Faculty Spotlight: January 2021
Updates from the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture faculty
The creative and scholarly contributions of the UCLA Arts community mine the complexities of the human condition, ask essential questions of our time, and expand the potential of creativity. Read more for a list of recent accolades and current and upcoming virtual and in-person exhibitions, performances, and lectures.
On December 11th, Kyle Abraham, professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, participated in a conversation with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Artistic Director Robert Battle, choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's "Ailey Forward" Virtual Season on their "Dancing for Social Justice" program. The program included performance excerpts from Abraham’s ‘Untitled America' which premiered in two parts in 2015 and 2016.
On December 12th, Abraham and frequent A.I.M collaborator and New York City Ballet Principal Taylor Stanley discussed their collaborations for Danspace's final Conversations Without Walls. Abraham and Stanley discussed the development of their collaborative friendship beginning with the creation of Abraham’s The Runaway (2018) for New York City Ballet to their short film collaboration, Ces noms que nous portons (2020) for Lincoln Center.
Abraham's upcoming projects and events include:
- A new ballet in Havana for Ballet Nacional de Cuba, entitled Unto The End, We Meet, based on music by Arvo Pärt. The work premiered on December 20th.
- A.I.M will premiere a new work to a re-imagining of Mozart's Requiem in D Minor by the modern electronic composer Jlin, as part of National Sawdust's virtual FERUS Festival 2021. The work premiered on January 9th.
- From January 11-February 7th, A.I.M will participate in a “pod residency” at the Kaatsbaan Cultural Park and the Lumberyard Center for Film and Performing Arts.
Botanica de Los Angeles
Michael Owen Jones, professor emeritus in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, published “Herbs and Saints in the City of Angels: Researching Botánicas, Healing, and Power in Southern California” in Journal of American Folklore, 13:527, Winter 2020):53-80, based on his presentation of the American Folklore Society’s Don Yoder Lecture in Religious Folklife (watch here).
From the Journal of American Folklore's abstract:
"This essay presents results of an exploratory project from 2000–2002 on folk medicine among Latinx healers in Los Angeles, initiated because little research had been conducted on botánicas anywhere in the United States. The findings reveal that most of the healers are steeped in more than one religious and healing tradition, and that many of these specialists are not, as sometimes assumed, poorly educated, unsophisticated, or adversaries of biomedical care. In addition, clientele are not exclusively Latinx, immigrants, or impoverished, and they seek help for physical, emotional, interpersonal, legal, and other problems including alcoholism, the last of which practitioners attend to with plant and ritual therapies as well as by recommending treatment centers. Data from this study can help inform educational and medical programs regarding faith-based and herbal therapies by vernacular practitioners in Los Angeles."
In the summer of 2020 Jones completed a book on food choice, identity, and symbolism that is now under consideration for publication by a university press.
Jake Matatyaou, lecturer in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design published the essay "Theory Now" in an edited volume, Theory's Curriculum: The Architecture Exchange Workshop Series, No. 3. The essay responds to the question, “What role should theory play in architectural education today?” by revisiting the used and abused coupling “critical theory” to make a case for theory as a creative practice of world building and perspective taking.
Beyond the Breakdown
Lauren Lee McCarthy, associate professor in the Department of Design Media Arts and interim associate dean for equity, diversity, and inclusion, together with collaborators Tony Patrick and Grace Lee, will be exhibiting their new work Beyond the Breakdown at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, from January 28 - Feb 3, 2021.
"We are now spending less time with one another and more time than ever with algorithmic suggestion engines designed to keep us consuming and powerless. In this world-building browser performance, Festivalgoers engage with an AI + human collaborative team to imagine alternative narratives for our near-future reality. Designed as a renewal center for humanness, this creative browser emphasizes the practice of self-reflection, self-care, and cultivating new ways of building community in online spaces."
Chandler McWilliams, assistant professor in the Department of Design Media Arts, is an editor of FLAT Journal, a peer-reviewed journal for theoretical and critical texts, interviews, reviews, projects, and experiments that engage with contemporary conversations surrounding emerging media in the arts. The new issue, HALT, challenged contributors to ask if halting the acceleration of reality is possible? Is it desirable? Is opting-out an option? Can we really just prefer not to? What does halting mean to you?
For this issue, the board included members from three different schools at UCLA as well as members from UCSC, USC, Carnegie Mellon University, and University of Utah. You can see the new issue (and the first issue) here.
HEADER IMAGE: Hagen Klennert, no title, mixed media (drawing, photography), 2020. From FLAT Journal, Issue 01: HALT.
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