News

Day in the Life: Puppet Arts Major John Cody and the Art of Trickery

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The Daily Campus

By Christopher McDermott
November 18, 2015

The Puppet Arts Program is one of the University of Connecticut’s rare treasures. The women’s basketball team consistently makes headlines, but the distance UConn conquers basketball is peanuts to how far it dominates puppetry. Fifth-semester puppet arts major John Cody, whose previous work has included an eight-foot-tall Captain Condom mascot, explains his passion for the art form:

Cody has previously done work “wrangling mascots” for DreamWorks’ “Penguins of Madagascar” at Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Zoo. The job’s duties, Cody said, included “helping the actors put on the costumes, making sure they don’t break, repairing them if they do break, and making sure kids don’t punch them.”

“What’s fun about mascots is they have this element of fantasy to reality,” Cody added. “It’s this totally bizarre thing: a giant penguin who can’t move his face or talk just in the middle of the Bronx Zoo.”

UConn’s Student Health Services approached Cody and puppet arts graduate student Anatar Marmol-Gagne to assemble their “Stall Street News” character Captain Condom. Cody designed a maquette (a miniature model) and then built the full-size mascot while learning along the way.

 

 

‘The Wanderer’ Combines Dance & Classic Music

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Baritone Ryan Burns ’12 MM likens the preparation for his performance with the Jessica Lang Dance Co. presentation of “The Wanderer” at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts on Nov. 19 to having the lead role in an opera.

“It’s not something you can put together in a couple of weeks,” Burns says of singing Franz Schubert’s “Die schöne Müllerin” (The Lovely Maid of the Mill), a song cycle of 20 songs sung over an hour. “It’s been a unique challenge to prepare this body of music in such a way that you can maintain all that good technique and language and stay focused. It’s been a challenge, but a really great one.”

A doctoral candidate in music who has performed with the Connecticut Lyric Opera and the Opera Theater of Connecticut, Burns was selected by the contemporary ballet choreographer for the unique joining of dance and classical music that has been described as “a true work of art” by the Boston Globe and “a work of high craftsmanship” by The New York Times.

Read the entire story at UConn Today!

Graduate student, Ryan Burns practicing singing at Jorgensen Performing Arts Center on Nov. 17, 2015. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)
Graduate student, Ryan Burns practicing singing at Jorgensen Performing Arts Center on Nov. 17, 2015. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

New Puppet Arts Online Grad Certificate

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The University of Connecticut’s Puppet Arts program is the premier puppetry program in the United States. To share that expertise UConn’s School of Fine Arts, Department of Dramatic Arts, is offering a Puppet Arts Online Graduate Certificate that applies the art of puppetry to a wide range of professions, including visual and dramatic artists, teachers in formal and non-formal educational settings, recreation directors, and media and marketing specialists.

The Puppet Arts Online Graduate Certificate provides students with hands-on skills and experience constructing puppets, designing and directing a puppet production and applying puppet arts to a wide range of disciplines and professions. Opportunities for students to apply and share their learnings to discipline-specific applications – whether they are artists, educators, marketing artists, or other professionals – are provided throughout each course.

More information is available at Graduate Certificate page.

“Actress” to be Screened with Star Brandy Burre

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The critically acclaimed film, “Actress,” will be screened at UConn’s von der Mehden Recital Hall on Sept. 24 at 8:00 PM.

Actress Brandy Burre is currently a guest artist performing in CRT’s The Laramie Project (October 8-18, 2015), Join CRT for a special screening of this documentary film, followed by a Q & A with the actress, Brandy Burre.

Brandy Burre had a recurring role on HBO’s The Wire when she gave up her career to start a family. When she decides to reclaim her life as an actor, the domestic world she’s carefully created crumbles around her. Using elements of melodrama and cinema verité, “Actress” is both a present tense portrait of a dying relationship and ex exploration of a complicated woman, performing the role of herself, in a complex-yet-familiar story. It’s a film about starring in the movie of your life.

Puppet Festival: A Homecoming of Alumni

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In the 50 years since legendary puppeteer Frank Ballard started teaching puppetry classes in UConn’s School of Fine Arts, alumni of the Puppet Arts Program have performed on Broadway, in films, on television, and on stages worldwide.

Many of these alums will return to campus this week among the more than 500 puppeteers from across the country and around the world who will attend professional workshops, participate in panel discussions, and present performances as part of the 2015 National Puppetry Festival, kicking off celebrations for the half-century of UConn puppet arts.

The entire article is available at UConn Today!

The Puppeteers of America on parade from South Campus to Storrs Downtown on Aug. 15, 2015. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

UCMB & UConn Violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv Perform Together

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The UConn Marching Band has commissioned a brand new piece of music from composer John B. Hedges in honor of the naming of the Pratt and Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field. Written for UConn School of Fine Arts’s own professor and world renowned violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv, this piece, “Spiral,” is inspired by the Pratt and Whitney jet engine. This combination of solo electric violin and the marching band will be performed at halftime of the UConn vs. Villanova football game on Thursday!

David Dzubay Wins Sackler Composition Prize

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Composer David Dzubay has been named the recipient of the 11th Raymond and Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize presented by the University of Connecticut, a $25,000 award to compose a new work for a specific area of musical arts that will be performed by UConn students and faculty and recorded.

Dzubay, who is chair of the composition department and director of the New Music Ensemble at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, will be composing a concerto for flute and violin with wind ensemble, with the working title “Rapprochement.” The work will debut with performances in March 2017 in Storrs and at UConn’s Stamford campus.

The competition, organized by the School of Fine Arts, is an international award that supports and promotes composers and the performance of their new musical works. Every second year, entrants are asked to compose a piece for a specific area of the musical arts, chosen by the head and other faculty of the music department.

The prize was established through a gift from Raymond and Beverly Sackler, major philanthropists and generous donors to UConn.

To read the entire article, visit UConn Today.