COIL, a dance directed by Erik Stern @ WSU (Ogden: March 29)

COIL at NCUR

WHO:     Weber State University Department of Performing Arts

WHAT:    COIL, a dance directed by Erik Stern

WHERE:   Austad Auditorium, Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts

WHEN:    Dance Performance : 29 March 2012• 4:15 pm

Weber State University Department of Performing Arts presents Moving Company’s production of COIL, directed by Erik Stern, Thursday, March 29 at 4:15 pm  in the Austad Auditorium, Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts. This performance is a featured event at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), being held on the WSU Ogden campus March 29-31. This is a free performance and open to the public.

Inspired by John Donne’s famous XVII Meditation, COIL is a collaboration between choreographer Stern and Choir, Theatre Design English and the 39 students (15 dancers and 24 singers) who perform the work. Stern says, “Four hundred years ago John Donne wrote, ‘No man is an island, entire of itself.’ Is this true? How connected are we to those in our society and the world? ‘COIL’ playfully explores John Donne’s provocative statement through dance, live music, and a unique prop: a two-inch thick cord.” Mark Henderson, the director of the WSU Chamber Choir and longtime collaborator with Stern, is the musical director for this feast of sound and movement.

Moving Company is the Dance Area’s outreach program.  At 1PM on March 29 & 30, COIL will be performed for bused-in 6th-9th graders. Presentation to these students and its inclusion in NCUR will be an excellent opportunity to share this original, interdisciplinary work with faculty and students from around the country, as well as community members of Northern Utah. 

Study materials will be sent to participating 6-9th grade classes. Selected schools will be eligible for a master class with Stern and dancers.  Materials are created with Professor Gary Dohrer and College of Education graduate student Jennifer Alverson. Also in conjunction with this project, WSU student ShayLynne Clark collected data for a research project she will be presenting at NCUR about the process of creativity.

Erik Stern has toured throughout North America as well as Europe as a professional choreographer, dancer and educator. In addition to being faculty at WSU, he is a teaching artist with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, conducting workshops throughout the U.S.

COIL is funded in part by a generous grant from the John A. and Telitha E. Lindquist Faculty Fellowship for Creative and Artistic Endeavors.

For more information about this production contact director Erik Stern, estern@weber.edu

CREATIVITY RESEARCH

WHO:     Weber State University Department of Performing Arts

WHAT:   Creativity Research Project by ShayLynne Clark

WHERE: National Conference on Undergraduate Research

WHEN:   research presentation in Shepherd Union Building during the conference, Mar 29-31

performance: 29 March 2012• 4:15 pm (presentation of the work of art in Austad Auditorium, Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts 

Weber State University student ShayLynne Clark will be presenting research results on creativity at the upcoming National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), being held on the WSU Ogden campus March 29-31. She collected her data while working with the collaborative project, “COIL.”  Directed by Erik Stern with Musical Direction by ShayLynne faculty mentor Dr. Mark Henderson “COIL” will be presented Thursday, March 29 at 4:15 pm  in the Austad Auditorium, Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts. This performance is a part of NCUR. This is a free performance and also open to the public.

Clark said, “Typically, when people think of the word ‘creativity’, they think of it within the narrow confines of the individual. It is common knowledge that individuals create. . . but is it possible that without the influence of other people, these ‘creative individuals’ would have been as successful? Investigations into creativity have started to focus less on the individual, and more on the system promoting that creativity, rather than single individuals creating in solitude. Creativity, then, can be seen as resulting from the interaction of a system consisting of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognize and validate the innovation.

“Like many researchers who set out to understand creativity, the aim of this project started out asking if a group can, in fact, create a cohesive performance piece together, especially if they are used to being confined to distinct, non-meshing groups. Over the course of my research, though, it evolved into a study of the inner-workings of the group creativity that resulted.”

Clark’s abstract, submitted to NCUR as part of the application:

Group creativity: cooperating across disciplines. Group creativity is multi-faceted; beginning with individual contributions combining to form a medium that is greater than the sum of its parts. According to the sociocognitive model of creativity, the potential for creativity depends on how group processes take place, whether it be through discussion and voting, or improvisation. The composition of the groups as well as the organizational context is key to creating a cohesive and replicatable outcome, but it is mediated through the number of individual innovations as well as the quality of those innovations. This experiment is a qualitative and quantitative journey to understand the unique interaction between Weber State University performing groups (Orchesis, dance, Chamber Ensemble), and how they came together to create the ‘Coil’ performance. . .” 

Clark will graduating this semester (after only four years) with three bachelors degrees: Anthropology, Microbiology, and a BIS with emphasis on chemistry, neuroscience and psychology. She will be applying for medical school this summer, and is hoping to get into the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, focusing on international health and medical anthropology. She worked on the research with Dr. Stern, Dr. Henderson, and a fellow student, Brett Cragun.

For more information about this Clark: 801-916-6989 or shaylynneclark@gmail.com

NCUR at WSU: http://www.weber.edu/ncur2012/