Hailey Stevens, Author at BYU College of Fine Arts and Communications

13 THINGS TO DO THIS SPRING + SUMMER AT THE HFAC AND MOA

Hailey Stevens — Thu, 05 May 2016 17:46:30 +0000

Staying in Provo this spring and summer? We have a variety of fun things you can do at the Harris Fine Arts Center or the Museum of Art. Plus, most of them are free! So grab a date, a group of friends or just yourself and enjoy these thirteen things you can do at BYU.

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18 REASONS TO STAY UP LATE FOR NIGHT AT THE HFAC

Hailey Stevens — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 16:34:21 +0000

Night at the HFAC is a student-run event designed to showcase student performances and projects as well as any type of creative work from all the departments and schools in the College of Fine Arts and Communications (CFAC) to the entire student body at BYU. Students will share through dance, theatre, music, the visual and media arts. This exciting event aims to help BYU students see what fellow classmates are working on behind-the-scenes. Our college has an extraordinary amount of talent and we are excited to experience it, so, we made a list of all the reasons you should attend this glorious mashup of all things CFAC. First off, here are all the details you need to know for a fun-filled night. >>>>>

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The BYU Arts Creative team wins Grand Gold Award and Bronze Award of Excellence from CASE

Hailey Stevens — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 17:14:43 +0000

The BYU Arts Creative team has done it again! Last summer, they won several awards from the 45th Annual Design Competition of the UCDA. On February 26, 2016 they were awarded a Grand Gold Award and a Bronze Award of Excellence from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District VII. BYU Arts Creative received the Grand Gold Award in Design and Photography for the Contemporary Dance Theatre Poster created by Nick Mendoza and student designer, Sam Reed. Reed is a senior in the BFA Graphic Design program and had the opportunity to oversee the project from start to finish. “It was great to collaborate with the dance department, Nathan Balser, and photographer, Christopher Peddecord. They are great clients to work with,” Reed said. The Grand Gold Award is only presented to exemplary Awards of Excellence submissions where the gold awards from each category are judged a second time. Mendoza and Reed received one of only six Grand Gold Awards given. “We are grateful to win and be recognized with other prestigious universities such as Berkeley and USC. Sam and I have a great working relationship that has produced some great designs over the years,” Mendoza said. “I have been able to see him grow as a designer and I’m excited for his future.” The team also won a Bronze Award of Excellence in poster design for the Jazz Showcase Poster, designed by a recent graduate, Nicolina Brown. Out of more than 500 entries this year, only 195 gold, silver and bronze winners were selected. BYU Arts Creative consists of a team of students that supports all of BYU Arts productions by preparing the marketing materials, including graphics, posters and programs. Nick Mendoza, creative services manager for BYU Arts, oversees the students and regularly submits their work for awards. Several works from BYU were chosen in various categories. See a complete list of the Awards of Excellence here. http://www.casevii.org/Documents/Districts/DistrictVII/DVII_Awards_Excellence_2016.pdf

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Student winner of the Visual Arts category of the 2016 Phi Kappa Phi Arts Competition

Hailey Stevens — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 16:36:19 +0000

Virginia Dall, or Ginger as she is most commonly known, grew up thinking it was normal to have artwork hanging everywhere in the home. Her mother, a professional artist who influenced Dall’s artistic inclination, encouraged her desire to draw constantly as a child. She spent much of her childhood looking through her mother’s art books, cultivating her own artistic voice. Today, Dall is a senior in the BFA Illustration program at Brigham Young University who has worked on several high profile projects throughout her time as a student. One of Dall’s pieces was chosen as the poster for the BYU 2015 Fall Opera, Manon. Dall’s hard work and dedication are paying off. Recently, she was selected as the winner of the Visual Arts category of the 2016 Phi Kappa Phi Arts Competition, sponsored by the national honor society, Phi Kappa Phi. Nominated by her professor, David Dibble, she is invited to attend a banquet where she will receive her award. “We as area faculty nominated Ginger because of her dedication and personal passion for her work,” Dibble said. “She is unique in how she has crossed the bridge mentally into the professional world and is highly motivated to both improve as well as help others around her to do the same.” Initially, Dall was unaware of the competition, stunned at her nomination and the opportunity to showcase her work. “I have been working closely for the past several months with David Dibble on my BFA show and professional portfolio,” Dall said. “I was especially grateful for his role in being nominated.” Dall has also started working as a studio assistant for LDS artist, J. Kirk Richards, an important stepping-stone in reaching graduation and her future career as an artist.

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Media Arts student wins Best Emerging Director at film festival

Hailey Stevens — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 00:37:57 +0000

Media Arts student Willem Kampenhout won Best Emerging Director at the Other Worlds Austin Film Festival for his film The Surface. The film also won Best Emerging Production Design, attributed to Ashley Cook. Kampenhout started making films when he was only six years old and used his personal experience growing up as the inspiration for The Surface. In December of 2013 he spent winter break watching several crime drama series, which sparked the question, “How much would one risk on behalf of their family?” “I began writing the story of a mother wandering the apocalyptic wasteland in search for spare parts for her cybernetic husband and daughter whilst avoiding a mechanically mutated monster,” Kampenhout said. From this, he developed the story of a mother who risks everything to save the life of her son. The film follows the mother as she searches for a new power source to help her dying son. After being tricked into buying a bad power cell, her only hope is to venture to the blighted surface and steal the infinity cell from one of the monstrous “tainted” creatures. The whole film came together in about two years from start to finish. Kampenhout mentioned the greatest difficulty behind creating a film was being a student and working with other students. “We have obligations other than our projects,” Kampenhout said. “Because it is not an income source, we have jobs as well.” Other than a lack of time, they faced a lack of experience that required more time to produce quality work. Despite these challenges, Kampenhout enjoyed working with other talented and eager students who worked on the music, sound design, art, cinematography and acting. He believes that real joy comes when someone other than oneself gets behind the story and makes it better. They entered the film in Other Worlds Austin, a film festival featuring only Sci Fi films, where he won the award. The Surface also won Best Student Film at the Miami International Science Fiction Film Festival and has currently been accepted into Dam Short Film Festival (Nevada), Original Narrative FIlm Festival (Dubai) and Film Quest (Salt Lake City). “We are building an audience for the film, and seeking out distribution and investors to fund a feature film version of it,” he said. Visit the film’s Facebook page for the trailer and updates about the film. https://www.facebook.com/TheSurfaceFilm

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Changes made in MOA reserved parking times; MOA Cafe now open on Friday evenings

Hailey Stevens — Tue, 29 Dec 2015 21:09:25 +0000

The hours of the reserved faculty lot by the Museum of Art have recently changed. The lot will now open weekdays at 6 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. to the general public. This will allow patrons to park closer to the Harris Fine Arts Center on the nights of performances. Additionally, the MOA Cafe is now offering a 10% discount to patrons with tickets to performances on Friday nights in the HFAC. The Cafe is open on Fridays until 9 p.m. so guests are encouraged to eat at the cafe before their show. On Thursday, December 31, the MOA will close at 4 PM. On New Year’s Day, the MOA will be closed. Happy New Year! The MOA Cafe will be closed for Christmas Break but will reopen on January 4th.

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‘Discover Dance’ in the Annual Dance Assembly Tuesday, Oct. 27

Hailey Stevens — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 22:44:40 +0000

Discover Dance in the Annual Dance Assembly this Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 11 a.m. in the Marriott Center at Brigham Young University. Five premiere BYU dance groups will be performing to help the audience discover the different faces of dance. The performing groups include The Ballroom Dance Company, Living Legends, Theatre Ballet, The International Folk Dance Ensemble and Contemporary Dance Theatre. Each group will present choreography demonstrating how dance can be used to inspire, imagine, reflect, celebrate, remember or express. “We hope our audience will discover how the art of dance can be used to ask personal questions and reflect on the things we value in life,” said associate professor, Ed Austin Austin hopes students take a break from their studies to see the talent of their fellow student artists in a presentation that takes them on a journey through the world of dance and its diverse forms. “Some might assume people dance for the same reasons, but that’s not necessarily true,” Austin said. “The pieces in this program have each been choreographed with different intent, and in some cases, for different reasons.” President Worthen will provide a live introduction and Rodger Sorensen, an associate professor of theatre, has recorded a narration for the program. The assembly is free and open to all who are interested in experiencing the talent of these BYU performing groups.

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An Exercise in Creative Agency Through a TASK Area for Action

Hailey Stevens — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 22:06:19 +0000

How do we make our life more artistic? How does our life influence our art? To answer and interpret these questions, Professor Daniel Barney’s art classes, Theory, Method and Practice and Issues in Contemporary Art, created this piece inspired by Oliver Herring’s TASK Area for Action concept. A TASK party is an improvisational event with few rules. For this TASK, the students were told they had to keep a three-foot boundary around the piece and only add to the artwork, no subtracting. Barney’s two classes each had a different role with the TASK. The first class was instructed to create the piece starting with a few students standing as statues and then adding any material they could find. Papers, tape and foil were draped around the students and tied up the staircases and walls. “It became not just artist-object, something pristine and curated, but to improvisation galore,” Barney said. The second class was charged with repurposing the materials already used and adding to the creation even further. “Everyone might not be an artist but everyone is a creative agent,” Barney said. “How we interpret the world is based off our own agency.” PHOTOS: Hailey Stevens For more information on Oliver Herring and TASK visit: https://oliverherringtask.wordpress.com/

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Giving Back to Community Through Dance Education

Hailey Stevens — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 22:25:59 +0000

BYU Alumnus Shaun Parry not only gives back to the community, but shows students how they can as well. Dance Education student, Kyla Threlfall, had the opportunity to work with Shaun Parry in India as she volunteered for Promethean Spark International, the organization Parry founded. She spent the winter semester of 2014 teaching dance, using methodology Parry taught her. Threlfall first heard of Parry’s India program because her sister was in Parry’s ward in New York City. She shared the information with Threlfall, knowing her interest in dance education, and Threlfall jumped on the opportunity to volunteer. Threlfall’s experience led her to teaching classes at a boarding school in Tamul Nadu for kids from kindergarten to ninth grade. She was the only one teaching the dance classes while other volunteers focused on medical assistance and other service projects. She worked closely with Parry on implementing life skills into dance lessons. “We would try role plays of figuring out how I would add in a life skill to a simple movement,” Threlfall said. From this experience Threlfall learned how to be vocal about what the students were learning. She explained that if an exercise required teamwork, she would make sure the students knew that what they were doing was exhibiting teamwork. She used this to have them think of ways to use teamwork in their everyday lives. “The performing arts inherently teaches life skills, sometimes they just needed help recognizing it,” she said. In India, society tells people with leprosy that they cannot do anything worthwhile in their life because they are “untouchable,” Threllfall said. Parry showed her the importance of changing that perception. “He taught me that a major part of my job was … to let them know that with hard work they can accomplish their dreams,” Threllfall said. As a Dance Education major, Threlfall hopes to implement the teachings from this experience in her future career. Her philosophy goes beyond creating good dancers, but creating good people. “After learning from Shaun, I now have a foundation to use with my future students,” she said. FEATURE PHOTO: Kyla Threlfall and the LifeDance Company.

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BYU a cappella group releases first Christmas CD

Hailey Stevens — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 16:53:17 +0000

Brigham Young University’s nine-man a cappella group, BYU Vocal Point, will be releasing an album dedicated to Christmas songs on Friday, Oct. 9 during the BYU homecoming festivities. Members of Vocal Point will be at the BYU Store for CD signings from 2-3 p.m. that day. The album, He Is Born, features eleven songs including contemporary classics such as “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and “Sleigh Ride” as well as religious favorites like “Silent Night” and “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly.” He Is Born producer and Vocal Point director, McKay Crockett says the group has thought about doing a Christmas album for the past several years. “This long-awaited album has been crafted to aid in commemorating the most nostalgic and meaningful aspects of the Christmas season,” Crockett said. BYU Records general manager Ben Fales says the release of this album will mark the widest release ever of a BYU album. “Not only will He Is Born be available at iTunes, Amazon.com and Deseret Book like many of our other titles, at the end of October it will also be available in Barnes & Noble stores across the United States, which we are very excited about.” The CD also features special guests BYU Noteworthy, nationally acclaimed One Voice Children’s Choir, and powerhouse vocalists Ryan Innes and Elisha Garrett. BYU Vocal Point has performed in front of millions on NBC’s The Sing-Off, on YouTube and in concerts around the United States.

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