DIRECTOR'S NOTE

@oceanvuong, Instagram post, posted and accessed November 28, 2021

DANCERS

Aimee Watts is a second-year Dance major. As her first time participating in Oberlin Dance Company, she is grateful to be part of such a wonderful performance. She would like to thank everyone who made this show possible and to all those who support her dancing. Enjoy the show!

Alana Brunette is a second-year Dance and Biology double major. She is from Ann Arbor, Michigan, where her wonderful parents, cat (Gus), and miniature dachshund (Minnie Mae) currently live. When she is not dancing or studying Biology, Alana enjoys spending time with her loved ones and participating in restful activities. Alana would like to express her gratitude to Prof. Al Evangelista, the production crew, and the rest of the ODC cast.

Annabel Sexton-Daldry is a first-year student and an intended Dance major who is considering a concentration in Peace and Conflict Studies. She has performed in the Student Dance Showcase and in two pieces in the most recent Spring Back concert. She is extremely excited to be performing in ODC this year and is honored to have been included in Professor Evangelista's creative process this semester.

Annika Lindholm is a first-year with prospective majors in Politics, Environmental Studies, and Dance. She has been dancing her whole life, and was primarily trained in classical ballet. In her time at Oberlin, she participated in ViBE Jazz, Student Dance Showcases, and Spring Back. She is looking forward to choreographing her first piece for Fall Forward next semester. She is so excited to be a part of this incredible show, and can’t wait to explore all that the Dance program has to offer!

Emmacate Sauer is a third-year studying Dance and Creative Writing with a specific interest in physical dance theater and science fiction. As a dancer and performer, they’ve had the honor to be apart of a myriad of department productions, including Liminal Spaces: A Pedestrian’s Guide (2020) directed by Georgie Johnson OC ‘20, Au Milieu (2022) directed by Analise LaRiviere OC ‘22, Fall Forward (2019 & 2021), and Spring Back (2022). Her choreographic credits include: Fall Forward (2021) and Spring Back (2022) with collaborative works (Re)collections (w/ Analise LaRiviere), Annotations on Care Embodied (w/ Minerva Macarrulla), and Mytoesies (w/ Piper Morrison). They are looking forward to spending the summer dancing contact improvisation and scheming for their senior production next spring. Emmacate wants to express her immense gratitude to Al and his generosity throughout this process!

Jewel Cameron is a fourth-year dance and psychology major from Atlanta, GA. Jewel has been a member of the Oberlin Dance Company in 2019, 2021, and 2022, and has presented original work in Fall Forward 2019 and 2021 and Spring Back 2022. In addition, she has co-directed VIBE Dance Company, Oberlin’s jazz and tap dance company since 2021. She co-directed the Student Dance Showcase, the largest student-run showcase on campus, from 2019 to 2021. In the Psychology Department, she has conducted research on race and climate change messaging, which has been presented at the 2021 and 2022 Oberlin Undergraduate Research Symposiums, the 2022 SPSP Sustainability Preconference, and in the 2021 APS Conference.

Kendall Heldt is a second-year Dance and Politics double major from Detroit, Michigan. She is constantly seeking out ways to combine her two majors through activism and identity politics. She has choreographed and performed original work in a few Oberlin shows, including Fall Forward in 2021, The Space Between Walking and Running in 2021, and Spring Back in 2022. She is also a part of Vibe Dance’s Jazz Company and has performed in Student Dance Showcase in the spring and fall of 2021 and the spring of 2022.

Lily Crikelair is a second-year History and potential Dance major with a minor in Environmental Studies. She grew up in Bar Harbor, Maine where she was introduced to dancing by her mother who found space for dance and music in every moment. At Oberlin, she has danced in Fall Forward and Spring Back and is currently a part of Varsity Contact. She is excited and honored to be a part of this show!

Lizzy Griffin is a second-year Dance and Psychology double major with an Education concentration. During her time at Oberlin College, she has performed in several shows, including Fall Forward 2021, Spring Back 2022, Student Dance Showcase 2020, 2021, 2022, Day of Dance 2021, and Au Milieu/Dance Stories. At Oberlin, she is a member of ViBE Dance Company, and has worked on two shows for Oberlin Dance Company. She is so excited to be a part of this incredible production!

Milo Projansky Ono is a fourth-year Creative Writing major from Salt Lake City, Utah with minors in Dance and Book Studies. Milo took their first dance class at Oberlin in Spring 2020 and hasn’t turned back since. They have taught classes for Ballet Oberlin, choreographed and directed performances for Ballet Oberlin, and performed in Jewel Cameron's Dance Stories, the Student Dance Showcase, Fall Forward, and Spring Back. Milo extends their deepest gratitude to their fellow dancers and the Dance department faculty for their support. They will carry forward the knowledge, love, and acceptance they have received from the dance community at Oberlin in their life after college.

My Vuong is a fourth-year Economics major from Hanoi, Vietnam. On campus, she is currently the co-director of CHOREO. She has also danced and performed with other hip-hop dance crews like AndWhat!? and Kinetik. This is her first semester dancing with the Oberlin Dance Company, and she is very grateful to have this opportunity before leaving Oberlin. She would like to thank Al and the incredible cast for being understanding and helping her explore a new dance style! After Oberlin, My will be pursuing a Master of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, and she hopes to continue dancing in the greater Chicago area.

ARTISTIC TEAM

Al Evangelista (Artistic Director) is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Oberlin. His creative works have been performed at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, American Theatre Company, Links Hall, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, and Moss Arts Center. He has danced in works for Dance Exchange, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the Inconvenience, and performed at Chicago Opera Theatre, Adventure Stage Chicago, among others. He is an affiliate faculty member of Oberlin's Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies and a faculty fellow in the Center for Communicating Science at Virginia Tech.

Douglas Hertz (Composer) is a composer, producer, educator, and multi-instrumentalist based in Queens, NY. Hertz uses sound as a medium to investigate experiences ranging from the personal to universal and from the physical to the spiritual. Through his work, he seeks to connect with audiences in a way that helps them better understand themselves, one another, and the world they inhabit. Hertz is an avid interdisciplinary collaborator and constantly seeks ways of broadening the context of his work beyond the concert hall. His collaborations have included several works created with choreographer Al Evangelista, including Hallow Hollow (2018) and Saeculum (2017). Hertz completed his undergraduate degree at Bard College and earned a masters degree in music composition from the University of Michigan. As a committed educator, Hertz teaches music theory and composition at the Thurnauer School of Music in Tenafly, NJ, with the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers Program in New York, NY, and at the Walden School in Dublin, NH.

Laura Carlson-Tarantowski (Set Designer) is Oberlin's resident Scenic Designer and Lecturer. Recent projects on campus include The Moors, Olympus, and Antigone as well as 'Kill Move Paradise' at Dobama Theater.

Chris Flaharty (Costume Designer) is a resident Costume Designer/Associate Professor of Theater for the Oberlin College Theater Department and the Opera Theater of the Conservatory of Music. With professional and educational companies, he has designed costumes for original dance works and performance pieces, as well as classic and contemporary plays ranging from Shakespeare and Sondheim to Molière and Mamet, with representative works as diverse as Tartuffe (for which he was awarded a USITT citation), The Wiz, Three Sisters, Twelfth Night, Wedding Band, Light Up the Sky and Zastrozzi. He has costumed Into the Woods, On the Verge, Company, Assassins, Sunday in the Park with George, The Illusion and Spring Awakening, all of which he also directed at Oberlin. His repertory of opera productions includes designs for many masterpieces of the standard canon as well as rarities like Coyote Tales, Alcina, The Turn of the Screw and The Rake’s Progress. Mr. Flaharty teaches Costume Design and Musical Theater Performance.

Dr. Abby Aresty (Artistic Collaborator) is a sound artist, composer, and educator who works with hybrid technologies like electronic textiles and paper circuits. Her community-based creative practice empowers individuals to work creatively with sound, and to share their stories while building community through collective making, integrated learning, and storytelling. Aresty has presented her research in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Hong Kong, in conferences including ICMC, Balance/Unbalance, ISEA, and Sonic Environments. She has held fellowships at the Studio for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University, Grinnell College, and the Acoustic Ecology Lab at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts. Aresty is Technical Director and Lecturer for the Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA) Department at Oberlin Conservatory.

Rachel Suzanne Smith (Artistic Collaborator) is an artist, maker, and educator. She received her undergraduate degree at Miami University in Art Education with minors in 3D Media Studies (jewelry/metals) and Spanish and her MFA in Crafts (Jewelry Metals Enameling) at Kent State University. She maintains a studio practice as a wearable sculpture and object maker along with her role as Prototyping Manager at Sears think[box]. Smith has enjoyed working creatively in collaboration with Abby Aresty and Al Evangelista and is grateful to the entire production team for all that went into this project.

Joseph P. Natt (Senior Technical Director) is now in his 16th year here at Oberlin College. Joe received his BFA in Theater Set Design and Technology in 1997 from Kent State University. Since then, Joe has worked professionally as Technical Director for Lyric Opera Cleveland as well as five seasons at The Cleveland Play House on a variety of shows in a variety of positions. He has worked on such shows as the opera of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Street Scene, Assassins, Death of a Salesman, Reefer Madness, Psycho Beach Party, The Bluest Eye, Angels in America, and Urinetown here at Oberlin College, as well as The Tempest, Glass Menagerie, Our Town, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Miracle Worker, and Hamlet for the Oberlin Summer Theater Festival.

Kiva Wise (Lighting Designer) is a fourth year Theater major, pursuing concentrations in both stage management and lighting design. Her previous Oberlin credits include The Moors (Assistant Lighting Designer), Il Matrimonio Segreto (Assistant Lighting Designer), Hamlet (Lighting Designer), Next to Normal (Stage Manager), Orlando (Stage Manager, Lighting Designer), Twilight Bowl (Assistant Lighting Designer), Big Spender (Stage Manager), and Urinetown (Assistant Stage Manager). Kiva was also the Production Manager for the Directing III class productions. Kiva is from Natick, Massachusetts.

Jeremy K. Benjamin (Lighting Faculty Advisor) has taught Lighting Production and Lighting Design courses at Oberlin College for the past 15 years. In addition, Mr. Benjamin is currently Director of the Theatre program at Lorain County Community College where he has been Production Manager and Technical Director since 1990. Recent Oberlin Theater productions include Olympus, Antigone, Twilight Bowl, Urinetown, Body of Bourne, What We Look Like, Cabaret, Angels in America Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, The Bluest Eye, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, and Denial. As a freelance lighting designer, Mr. Benjamin’s work has been seen at the Beck Center for the Performing Arts, Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, The Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Department, Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theatre, Cleveland Municipal School District, Cleveland’s Playhouse Square Center, Cleveland’s Dancing Wheels, Great Lakes Theater, Karamu House, King’s Productions, Lyric Opera Cleveland, The Musical Theatre Project, Ohio Dance Theatre, Opera Cleveland, Paramount Productions, Pointe of Departure Dance, and the Village Playhouse.

Kari Barclay (Intimacy Director) is a queer performance-maker and Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater at Oberlin. Their play Can I Hold You? was one of the first full-length plays in the U.S. to explore asexual identities. Their new play, Stonewallin', won the 2021 Southern Queer Playwriting Festival and opened at Richmond Triangle Players this winter. Kari has served as intimacy director for theater productions across the country and in Canada. They studied intimacy directing with Tonia Sina, Claire Warden, Chelsea Pace, and Laura Rikard, among others. PhD Stanford 2021. kari-barclay.com.

Julian Anderson (Stage Manager) is a third-year East Asian Studies major with Theater and Music minors from Bloomington, Indiana. Previously with the Dance Department, they have stage managed Spring Back 2022: The Power of One and Au Milieu/Dance Stories. Other credits include the world premiere of Olympus (Assistant Stage Manager) for Oberlin College Theater, Twelfth Night (Stage Manager, Sound Designer) for Shakespeare Underground, the world premiere of The Wild Beast of the Bungalow (Stage Manager) for Oberlin Opera Theater, and a variety of other work for the Theater Department, Dance Umbrella, and OMTA. They'd like to thank you for coming to the show, and their friends, family, and the Theater and Dance Departments for their support!

Sanding man and solderer, TIMARA major Gabriel Baskin was on deck for troubleshooting backup and general assistantship for the ArtiFACT exhibit and ODC technology.

Ivy Fu is an art history and TIMARA major. Ivy assisted with the ArtiFACT project and exhibit.

Michael Gaspari is a composer in the composition and TIMARA departments at Oberlin. For the ODC production, Michael assisted with audio recording and audio editing.

Jack Hamill is a TIMARA and philosophy major at Oberlin and a multimedia artist. Jack helped out with recording the spoken text and setting up a software program to play it back.

Lily Lansdell is a voice performance major and multimedia artist in the conservatory. Lily helped fabricate the e-textile pressure sensors. Lily also assisted with the Artifact project exhibit.

Olivia Lu is a neuroscience and biology major with a concentration in global health. Olivia helped plan ArtiFACT project exhibits.

Maya McCollum is a studio art and TIMARA major. She worked this semester on the Artifact project, assisting with workshops, making short animations, and doing some projection mapping.

Ian Moo is an elecroacoustic design major and builder of synthesizers. They helped troubleshoot sensors, data transmission, and integration between Arduino-powered circuitry and Max/MSP.

Rachel Yee is a TIMARA major and spatial audio artist who creates experiences based on fictional realities. Rachel assisted with the development of wireless, interactive textile and audio technologies for the ODC production.

(Much of) the technology for tonight’s programming was developed by TIMARA Technical Director Abby Aresty and by members of the Crafting Sound Lab, an undergraduate research lab directed by Aresty. Research assistants helped with every aspect of the technology, working on code, electronics, electronic textiles, audio, animation, and projection.

For their advice, assistance, and/or use of equipment for fabrication purposes, special thanks goes to Lorain County Community College and the Think[box].

Joshua Reiner

Eli Stine

Kendal at Oberlin

Michele Tarsitano-Amato

Oberlin Dance Faculty

Oberlin FASA

Sugar Shack

ArtiFACT Project TEAM:

Abby Aresty

Al Evangelista

Abe Reshad

Larissa Fekete

Maya McCollum

Ivy Fu

Olivia Lu

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

AL EVANGELISTA

LIGHTING DESIGNER

KIVA WISE

LIGHTING FACULTY ADVISOR

JEREMY K. BENJAMIN

SET DESIGNER

LAURA CARLSON-TARANTOWSKI

COSTUME DESIGNER

CHRIS FLAHARTY

INTIMACY DIRECTOR

KARI BARCLAY

STAGE MANAGER

JULIAN ANDERSON

LIGHT BOARD OPERATOR

EMMA HART

SOUND BOARD OPERATOR

FAFA NUTOR

STAGEHANDS

MAGGIE ELSEN, GABE GOMEZ

MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR THEATER, DANCE AND OPERA

ERIC STEGGALL

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

JOSEPH P. NATT

ASSISTANT TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

DAVID BUGHER

COSTUME SHOP MANAGER

HEATHER LEIGH BROWN

WARNER CENTER TECHNICAL COORDINATOR, STAGE MANAGEMENT ADVISOR

DANIEL R. JAMES

BOOKKEEPER

DEB ZVOSEC

PROFESSOR OF DANCE, CHAIR

ANN COOPER ALBRIGHT

VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF AFRICANA STUDIES AND DANCE

TALISE CAMPBELL

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DANCE, AFFILIATE FACULTY OF GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND FEMINIST STUDIES

AL EVANGELISTA

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DANCE

HOLLY HANDMAN-LOPEZ

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF DANCE

ALYSIA RAMOS

TICKET OFFICE MANAGER

Maeve Hogan and Jordan Muschler

PUBLICITY

Maeve Hogan, Ella Fruchter, Anna Cohen, Lizzy Griffin, Alana Brunette