PHILADELPHIA (April 8, 2008) - As part of Inauguration week activities, members of the University community, alumni, special guests and the public are invited to our exciting series of Symposia events, organized around the theme of “Improvise/Commit.”

These varied events feature innovators in a wide range of artistic fields and disciplines, and are designed to illuminate the importance of the creative process – and the extraordinary role it plays in the arts and society as a whole – in interesting, entertaining and provocative ways.

Ranging widely in subject matter and format – including workshops, performances, panel discussions and lectures – the Symposia reflect the University's commitment to celebrating creativity, and each event promises to be unpredictable, compelling, thought-provoking and even inspirational.

All events are free and open to the public. Please RSVP to inauguration@uarts.edu, as space may be limited.

For more details, visit www.uarts.edu/inauguration.

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TESTTUBE TV: Workshop
A Stage to Star On or What You Need to Know to Make a Webisode
Kevin O’Rourke, Jay Tarses and Richard Dresser, principals of the Web site TESTTUBE.TV will lead a workshop and discuss the Web as a new showcase for writers, actors and filmmakers. O’Rourke has more than 20 years of experience as an actor, director and producer in theater, television and film and has been an active participant in contract negotiation for the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and served on SAG committees on working conditions and technology. Tarses served as writer and producer for a number of acclaimed variety shows, situation comedies and television series, including The “Carol Burnett Show,” the original “Bob Newhart” Show and “The Tony Randall Show” – as well as executive producer for MTM Enterprise. Tarses won an Emmy for his work on “The Carol Burnett Show” and a Writer’s Guild Award for “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.” Dresser is an accomplished playwright and screenwriter/producer. His work includes the Broadway play Good Vibrations, and on TV, “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,” “The Job” and “Bakersfield P.D.” Space is limited. Please contact Sigmund Washington at swashington@uarts.edu for reservations.
April 14, 1 – 2:50 p.m.
Hunt Room, Hamilton Hall

TESTTUBE TV: Panel Discussion
Whatever Happened to TV or Will the Internet Kill Episodic TV?
O’Rourke, Tarses and Dresser discuss the impact of the Web on the business and craft of episodic television. The trio will screen various online episodic programs and talk about their structures, various distribution models and impact on jobs, business and entertainment. The panel moderator, Jeff Ryder, Director of the UArts Writing for Film & Television and Communication programs, received two Emmys for his work on “The Guiding Light” and was vice president for Daytime NBC and the Movies of the Week at MGM.
April 14, 7 p.m. Hunt Room, Hamilton Hall

Richard Minsky: von Hess Artist-in-Residence Lecture
Join von Hess Artist-in-Residence and book artist Richard Minsky as he discusses his work. Since 1973, Minsky has challenged the bookbinding establishment. A traditionally trained bookbinder, he focuses on making the book an expression of art, and has influenced generations of book artists to use the materials and structure as metaphors in their work. Minsky founded the Center for Book Arts, an independent not-for-profit organization in New York City that is a model for similar facilities nationwide. His work is in public collections at Yale University, Victoria and Albert Museum, The Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art. More information is available at www.minsky.com.
April 15, 1 p.m.
Connelly Lecture Hall, Terra Hall

Scrap Performance Group performs “TIDE”
A performance of “TIDE” by the Scrap Performance Group, a five-woman, movement-based theater troupe, which integrates dance, theatre, film, light, text and sound in dynamic ways that cross the traditional boundaries of genre and builds experiential environments for its audiences. Scrap members share a common aesthetic and awareness of contemporary culture and draw from diverse viewpoints to create work that provokes, inspires and compels people to question. Under the leadership of Scrap Performance Group Directors Myra Bazell and Madison Cario, students contributed to the development of this professional work-in-progress through an interdisciplinary workshop referred to as The Foundry. Using the skills developed within their previous course work and life experiences, students explored the themes that contributed to this unique dance-based cross-media performance, focusing on the reciprocal impact humans and the natural environment have on each other. The performance will be followed by a talk-back session and reception, where student projects developed in The Foundry will also be on display. Learn more at www.scrap-performance.org.
April 16, noon and 8 p.m.
Chambers Wylie Church, 315 South Broad Street

Lewis Hyde: Conversations with Crafts Students
Author of The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, MacArthur Fellow and former director of undergraduate creative writing at Harvard University, Lewis Hyde will lead a discussion on creativity and the themes that permeate The Gift. The Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College, Hyde has other interests centering on the public life of the imagination. His book The Gift is an inquiry into the situation of creative artists in commercial society. Trickster Makes This World is a portrait of the kind of disruptive imagination needed to keep any culture flexible and alive. Hyde, a respected author and poet, is working on a book about “cultural commons," that vast, unowned store of ideas, inventions and art that we have inherited from the past. For more information, visit www.lewishyde.com.
April 17, 9:30 a.m.
Levitt Auditorium, Gershman Hall

Improvise/Commit: Conversations on the Creative Process
A panel discussion moderated by Lewis Hyde and featuring panelists Myra Bazell and Madison Cario (Scrap Performance Group), Peter Schumann (Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Theater); and Michael and Katherine McCoy (design educators and partners at McCoy and McCoy Associates). Event includes a prelude performance including percussion, sound, media and performance artist Toshi Makihara and the UArts Rumble Ensemble.
April 17, 11:30 a.m.
Levitt Auditorium, Gershman Hall

Katherine and Michael McCoy: Modernism and Critical Practices in Design
Join Katherine and Michael McCoy, renowned design educators and partners at McCoy and McCoy Associates, as they speak on the topics of modernism and critical practices in design. The McCoys have built a 28-year career creating studio environments that enable designers to convert theory to design practice. Formerly Co-chairs of Design at Cranbrook Academy of Art, the McCoys are on faculty at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design and directors of High Ground Design Workshops, which offer advanced design workshops to professionals at their mountain studio in Buena Vista, Colo. They received the Smithsonian Institution’s first Design Minds National Design Award and, in recognition of their influence on design education, received the American Center for Design Education Award, the Industrial Designers Society of America Education Award. In 1994, they received the prestigious Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design, which is given to six architects and designers annually. For more information, visit www.highgrounddesign.com/mccoy/mccoy.htm.
April 17, 1:30 – 3:30 p.m.
Levitt Auditorium, Gershman Hall

Double Feature: One Evening, Two Extraordinary Performances
Rennie Harris Puremovement; Stanley Clarke and the UArts Alumni Big Band (conducted by Lars Halle)
Led by School of Dance faculty member Lorenzo “Rennie” Harris, Rennie Harris Puremovement (RHPM) was conceived with the vision for sharing an appreciation for diversity and is dedicated to preserving and disseminating hip-hop culture through workshops, classes, lecture-demonstrations, dance residencies, mentoring programs and public performances. RHPM’s work encompasses rich and diverse African American traditions of the past, while presenting the voice of a new generation. RHPM has performed to sellout audiences at venues in the U.S. and abroad including Grad Halle de Parc de la Villette in Paris; Reichhold Center in St. Thomas; Kennedy Center in D.C.; Holland Dance Festival; Kiasma Museum in Helsinki; Spoleto Dance Festival; Wilma Theater in Philadelphia; and the Nervi Festival in Italy. Harris was named one of 50 United States Artists Fellows for 2007, received the Pennsylvania Governor’s Artist of the Year Award for 2007 and also received the Philadelphia Rocky Award from the Philadelphia dance community. Learn more at www.rhpm.org. As an extraordinary finale to the evening, a jazz ensemble comprised of the University's outstanding alumni, conducted by Lars Halle, will perform. Legendary jazz bassist and UArts alumnus Stanley Clarke will join the group, as will a few other very special guests, making for a never-to-be-forgotten evening of jazz performances.
April 17, 8 p.m.
Levitt Auditorium, Gershman Hall

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