and moving words. Performances ranged from a Spanish sign language song to an energetic Nepalese folk dance, and ended with a fashion show.

The audience reacts to an engaging performance. Photo by Samarah Uribe Mendez.

Partway through the event, the club showed a video about BBC in which members of the club described it as being a safe, open community where they could learn about other cultures and talk about their own.

Prior to the event, Dang had noted that international students don’t often speak to domestic students about their cultures and where they come from, and that while Whitman students claim to be interested in learning about other cultures in a time of increased global awareness, they rarely reach out to international students.

“I want to promote or start the interaction between domestic and international students,” Dang said. “Sometimes … they think that they have to really watch their tongue when they talk to minority people, so that prevents them from talking in the first place.”

Banderas noted that international students may also find reaching out a difficult task.

“[International students are] often part of those groups of marginalized voices that don’t feel often heard,” Banderas said. “They often find a niche within the international student community … but are often lost in the larger community.”

Photo by Samarah Uribe Mendez.

Fathi Assegaf, a member of BBC, suggested that in order to have more conversation between domestic and international students, both sides need to make the effort, and there has to be balance.

“International students shouldn’t feel blocked from speaking about their own culture, but also shouldn’t feel pressured to speak about their own culture,” Assegaf said.

Two new events were added to the InterNation Celebration this year in addition to the annual celebratory show: an international costumes day, during which students wore clothing from their cultures around campus, and a Continuing the Conversation session centered on international students.

“The reason why we have the Conversation … is because during our planning process, we had the goal of structuring the celebration to be meaningful and to be thoughtful,” Dang said. “We realize that there’s another part of people [that] tends to avoid or deliberately ignore … what the hard part [of being an international student] is and the difficulties, and what we’re still not happy about at Whitman and what we want to change.”

In extending the InterNation Celebration into three days and addressing both the positives and negatives of being an international student, the event was an even greater chance for people to engage with the international student community.

“I hope that we can … [be] aware of [the international students] and of their identity, and not just where they’re coming from,” Assegaf said.

Dang is hopeful that this event can make a difference in how connected and supportive the Whitman student body can be.

“I hope that [the domestic students] really see how passionate we are in presenting and bringing our cultures to campus, and then how we treasure our origins,” Dang said. “And it’s just the message that wherever we go, our origins is where we start with.”

Diversity of thought is the focus of “Radio Wrongthink,” sophomore Emma Philbrook’s contribution to KWCW talk radio. Controversial topics and challenging ideas are plentiful in this unconventional show, during which Philbrook presents the opposite point of view to whatever the popular opinion is on campus. The show is hosted from 3 to 4 p.m on Tuesdays.

In starting “Radio Wrongthink,” Philbrook noticed that there is an unspoken expectation on campus that determines what opinions one is “supposed” to have.

“I think there actually is a fairly sizable community on campus that…[is] not what we think of when we think of the Whitman mindset,” Philbrook said. “I think [there are] a lot of people, even if they don’t agree with everything I say…who want sort of a change of pace, who want to be able to consider other things.”

Philbrook strives to provide hard facts in her discussions. Her shows have covered controversial issues and are backed by reliable sources. One week, in response to the idea that Trump is like Hitler, Philbrook looked up Dr. Lawrence Britt’s fourteen points of fascism and found that Trump did not fit the bill as well as some anti-Trump protesters claimed. Another week she focused on the recent immigration ban and brought up the fact that the Obama administration also cracked down on immigration.

Philbrook recognizes that many people may disagree with the points she raises, but she strives to give people the opportunity to think about these controversial subjects from multiple angles.

“Sometimes I’ll express my views, sometimes I’ll play devil’s advocate,” Philbrook said. “I had initially started the show with the intent of showing that there’s more than one point of view, but as soon as I got started writing stuff down and thinking up ideas I realized that it was really more like showing that there’s more than two points of view…there can be a middle ground and there is room to think up your own opinion.”

One of Philbrook’s goals in doing this radio show is to get people thinking outside the box, or in this case, thinking outside the bubble.

“They talk about Whitman sort of culturally being a bubble; I think ideologically it can be a bit of a bubble too,” Philbrook said.

Philbrook hopes that by presenting a range of viewpoints that challenge the Whitman norm, her show can also help bridge the gap between Whitman and the Walla Walla community.

“The prevailing Whitman perspective and the prevailing Walla Walla Valley perspective are different…so I would like to use the station to promote dialogue between Whitman and the larger Walla Walla community in a way that doesn’t rely on hearsay and general impressions,” Philbrook said. “Both [Whitman and Walla Walla] communities are a lot more complicated and dynamic than that, and I think if I can use this show to promote a mutual understanding that I will have done something important.”

Ultimately, “Radio Wrongthink” holds a thought-provoking nature.

“I try to have fun with it,” Philbrook said. “I don’t want to seem like some sort of raging ideologue. I want to be as hard as possible to paint into any given ideological corner. I’m just sort of being unconventional.”

One need not be a music major to love music, as senior Robby Brothers shows.

Brothers, a geology major, is active in Whitman’s music department and considers music an important part of his life. He plays the cello along with the piano and mandola, and is currently working on composing an album.

The cello is his primary academic instrument, as Brothers finds its sound compelling.

“It’s got a very particular tone,” Brothers said. “It’s the same tone as a human voice, the same range as a human voice, and I think that really speaks to people.”

Apart from playing for the Whitman Orchestra and taking private cello lessons, Brothers enjoys picking out non-classical pieces, such as alternative indie songs, to play on his instrument. For him, as it is for many other musicians, music is fun as well as academic. But it can also bring much more than that.

Photo by Samarah Uribe.

“It’s this different way that you can actually feel your emotions more fully,” Brothers said. “[It’s a way to] actually work through some of them sometimes I’ll frequently play piano before I start practicing another instrument because it gets me in a good mental space, or at least focuses my mental space.”

Brothers is grateful for all the guidance he has received from his parents and teachers.

“All of my teachers are so excited about [music], and I saw that excitement and was able to also feel it, which in itself is exciting,” Brothers said.

Also exciting is Brothers’ latest project: an album of his own compositions. It will feature the mandola, but Brothers also wants to bring in the cello and piano.

Although he welcomes anyone interested in buying a copy of his album to reach out to him, Brothers is not recording the album for fame or money. In part, his philosophy surrounding making and sharing music shaped why he decided to embark on the project.

“It’s just something that I want to do and share with people,” Brothers said. “I’m with a firm opinion that any sort of art is not completed until it’s been shared with people. It makes it feel real and complete, and you can no longer go back and fix it. People have heard it; it’s done.”

His album is also a product of outside forces. Brothers has been inspired by various other music artists.

Photo by Samarah Uribe.

“A friend of mine who’s now at Columbia Law School had this musical project going called ‘Slow Dakota,’ and that more than anything has been what’s inspired me to make music; it’s what inspired me to do the album,” Brothers said. “Ben Folds as well, because I’m captured by very simple melodies that at the same time sound full and beautiful. Music doesn’t have to be complicated or hard to be great.”

In making his album, Brothers again returned to the idea of music being a way of feeling.

“My album’s an example of me trying to capture emotions in music,” Brothers said. “It’s grappling with where mental illness meets real emotion…finding the line between what is actually a real emotion and what is unhealthy and unhelpful, and I think that’s something that words are very bad at explaining but music is very good at capturing in certain ways.”

Brothers does not plan to make music a career after graduating from Whitman; however, he wants to keep music a part of his life. It is as much an activity as it is a way to gather himself.

“It’s a very personal thing for me,” Brothers said. “I play it for me mostly and there’s something that music captures that words don’t sometimes. It’s an outlet.”

With hard work, practice and a passion for music, Brothers is now much more than a geology major, but an accomplished cellist and a fixture in the Whitman Music Department.

The Walla Walla Dance Company performed an excellent original take on the timeless story “Alice in Wonderland” on Saturday, Feb. 4. The show, titled “The Adventures of Alice,” took place in Cordiner Hall at 7:30 p.m. Showcasing dancers from all different classes in the dance company, the event incorporated genres such as ballet, jazz, hip hop and contemporary.

Photo by Samarah Uribe.

Nancy Wells, who directs the company, wrote and produced “The Adventures of Alice.” She, along with four others, choreographed the show, which served as a way to give the company’s dancers a chance to perform and show off their accomplishments.

The show depicted the story of Alice celebrating her birthday–a story of much fun and adventure. Wynter Doyle performed as Alice, while Sophie Miller portrayed Little Alice.

Both Alices danced well. Doyle showed great stamina and accomplishment in dancing in many styles throughout the entire show, and Miller took over several scenes as a younger Alice, dancing impressively at such a young age.

Many other exceptional dancers performed solo throughout the show, displaying a high level of work ethic and skill. The variety of featured dancers included characters such as the Queen of Hearts, who danced beautifully and powerfully; the Mad Hatter, who performed a highly well-executed hip-hop number; and the White Queens, who danced with much grace. The show certainly did not lack variety; it even featured a tap dancing Jack of Spades.

Photo by Samarah Uribe.

The incorporation of many genres of dancing and music into one continuous show was interesting. Perhaps it would have risked awkwardness had the event not been a showcase, but the crossing of boundaries of styles within the show was, overall, well done. Jazz dancers would follow ballet dancers, and pop music would share the same act as hip hop. A few songs from the 1951 animated film “Alice in Wonderland” were incorporated, including “All in the Golden Afternoon” and “A Very Merry Unbirthday to You.” This was a nice touch that brought together the contemporary show with its classic counterpart.

Elements such as the simple but effective lighting, as well as the elaborate and impressive costumes, helped make the show unique. Additionally, it was evident that the choreographers and dancers observed close attention to detail, as seen by the engaged movements of the tea party guests who sat in the back while the Mad Hatter danced solo. Also very much appreciated were the older dancers in the company, who guided younger castmates through their scenes with patience and good leadership, such as the caterpillar, who notably donned an intricate, multi-armed costume.

Photo by Samarah Uribe.

After much dancing and storytelling, which diverted from more well-known and “Alice” associated themes such as “the cards” and “unbirthday cakes” to “Pokemon” and “Super Mario Bros.” near the end of the show, Alice was declared the winner of the games and adventures encountered throughout. She was crowned, and consequently celebrated with, of course, dancing, concluding the show.

“The Adventures of Alice” was a great opportunity to see what some of the youth of the Walla Walla community have been working on. The audience gave well-deserved applause at the end of the night, capping off a celebration of hard work and excellent dancing.

There is a sense of beauty and serenity to be found between the walls of the Sheehan Gallery where a new exhibition, “The Collected Life of Ikune Sawada,” has been installed. On display from Jan. 23 to April 7, the exhibition features ceramics that Sawada, a well-known painter and collector of ceramics, has collected over many years, as well as some of his own paintings.

Photo by Caroline Ashford Arya.

The Japanese character that appears as part of the title of the show, “en,” is an important theme that runs throughout Sawada’s collection.

“‘En’ is connection or tie,” Sawada said. “It can be to anything.”

For Sawada, those connections have been to friends and to ceramics.

“Because you have ‘en,’ you run into [many ceramic pieces],” Sawada said. “So many pieces have an unbelievable background, so we decided to use that theme [of ‘en’], and it has been just amazing talking about how I got [these ceramics].”

Daniel Forbes, the director of the Sheehan Gallery, agreed.

“It’s sort of how things come together in a line,” Forbes said. “One of [Ikune’s] friends, who is also an antiques vendor in Japan, talks about how Ikune, in his life, has seemed to attract both people and ceramics; so fate has a way of bringing them together.”

Photo by Caroline Ashford Arya.

The ceramics featured in the gallery are indeed special. They were made centuries ago, most in East Asia. Forbes noted the importance of recognizing the skill that went into them. Most were handmade, created prior to mechanization. Moreover, acquiring some of the pieces took a decade of patience on Sawada’s part as he waited for dealers to become willing to part with a particular ceramic piece.

“Within [Sawada’s] collection and how it ties to his life’s story, there are so many amazing narratives,” Forbes said. “He has a truly encyclopedic mind. His library for ceramics and the research that he does before he purchases pieces is as extensive, if not more, than his actual collection … So there are all of these different layers and types of history, and different sorts of stories, and it’s great to be able to gather that all into one place.”

Sawada has been a mentor and friend to Professor Steven Miller, who teaches ceramics at Walla Walla University.

Photo by Caroline Ashford Arya.

“His collection is incredible and you can tell there’s a deep love of these,” Miller said. “It’s inspiring seeing it, and then hearing him talking about it. Sometimes quiet daily life can be such a wonderful thing with the right bowl, with the right cup; they’re daily enrichments.”

Sawada recounted being drawn to ceramics, especially after seeing a seventeenth century dish at a museum a couple of years after graduating from art university.

“I was shocked,” Sawada said. “That shock was so strong. I said, ‘Oh my God, ceramics–ceramics could be this deep and strong,’ and I couldn’t get that piece out of my mind.”

The way the exhibition is set up is also important to note.

Photo by Caroline Ashford Arya.

“What we’ve tried to do in the gallery is to create conversations between the pieces, so it’s not set up like a traditional exhibition,” Forbes said. “And what we’ve really tried to do is to look at relationships between pieces so that there’s some kind of conversation going on and everything is intermixed.”

Whitman Professor Krista Gulbransen will be incorporating the exhibition in her museums class, especially focusing on how the space is used.

“There’s a very connoisseurial perspective at play in the show,” Gulbransen said. “It kind of beckons careful looking at the objects … they’re giving you … pairings of objects which are also paired with [Sawada’s] own paintings, so you get a sense of how the ceramics actually inspired his own painting process. It gives you a sort of pleasurable aesthetic experience.”

Photo by Caroline Ashford Arya.

Before coming to the United States from Japan, Sawada worked as an antique dealer. At that time, he wondered why his pieces sold so quickly.

“I realized, they have life to it,” Sawada said. “Like the first piece [I saw at the museum], when I was shocked. When I see a piece that I feel like I have to have it, they have their own life … And I realized that [also] painting, good painting, has its own life. If there was no life to it, then nobody would pay attention to it.”

The life that is in his paintings, and in his ceramics collection, is evident. This “collected life” honors a dedicated artist and collector and is generously shared with all who visit the gallery.