Venture To Celebrate Student Work With Week Of Events At Rudder Theatre Complex
The Rudder Theatre Complex on the Texas A&M University campus will be filled with sights and sounds from the School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts from April 25-29.
Venture is the inaugural year-end showcase of the school’s talented students and their work. Events will span the spectrum of the arts, including animation, dance, fashion, gaming, music, theater, virtual reality and visual art.
“This is a celebration of student work,” said Tim McLaughlin, interim dean for the school. “Each of the programs that came together this year for the first time in the new school had a history of showing off the accomplishments of their students at the end of the spring semester. We grouped those traditions together to create this new event. I can’t wait to see the diversity of types of work and hoping it sparks more ideas of interdisciplinary works in the coming years.”
Venture kicks off April 25 with Analogue Electronica, a free concert featuring students from Dr. Will Connor’s Electronic Music Composition course (PERF 318) at 7 p.m. at Rudder Theatre. The students created songs with analogue synthesizers, theremins, no-input mixing boards, step sequencers, Kaossilators and haunted boxes, and will perform at the event.
The visualization program’s annual Viz-a-GoGo is now in its 30th year. It starts with an exhibition of students’ physical and printed works in the Rudder Exhibit Hall from April 26-28 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Gaming and virtual reality projects will be available to play from 2 to 7 p.m. A screening that showcases students’ animation films, game demos and computer graphics renderings will be April 27 at 7 p.m. at Rudder Theatre. Awards known as “the Vizzies” will be given at the end of the screening.
The Student Research and Creative Works Symposium will show the wide variety of creativity explored within the school. The event is April 26 at 10 a.m. at Rudder Forum.
A fashion event titled Waste Wear Wearable Arts Runway Show comes from the Dress in World Culture course (PERF 156), taught by Dr. Grace Adinku. Twenty-four student groups in the two class sections are creating wearable designs using recyclable material including plastic, paper, metal and face masks, as well as clothing and textiles. The event is April 26 at 6:30 p.m. at Rudder Forum.
The Live Art Student Showcase on April 27 at 1 p.m. at Rudder Forum will feature creations from students in Seminar in Performance Theory (PERF 460), taught by Rayna Dexter. The event will feature experiments in performer/audience relationships and explorations of the cognitive and emotional experience of live performance.
The dance program’s annual Perpetual Motion performance will be in Rudder Auditorium for the first time on April 27 and 28 at 7:30 p.m. It features works by faculty members, students and guest artist Jane Weiner from Hopestone, Inc. in Houston. Students will perform “Sierra,” a 23-minute dance created by Carisa Armstrong, associate professor and dance program director, and Christine Bergeron, clinical professor and associate dean for academic affairs. Tickets are $12 and $6 for students, seniors and military, available at the MSC Box Office.
“Rhinoceros,” Eugene Ionesco’s play, translated by Derek Prouse, is the first theatrical production under the new school and also the program’s first collaboration with Blinn-Bryan Theatre Troupe. It is co-directed by Anne Quackenbush, Texas A&M lecturer, and Greg Wise, Blinn theater instructor. After three shows April 20-22 at Blinn-Bryan Student Center Theatre, “Rhinoceros” comes to the Black Box Theater in the Liberal Arts and Humanities Building April 27-29 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $5, available at blinn.edu/boxoffice.
All Venture events are free except for Perpetual Motion and “Rhinoceros.”
Venture Schedule
April 25
- Analogue Electronica concert: 7 p.m. at Rudder Theatre
April 26
- Viz-a-GoGo exhibition opens in the Rudder Exhibit Hall from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and continues through April 28. Gaming and virtual reality projects will be available to play from 2 to 7 p.m.
- Student Research and Creative Works Symposium: 10 a.m. at Rudder Forum
- Waste Wear Wearable Arts Runway Show: 6:30 p.m. at Rudder Forum
April 27
- Live Art Student Showcase: 1 p.m. at Rudder Forum
- Viz-a-GoGo screening and awards: 7 p.m. at Rudder Theatre
- “Rhinoceros”: 7 p.m. at Black Box Theater in the Liberal Arts and Humanities Building
- Perpetual Motion: 7:30 p.m. at Rudder Auditorium
April 28
- “Rhinoceros”: 7 p.m. at Black Box Theater in the Liberal Arts and Humanities Building
- Perpetual Motion: 7:30 p.m. at Rudder Auditorium
April 29
- “Rhinoceros”: 7 p.m. at Black Box Theater in the Liberal Arts and Humanities Building
Top photo by Igor Kraguljac.
