printable versionInstitute for Diversity in the Arts presents free festival of music, art, theater
Since 2001, the Institute for Diversity in the Arts (IDA), an interdisciplinary program in the humanities, has brought nationally and internationally known artists to campus to teach and work intensively with students in project-based workshops during Winter Quarter.
Beginning this week, the institute offers the community opportunities to share in this quarter's creative production with a festival of music, art and theater. All events are free and open to the public. For more information about events, contact IDA at 724-3657 or ghclarke@stanford.edu.
Resident artists and festival events include:
Bay Area bassist Marcus Shelby, the founder of Noir Records, composes original scores for film, theater and dance, as well as compositions for the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, the Marcus Shelby Trio and the Marcus Shelby Septet. Shelby is at work on an oratorio for jazz orchestra and chorus based on the life story of Harriet Tubman (whom Shelby names as a personal inspiration). Students have contributed musicological, legal and biographical research to the project, which will combine elements of African American spirituals, blues and jazz. Sponsored by the Committee on Black Performing Arts.
Judy Baca is the creator of works including the half-mile long mural Great Wall of Los Angeles and founder and artistic director of the Social and Public Art Resource Center in Venice, Calif. Baca worked this quarter with students to research the history of the Latino/Chicano presence at Stanford and begin translating it into a digital mural to be installed at El Centro Chicano, now under renovation. A community forum will be held after the presentation to invite comment. (A website about the mural project, http://cronicas.stanford.edu/, also invites community members to contribute their own stories.)
Photographer and visual artist Albert Chong, who incorporates the use of family portraits in his own projects, taught a workshop in which students used family photographs and history to create works of art. Artwork is presented in the exhibit "The Archive of Memories." Student works also address the loss of family photographs by victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Stan Lai, one of the most influential playwrights and directors in Asia, led a workshop guiding students in using their own stories to create works out of the process of improvisation. He will direct Stories for the Dead. Lai has used an improvisational and interactive method of creating theater for more than two decades in Taiwan. At Stanford, the position of the audience and the actors will be reversed in the theater installed at the former Roble Gym.