Friday, April 24, 2009
Faculty, students and visiting artists are connecting science and the arts this weekend with a performance focused on evolution and the environment.
The performance, “Tree of Life — Origins and Evolutions,” combines science, humanities and the performing arts through music, dance, theater and film.
Students from the theater, music and dance departments combine to present Tree of Life, a Creative Campus project. The production explores the phenomenon of evolution through the stages of life and genetic connectedness.
“The work on the stage is actually the artistic response to faculty research in science and the humanities,” said Karen Christilles, Lied Center associate director and Creative Campus project director.
The performance is divided into three movements, or ‘trees’:
— The cultural tree: exploring our roots as various cultures
— The scientific tree: looking at Darwin and evolution
— The intertwined tree: showing how the cultural viewpoint intertwines with the scientific viewpoint
“With this intertwining, we’ll be able to solve some of the conflict we’re suffering from,” said David Balakrishnan, founder of the Grammy Award-winning Turtle Island String Quartet, which is participating in the performances.
The tree of life is the central, unifying image in the show. It is used to answer questions such as “Why are we here?” and “How can I be an individual of both faith and science?”
“It shows that science and art are not that different and you can actually collaborate together,” said Cory Hills, Springfield, Va., doctoral student and percussionist with the KU Wind Ensemble, which is also participating in the performance.
Many primitive cultures used tree metaphors to explain the origins of life. The ‘tree of life’ took on symbolic meaning in ancient cultures across the world, from Assyria to Egypt to India. Then, in the modern era, the phrase “tree of life” became one of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary terms, Christilles said. Where scientists use the tree as a chart, artists use it as a metaphor.
“Really, what the tree of life is about is trying to understand where human beings came from and where they fit into the greater scheme of things,” Christilles said.
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“Tree of Life — Origins and Evolutions”
What: A multidisciplinary performance featuring theatre, music and dance students and faculty. It will also feature the music of the Turtle Island String Quartet. When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday Where: Lied Center How much: $24 for public, $12 for students. Students can purchase tickets for $5 with a University Daily Kansan coupon. Tickets can be purchased at the Lied Center, University Theatre and SUA ticket offices or at www.lied.ku.edu.
Christilles said University faculty and visiting artists created the work themselves. Because of this, the performance goes beyond what the Lied Center normally does.
The Lied Center-commissioned performance is the artistic culmination of the two-year Creative Campus project, which was made possible by a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Various lectures, seminars and dialogues about evolution and the environment have been occurring on campus for the last two years, but this is the first time such a multidisciplinary artistic performance will occur.
“It was daunting and at the same time exciting to take on something so huge,” said Balakrishnan, who composed the music for the performance.
Balakrishnan said at the beginning of the project, no one really knew what they were getting into, but through collaboration it has turned into what he called a “brilliant work.”
The Turtle Island String Quartet will perform on stage, while the KU Wind Ensemble will perform in the orchestra pit.
It is unusual to involve both a string quartet and a wind ensemble in a performance influenced by multiple musical styles ranging from bluegrass to jazz to Indian music, said Scott Weiss, conductor for the KU Wind Ensemble.
“I know of no other work which combines a string quartet playing eclectic forms of work with a contemporary wind ensemble,” Weiss said. “From a musical standpoint, it’s a fascinating piece of work.”
Mandy Shriwise, Overland Park senior and one of the dancers in the performance, became involved because the performance combines her interests in dance and science. Shriwise is a pre-med student and has taken many years of science coursework.
“I think people underestimate the way art can respond to these issues,” Shriwise said. “It’s not something you’re publishing in a scientific journal, but it’s more accessible to the public.”
Matt Jacobson, associate professor of theater and film, is creating video sequences that will be played at different times throughout the performance. The videos will show the interaction of man and nature through such images as oil refineries and wind farms in Kansas.
“These are all things that concern us all in a way that has to do with our cultural survival, our survival as a species and our survival as a planet,” Jacobson said.
— — Edited by Justin Leverett
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