Arts Everywhere Day 2021 Participants

Arts Everywhere Day would not be possible without the talented contributions from our UNC community.

Click on a participant below to learn more about them:

UNC Flying Silk

  • Organization description
    • Flying Silk is the only Chinese dance team on UNC’s campus. We are a small community that has come together with a common interest in showcasing the cultural beauty and diversity of Chinese dance.
  • Reflection on how the past year has impacted your organization
    • This past year has been a journey unlike any other. Despite the challenges and uncertainties during this year, our team has been adapting to the virtual environment and creating video-edited performance videos to continue sharing our dances to new audiences. We have learned to communicate and collaborate virtually, building a sense of community through virtual practices and team socials.
  • Performers: Jade Dang, Shara He, Brianna Li, Elizabeth Pham, Vivi Wang, Lucia Zhang, Amanda Zhao, Seanna Chen, Jessie Zheng, Vivian Deng, Sydney Murray, Halley Zhang
    Video Editor: Erica Chen
  • Watch their performance at 10 am on Facebook, Instagram or on our website after the premiere.

Arlene Medder, Yarn Bomb

*Due to unforeseen circumstances, this art installation has been postponed to a later date

  • About Arlene
    • Arlene Medder is a UNC staff member who serves as Admin Support in Auxiliary Services
  • Installation Description
    • I will put up fiber-based graffiti, aka a Yarn Bomb. It’s composed of assorted bits of knitting (& some hidden tatting) in cotton & wool.
  • Reflection on the past year
    • I take mass transit to work from Durham and there have been so many times I’ve complained, ‘oh, if I could just be at work in 5 minutes, it would be so much easier.’ For most of the past year, I’ve had exactly that as I work from home, and I find that I miss the transit. It was time to relax, and knit or read or tat. It was 20 minutes, twice a day, that all for me, with no other demands.

Pauper Players

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (2019)
  • Organization description
    • UNC Pauper Players is UNC’s premiere musical theatre company and the only theatre company at UNC dedicated completely to musical theatre. Established in 1989, Pauper Players produces 4 musicals every year. Some of our past productions include: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Ghost Quartet, Mamma Mia!, Chicago, Little Shop of Horrors, Sweeney Todd, and Into the Woods. In addition, UNC Pauper Players produces the annual production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show each Halloween. Pauper Players offers students an opportunity to participate in every aspect of musical theater production. Aside from actors, singers, and dancers, we are always recruiting directors, producers, stage managers, musicians, choreographers, stage managers, designers, and costumers. Students can also participate doing business management or publicity on the executive board. Pauper Players is always looking for people to help and no experience is necessary!
  • Reflection on how the events of this past year have impacted your organization
    • COVID-19 has cast a shadow on many theatre and performance groups including UNC Pauper Players. Our fall season was cancelled due to COVID-19, but we were able to produce a virtual musical through the UNC Student Theatre Collaboration. This semester, we will be producing two virtual productions that will be livestreamed on April 23-24: 35mm and The Mad Ones.
  • Watch their performance on Facebook or Instagram on April 9 at 11 am or on our website after the premiere

First Fridays String Quartet

  • Performers:
    • Ayman Bejjani (He/Him)
      • Major: Music BA, Chemistry Minor
      • Year: Junior
      • Instrument: Violin
  • Maria Manning (She/Her)
    • Major: Neuroscience BA, Music BM
    • Year: First Year
    • Instrument: Violin
  • Tate Jones (He/Him)
    • Major: Biology BS and Music BA
    • Year: Sophomore
    • Instrument: Viola
  • David Kim (He/Him)
    • Major: Music BA, Premed Track
    • Year: First Year
    • Instrument: Cello
  • About the performance, “Celebrating the Music of Florence Price and William Grant Still”
    • Though the musical outputs of the two composers are prolific and their distinctive compositional voices undeniable, the climate of their time made it extremely challenging for African-American composers to gain significant traction within the canon. Today, we are extremely excited to present works by the two composers in the hopes of showcasing the underrepresented talent of Florence Beatrice Price and William Grant Still and to highlight the significant impact of these African-American voices in 20th-century American music.
  • Reflection on how the events of this past year have impacted your group
    • “The events of last year, especially the death of George Floyd and the resurgence of the BLM movement heavily affected our music making. These events allowed us to reflect on how we, as musicians, can contribute. As a result, we undertook a conscious endeavor to explore Black art music of underrepresented composers. This effort has fostered in us a newfound appreciation for this wonderful music, which has often been overshadowed. In addition, the pandemic forced us to meet virtually, which allowed us to dive more into the history of pieces and the lives of composers, which is something we had not done as extensively when playing in person.”
  • Watch their performance on April 9 at noon on Facebook or on website or YouTube after it premieres. Read more about their program here.

A Medium Metamorphosis by Kenan Poole

  • Description
    • I’m Kenan, and I make internet net. This means that I use websites as a medium of art. This project is called A Medium Metamorphosis and is a reflection of the nature of change.
  • Project Description
    •  My art represents the metamorphosis of the medium of art, specifically from in person to online. The stories that are being portrayed are stories of forms being changed from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This was a book I read in English this past year that I was reminded of when reflecting on this past year. I also had the opportunity to read selections a previous year in Latin. This book tells the various stories of beings having their forms changes. Ovid also alters the stories slightly emphasizing the retelling of a perpetually changing story. I hope to change and retell these stories in this art installation. The last metamorphosis I would like to emphasize is the change of the mosaic. What does it mean to be a mosaic? Can I digitally create the tiles formed together and still qualify as making a mosaic? The main idea I want to instill is this reminder of change. Because not for one person is change a novel idea, and with 2020 fresh in the audience’s mind the emphasis of change and metamorphosis resounds even more.
  • Context when viewing the art installation
    • Zeus visited earth, specifically Arcadia. At this time, he showed signs that he was a god. The people praised and gave offerings to Zeus. Lycaon, the Arcadian King, decided to test if this visitor truly was a god or a mortal. Lycaon killed and cooked a human to serve the visitor as the test. As soon as Lycaon served Zeus, Zeus revealed his avenging thunderbolt intending to punish Lycaon. Zeus used this encounter to justify turning Lycaon into a wolf and later to justify the use of a flood to wipe the human race.
  • How has this year affected your work?
    • The only constant of this past year has been change. Covid has uprooted so many of the plans I laid out and the person I wanted to become at the end of the year. My study abroad trip was cancelled, I moved in back with my parents, I switched to part-time studies, and I grew a beard! So much of this past year has been an introspective conversation as I morphed along with the past year. In a class last semester, we read Ovid’s Metamorphoses and feel inspired to tell their stories using a new medium continuing their metamorphosis in the modern-day.
  • Check out A Medium Metamorphosis here on April 9th at 1 pm

Some Kind of Universe

Description

Some Kind of Universe is a project made up of six individual “capsules of inquiry” in which each of our Professional Actor Training Program artists contemplated, created and collaged some of what made up their complex universe in the Fall of 2020. Filled with curiosity, passion, frustration, humor and sometimes brutal honesty, these collages are an expression of how creativity will out—and hopefully provide empathy and meaning to help us through.

Each capsule is wholly conceived by the individual actor—but the making of all of them is a true collaborative effort between the PATP, film supervisor & editor Christopher Ash, directors Tracy Bersley and Vivienne Benesch, sound designer Brandon Reed and Stage Managers (and newly appointed cinematographers) Liz Ray and Chuck Bayang. Students from the Costume Design Production program also contributed.

  • Watch the capsules on Facebook on April 9th at 2 pm.

Capsules by

Artist Conversation: “Creating Mysterious Ink World, Part One (2016)”

  • Description
    • Join the Ackland Art Museum an in-depth look at Mysterious Ink World, Part One (2016), a collaborative contemporary work featured in the Ackland Art Museum’s newest installation of Asian art, Clouding: Shape and Sign in Asian Art. The immersive work is composed of an abstract ink painting by Ming Ren (American, b. 1956) installed opposite an interactive projection responding in real time to the viewers of the painting, designed by computer scientist and artificial intelligence pioneer Hansong Zhang (Chinese, b. 1969), who received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1998. Both Ming Ren and Hansong Zhang will join the Ackland for a conversation about how the work came together and the nature of their artistic collaboration. Ellen Huang, former curator for Asian art, will moderate the conversation and help situate the work within the larger themes of Clouding.
  • Event info
    • The virtual program is free and open to the public. Free tickets must be obtained below to receive the Zoom link. Interested visitors may wish to see Clouding: Shape and Sign in Asian Art in person in the Ackland’s recently reopened galleries by obtaining a timed ticket.
    • To join the conversation at 3:30 pm, register for your free ticket here.
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