A Garden Party?

The Good News:
It’s been a busy few weeks, dear readers, and I’m just catching my breath (and icing my back) to write about one of the many arts and letters events that has me dancing, if stiffly, towards the academic year end deadline.

On Saturday May 2, I hosted a book party for Josefina López. To date, Ms. López is known for her screenplay, Real Women Have Curves, which became the 2002 film that introduced many of us to America Ferrera, the star of Ugly Betty. Now, Ms. López may become equally known for her saucy novel, Hungry Woman in Paris.

When publicist Steve Rohr learned that another potential book-party house had fallen through, he and friend, Chris Freeman (Love, West Hollywood), asked if I would open my house and garden in Pasadena for the gathering of literati. It was a great chance to meet Josefina and also have her meet some of the faculty from Cal State LA and USC, where Professor Freeman teaches. Better yet, I didn’t have to cook or rearrange the furniture; Steve was going to take care of that! The only task I assigned myself was to dress up my garden a little with some spring planting… more later on the follies of gardening.

One interesting fact I had not known about Josefina López—she attended Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, right on the Cal State LA campus.

The afternoon culminated in a moving reading by Ms. López, who described herself as an actress as well as author. Her reading of the different voices—of the mother and the father of the narrator, for example—demonstrated the power of voice and ear for conversation that also made Real Women Have Curves a delight. In short, a beautiful afternoon in Pasadena.

The Bad News: Three Important Rules
1) Never garden without warming-up
2) Bags of potting soil weigh more than you think
3) Add two days of recovery for each decade when you don’t follow Rules 1-2

Into my 10th day of recovery, my friends, I remain your wincing but still dancing dean!

Spring is in the Arts

Too long since my last blog and so many highlights since spring quarter began.

On the academic quarter system it seems that we obsess about enrollment for about half of each quarter. Arts and Letters is having a record spring and this is likely very good news for our bumper crop of new freshmen. Our first year students seem to be staying—and taking their courses in an appropriate sequence meaning that more should make it through the first year. Excellent work by staff, faculty, and administration!

While spring break came and went my arts agenda remained active. I experienced the ominously dark Achim Freyer version of Die Walküre at LA Opera with it’s ticky tack, tumble down bicycle horses and creaking turnwheel sets. Okay, I’m not a fan. The singers and orchestra were resplendent, though, providing magnificent uplift despite the “through a scrim darkly” set. Placido Domingo is 68! I didn’t agree with LA Times critic, Mark Swed (where was HE sitting?) when he wrote that Domingo could only sing at full voice or not at all. I was amazed at his flexibility, force, and gravity—despite being painted half black and bald, half blue and crazy wigged.

I said my own farewell last week to Esa-Pekka Salonen who once glanced at me at opera opening night as if I might be somebody he should know. Last Thursday I was glancing from the Terrace level where I often have a fascinating view of a soloist’s back. Ligeti’s “Clocks and Clouds,” Salonen’s own world premiere violin concerto, and Beethoven’s 5th provided the aural delight, Disney Hall the usual visual lift.

Last week’s highlights also included the annual Jean Burden poetry reading with Victor Hernández Cruz. The poet took a fascinating perspective on the role of Arab culture, history, and language in the Spanish colonial world, placing himself as a subject in constant conversation with English, Spanish, and Arabic legacies.

A brief holiday weekend in Palm Springs capped the week. Yes, I know it was White Party Weekend, but this dancing dean didn’t dance the night away to deafening techno. Quiet dinners with my brother and friends, quality pool time, and reducing my pile of New Yorkers by three, those were my goals set and achieved.

April is the Cruelest Month

Now that spring is here the azaleas are ablaze. This year in my neighborhood and on and near campus the pre-blossoming jacaranda are thick with goldenrod sprouts exuding a mesmerizing sweetness (to be followed in May by an azure musk).

Stepping out my front door is like walking into a florist’s shop during prom week. If only I could linger, even briefly, to join in the intoxication… In academia spring’s first burst sometimes relaxes guards. This week, our break between quarters, some profs were caught lunching and laughing with an administrator (not me) in the spring sunshine. Reports of revelry reached even into my office suite. But I am not allowed to tarry…

for this is my hell week, 20+ tubs of retention, tenure and promotion files to read carefully, thoughtfully, judiciously, with careers at stake. If only I could retrieve the hour and fifteen minutes I spent in the dentist’s office waiting today; I could have read another file! Of course file review also has its joys. For example, I love tracing the intersections of faculty members’ scholarly and creative paths and storing this away for later use, linking one faculty member to another who may not know of her or his interest. E.M. Forster: “Only connect!” I also like the parts of letters to faculty when I get to say, “I commend,” “I appreciate,” or “I applaud.” When I meet with post-tenure faculty who have been reviewed and thank them, sadly many say that they have never been thanked. I know we can do better than that…

Which leads me back to a silly Facebook quiz which determined, based on seven forced choice questions, that my “power animal” is "hummingbird."




Apparently I “dart lightly through the world spreading a message of positivity”! How fine! But as I’m darting, weaving, and spreading joy, where is that sweet elixir to keep me humming? I think I’ll write another haiku!

HIRING SEASON

You know those weeks when the most exciting things that happen are exactly the things that you can’t tell? That’s the way it goes sometimes with Deans.

Now that our brief two weeks of winter rains have dissipated, it’s hiring season! It’s hard to believe that in this budget parched climate our state university is allowed to hire. But with so many retirements and some growing programs, I’m spending over half of some days meeting with candidates. Last Tuesday at the University Club was particularly delightful as Arts and Letters filled the restaurant with four candidates and committees. There are early reports that we will have an abundant crop of new faculty come harvest time next fall.

Last week ended with a flurry. A meeting Thursday at Cal State Long Beach about the CSU’s Strategic Language Initiative and our role in continuing Korean language and cultural studies at Cal State L.A. followed by a concert at Disney Hall. Friday I stayed late to catch our Winter Dance Concert at the State Playhouse. Saturday night was the debut of Achim Freyer’s oversized puppetry take on Das Rheingold (musically strong but what was with the giant flying jacket?). Not exhausted enough, apparently, I was completely reinvigorated by our Friends of Music scholarship concert on Sunday afternoon. From outstanding classical vocals to flute, trumpet, and jazz trio, Cal State LA music students swung! Hainu Tan introduced a recording of her prize-winning composition and Ben Caron and Femke Weidema both played guitar to accompany their original songs.

Until next time, I’m your Dancing Dean!

ART—For the Price of a Stamp

This past Saturday evening another extraordinary educational event occurred in Cal State LA’s College of Arts and Letters. Over 600 people turned out to discuss a pressing topic. Not the financial meltdown, the war in Iraq, or Sunday’s Super Bowl. Students, faculty, artists, civil servants, and the community came in great numbers to discuss public art in Los Angeles.
The occasion? Under the direction of Dr. Manuel Aguilar-Moreno, students of the Department of Art at Cal State L.A. have mounted an exhibition “Walls of Passion: Murals of Los Angeles,” the beginning of a multi-year project to document approximately 500 large scale murals on public view in the vast Los Angeles region. Students of the Art History Society worked to describe the history of the murals, interviewing artists whenever possible, and assessing the social and aesthetic contexts as well as the contribution of the work to the surrounding communities. Students engaged in this project lived up to its title becoming passionately involved in cataloging and even preserving the murals.

The result? A wonderful photo and slide exhibition featuring a variety of LA murals and a lively public debate especially about tagging and graffiti as pubic art or vandalism. Several prominent Los Angeles artists (e.g., Cal State LA alum Kent Twitchell, Paul Botello, Man One) as well as professors, students, and arts administrators led the discussion. They want to provide young people with art education and the tools to create public and individual artistic expression perhaps mitigating the kind of vandalism that erupts when no other means of self-expression seems possible.

The “take away” from an evening of art and debate? Cal State LA ‘s College of Arts and Letters stands reinforced in its vision to support the communities we serve through production, exhibition, and discussion of art. Art students photographed and documented murals working directly with the public, and it looks like “Walls of Passion” may become a traveling exhibit. Students in Art Education prepared lesson plans for school teachers about the murals and perhaps many more young people will have a chance to reflect on the public art that surrounds them. We even created an online map of the murals documented to date so exhibition viewers can find their favorite pieces.

http://www.calstatela.edu/univ/ppa/publicat/today/archives/winter2009/mural.php


Finally, we found that art matters to Angelenos but it’s not always clear what we can do to support them, particularly in the case of public art created by community artists. Here’s a brief list of efforts suggested by the discussion:

• Act at the national level: Perhaps you’ve noticed that the federal stimulus package includes $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts and that this has raised cries of outrage from some? Perhaps you haven’t calculated that $50 million equals 16 cents per person in the U.S. or a little more than 1/3 of a postage stamp. Why not call your Congressional and Senate offices asking for $150 million instead of $50 million? Can’t we afford, one average, one postage stamp for art?
• Act locally: LA permits billboards (or they go up illegally) where pubic art might flourish. Can we engage youth in public, travelling art on garbage cans and trucks? How can we train artists and fund more public arts while encouraging more private as well as public commissions? Contact your city and county representatives with your ideas; locate and support your neighborhood arts council; encourage businesses to commission both small and large art projects.
• Fund arts education: School districts suffer from lack of funding and too often cancel arts education in favor of standardized testing. As Dean of Arts and Letters at Cal State LA, I’ve worked with faculty and staff to ensure that our programs are accessible to K-12 schools but too often schools don’t have money to bus students to campus even to free events. Contact your schools to insist that art matters. When you can donate to the arts at the K-12 or college level and foster partnerships in arts education.
• Join an arts organization: From MOCA to molaa, museums make art accessible. So do symphonies, operas, dance and theatre companies. Now more than ever membership is critical to keep the arts alive.
• Become our audience: New Yorker magazine just published an article on low-cost and free performances; the writer attended 10 events in 7 days for $81. Free or low-cost art is also possible in Los Angeles. In addition to viewing murals you can visit free or low-cost museums and performances at Cal State LA and other local colleges, at museums, churches, and local government halls.

As last Saturday’s exhibition and discussion demonstrates public art can serve as markers of history, identity, and community pride. Let’s work to create more art that serves greater Los Angeles.

JUST BACK FROM SUNDANCE

And don’t I love starting my weekly blog with that phrase! Five days, nine films, one spa treatment, one closing night party, and one cross-country ski lesson later, I’m back to sunny SoCal, fifty degrees warmer and much wiser about the inner workings of film festivals and the various grades of icy rain and powdery snow.

Thanks to the amazing organizational and texting skills of Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Dr. Kristiina Hackel, 35 Cal State LA students (undergrad, MA and MFA students) also enjoyed Sundance, some catching as many as 15 films.


Student highlights included:
1) Our own post-screening talk by Robert Siegel, writer/director of Big Fan also known for writing The Wrestler and as longtime Editor-in-Chief of The Onion. Mr. Siegel was joined by Executive Producer (and wife) Jen Cohn, as well as Coproducer/Editor Joshua Trank in the parking lot of Eccles Theatre.
2) The breakfast for the Sundance Institute’s educational outreach program. Students in the program who brought films were randomly drawn and five of the eight films shown were from Cal State LA students!
3) Students’ ability to find extra tickets and meet people in “the industry.”
4) Carla’s screening combined with Selena’s ice cream birthday cake at Davanza’s pizza.

My Sundance highlights:
1) Paper Heart, a complete quirkfest featuring SoCal comic performer Charlyne Yi as well as recent indie fave, Michael Cera.
2) Sin Nombre, Cary Joji Fukunaga’s powerful drama of immigration from Central America to the US border.
3) Robert Siegel, running into Kris and me at Nollywood Babylon, handing over extra tickets to I love you Phillip Morris (Jim Carrey, Ewan McGregor) and putting Claudia and Rochelle on a shuttle to the Sundance Resort to see the film.
4) After sun and rain, a final day and evening of big flakey snow in Park City that passed the stick-out-your-tongue test.

The closing night party music was a bit of a lowlight (well, I’m older); nonetheless, I managed to strut it again with students and new friends.

As always,
Your Dancing Dean





Pictured, top to bottom: The Cal State LA crew at Sundance; the Park City slopes; "Big Fan" Executive Producer Jen Cohn and Professor Kristiina Hackel; Director Robert Siegel meets with CSULA students; Dean Terry Allison at 'the Dance!'

WEIRD WINTER, DANCING DEAN

What a weird winter in California. Yes, I’m used to some warm snaps and sun soaked Rose Bowl parades, but this January when great swaths of the nation lie under bone chilling blankets, we in sunny Pasadena seem to be experiencing four seasons simultaneously.
My white blossoming Crape Myrtle stripped naked, sculptural and touchable, woody bare hydrangea stalks, roses cut down to the stump, and even the cartoon colored citrus, kumquats and Meyer lemons, Valencias and Tangelos, shout winter in SoCal. The windswept valley air leaves startling mountain views recalling my last year’s haiku in celebration of the view from Cal State LA:

San Gabriel snows
framed by tanning palms—
Hooray state emissions laws!

Oddly, though, fall just won’t go. A massive maple a few streets down is still turning deep red into purple brown. New to me, this past November azaleas and camellias enjoyed a second bloom, and since they’re now out in full color I wonder if we had a false spring last fall that lingers still.

But spring also has arrived, my New Guinea impatiens eager hot pink, the lawn new green, tiny yellow daisies bursting into flower even before the poppies have started. And summer wouldn’t dare to miss this rare meeting of seasons, bringing 90 plus temperatures, Santa Ana winds, and threats of wildfire.

This hibernal cornucopia seems so at odds with the national talk of grim times and rusty snow belts and at odds with California’s descent into murky chaos, stagnant rhetoric, and just plain incompetence. But it’s hard to feel gloomy this brilliant January (a cream-tipped black butterfly just flew past my window) when things are looking up, up, up in Cal State LA’s College of Arts and Letters, where I am Dean.

Our recently launched MFA in Television, Film, and Theatre has brought two dozen new energy sources to the College. The students seem to be at every performance I attend (scouting for talent they can direct?) and are splashing out everywhere this week. A handful of MFA students worked the Palm Springs International Film Festival and, according to Professor Meredith Greenburg, who manages festival events, were able to wangle Leonardo di Caprio into taking his own picture, arm extended, surrounded by them. (Send me that photo so I can post!)

A larger subset are heading off to Sundance this week, joining other undergraduates and MA students in Communication Studies and Theatre Arts and Dance—35 students in all—thanks to the efforts of Dr. Kristiina Hackel who wrote a proposal to the Sundance Institute. Some of our students have never left SoCal and needed some tips from Ms. Hackel such as “Don’t worry about looking cute…wear a warm coat that covers your butt!” I’ll be donning a winter coat and wearing a cute Finnish knit tassled cap (if I can find it), joining the students and hoping to network a bit with “the industry” while enjoying more films in five days than I’ve managed to see in the past year.

Professor Hackel is developing a wonderful niche for Cal State LA’s media program, teaching courses on film festivals, pitching, and marketing on site at Cannes and Sundance. I’m not certain I’ll make it to Cannes this year—geez, for the third year in a row I didn’t make it to Palm Springs during the film festival—but I’ll still wish our students luck in the 24 hour film contest. Last year, they won the Audience Award!

In addition to the boost of the new MFA students in Television, Film, and Theatre, enrollment, a perennial concern, is doing great in the College of Arts and Letters. We have a large freshman class, a healthy dose of winter transfer students and a spike in spring quarter applicants. The bright yellow metal umbrellas of the redecorated Music Courtyard have us all singing “It’s a Small World,” and our dedicated custodial and garden staff have our home turf looking spiffy (except for the dead palm that really has to go). The University Student Union had a heel clicking kick-off on January 9th and yours truly was once again caught dancing, this time to the Mariachi Divas. (For past dance sightings, you’ll have to check with TAD faculty and students who have nicknamed me “the Dancing Dean.”)

And speaking of mariachi, a few of the divas including founder Cindy Shea are connected to Cal State LA’s revived Mariachi Ensemble. Our own Golden Eagle Mariachis round out our other Latin Music offerings, including the Afro Latin Ensemble (which recently played with Salsa legend Larry Harlow under the direction of Professor Paul De Castro and vocal instructor Iris Sandra Cepeda) as well as our Latin Jazz Ensemble directed by instructor Bob Fernandez.

Despite the recent highlights, that taste of optimism, so sweet in the air this January, can turn bitter the moment our thoughts turn to the next budget season. Just when it appeared that K-12 in California finally had some arts funding and could hire some dance, art, drama, and music teachers, just when we’re making some headway with foundations, just when the demographic flood of 18 year olds surged onto campus, California’s financial house of cards has come crashing down. Sunny January optimism gives way to wintry discontent and this strange admixture of seasons begins to smell of doom.

Cost cutting is the sad duty of most deans in this new year of decline but our College is actually doing fairly well at belt tightening, moving forward with all our tenure-track searches and expanding a few of our instructional labs. At the same time, we have to cancel too many small classes, frustrating students, faculty, and parents who all want to give students the courses that they want.

But hark! Amid the sudden sad talk, outside I hear Pasadena’s infamous escaped flock of green parrots. Maenad-like they thrash and tear at my neighbor’s camphor tree, berry intoxicated, squawking with awful delight. If this is the song of doom then let’s dance to it! At least until next week…when I’ll blog you again and perhaps change my tune…I’m your Dancing Dean, Terry L. Allison, of Cal State LA’s College of Arts and Letters.