University of South Carolina Libraries
THEY SAID IT "Masquerade! Paper faces on parade ... p9(rp n Masquerade! Hide your face, so the world » will never find you!” Wednesday, January 26, 2005 'masquerade' from phantom of the opera Marlena, known for her role as Bubba’s mother in the film “Forrest Gump," will reveal her skills as a Gullah songstress to interpret Green's work, “Bessie Mae” Feb. 4 and 5 at the Koger Center. Above, tKI§ piece was made in 1989 with the use of acrylics on canvas. I Art students produce silkscreens for McKissick Museum exhibit By GABRIELLE SINCLAIR THE GAMECOCK Printmaking is defined by the breaking down of a pre-existing piece of art, the fleshing out of individual colors, the tedious makeup of a complex whole. In “Off the Stage and Onto the Wall: The Evolution of Ballet,” the McKissick Museum’s newest exhibit, the breaking down of a play’s evolution is put into the limelight. The exhibit captures the evolution of artist Jonathan Green’s works from the visual to the dance stage. In addition to the silkscreen prints, the exhibit includes photographs and video of rehearsals and interviews with Green and William Starrett, the artistic director for the Columbia City Ballet. The ballet will be performed Feb. 4 and Feb. 5 at the Koger Center and is titled “Off the Wall & Onto the Stage: Dancing the Art of Jonathan Green.” Four paintings by USC art students are part of an exhibit that McKissick Museum is sponsoring through March 19 in connection with the Columbia City Ballet’s adaptation of Jonathan Green’s works. Green did four sketches for the paintings, titled “Torch Song,” “Casting for Bait,” “Dance Hall Romance” and “Beach Dance,” specifically for the ballet and exhibit. Using those sketches and working under his direction, seven USC art students created the 75-edition prints for each. One hundred of the prints will be available for purchase after the exhibit ends to benefit USC’s art department. “We’re trying to present that evolutionary idea, so people can see how it went from drawings to paintings to the stage, the development of that approach,” chief curator Jason Shainan said. The exhibit is divided into three parts, beginning with Green’s pre existing works inspired by the Gullah experience. Next, video, photos and text will be used to convey the organic development ot this undertaking. Graduate media arts student Matt Sefick, who is also assisting with the production of the film, worked with adjunct professors Jimmy Henderson and Karla Berry to create a documentary about the entire project. It has come to fruition over the course of three years following, what Sefick said was an idea generated by Green and Starrett at a party. “What we’re trying to show with this documentary is how you go from a social interaction at a party where two K people inspire this idea in each other and how that gets developed years later, you actually see the production on stage,” Sefick said. The documentary interviews Green and Starrett, as well as the ballet’s costumer, who was charged with being the liaison between the artwork and the performers. They also 'speak with Marlena, a Gullah songstress perhaps most famous for her performance as Bubba’s mother in “Forrest Gump.” Marlena will bring to life the silkscreen “Bessie Mae.” f —— collaboration with the students, and will include a discussion and breakdown of the sometimes arduous printmaking process. Micah Cash, a fifth-year an studio student, worked as a printmaking technician with about six other students for the project. Printmaking professor Mary Robinson, he said, approached him to be a pan of it. “Pan of my job was to break down those stencils. And each stencil was a different color. So what could be a finished painting could be a print of 25 different stencils,” Cash said. Depending on the print, it could have between 25 to ud to 40 different colors. “It’s certainly been the biggest professional grade project I’ve worked on, with the number of people involved and the sheer size of the prints themselves, and the images themselves can be quite complex technically,” Cash said. Cash said he worked on the project for about a year before, and was part of the group that made the “Bessie Mae” prints. He said planning the project is the hardest part. “When you are given a painting and told that that paint'ng needs to be reproduced close to 85 times exactly, it takes a lot of planning on the part of the handful of people involved to just figure out how exacdy you’re going to do that, to make the process as simple as possible and not lose any of the complexities of the original work .... Once you figure out how to do it, it’s just a matter of doing it,” he said. Shainan said the ballet is unique and has a historical and cultural value, as well as artistic. “It merges and fuses the visual arts with the theatrical arts and the musical arts,” Shainan said. Shainan said that most ballets are based on stories, like “The Nutcracker” or “Dracula: Ballet with a Bite,” which Starrett produced, but this ballet is different. “It has a regional perspective, and a cultural identity is the real basis of the ballet, which is very original, fresh and timely and appropriate for South Carolina as we’re trying to protect our cultural heritage,” Shainan said. Starrett searched through almost 3,000 of Green’s pieces to find the 22 for his ballet. Giant scrims of the works are used as backdrops for the performance, and two smaller versions will be used as pan of the McKissick exhibit. The exhibit is free and open to the public. McKissick is located on the Horseshoe and is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 3 p m. Saturdays. For more information, call 777 7251, or visit McKissick Museum’s Web site: www.cla.sc.edu/MCKS. To find out more about the Columbia City Ballet’s production of “Off the Wall & Onto the Stage: Dancing the Art of Jonathan Green,” call 799-7605 or visit www.dancingthean.com. Comments on this story ? E-mail ga7necoctfeatures@gurm.se. edu -------T“ "Yellow Swing" by Jonathan Green, oil on canvas. "Love of the Harvest,” 2000, oil on linens.