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“Lewis Center for the Arts”

DIRECTOR OF VISUAL ARTS AT THE LEWIS CENTER DIGS HEAVY METAL, MATH JOKES, AND NOT LEWIS LIBRARY

LIVE.Arts_ScanlanName: Joe Scanlan

What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in Princeton?

Baked halibut with asparagus and roasted potatoes. It was prepared by Sandy Tait and Professor Hal Foster in honor of Fritz Haeg and Will Allen, two radical gardeners who gave visiting artist lectures at the Lewis Center.

What’s your top vacation destination?

Wellfleet, Cape Cod

What is your greatest guilty pleasure?

There are so many! I’ll name the first three that come to mind: Heavy metal, Benny Hill, sausage (any kind)

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?

I look at how people think it would be a good idea to make an artwork, and talk about whether it is a good approach or not, and whether that matters, and what effect it might have on its meaning.

Continue reading…

May 9, 2010

21 Questions With… Joe Scanlan

By Ellen Shakespear
Posted in 21 Questions Also tagged Leave a comment
A fully bonded--and utterly exhausted--Troupe 185 celebrates our successful weekend with a communally-prepared dinner in Dodd basement.

A fully bonded--and utterly exhausted--Troupe 185 celebrates our successful weekend with a communally-prepared dinner in Dodd basement.

Forty-seven hours (and one ginormous peanut butter cream pie) later, we’re officially movin’ on out of the Lewis Center at the end of our class’s communal living experiment.  It’s been a mad race to the finish line, and after a frantic midnight T-Sweets run, two fourteen-hour days, and three cockroach fatalities (from which we escaped mercifully unscathed), we’ve made it to the other side with a sizable performance piece in hand.  Our piece uses three original scenes from the 1967 script for The Serpent, with one important addition–a new scene based on our experiences with 9/11, which was compiled and written during the course of the weekend.  The experiment has definitely been an emotional roller coaster, but we all agree: it’s hands-down one of our most memorable academic experiences at Princeton thus far.  ”What an amazing way to end my time here,” said Sara Shaw ‘10.  ”This kind of opportunity comes along once in a lifetime, and I’m so glad we made it happen.”

Talk about something to cross off your Princeton bucket list!  We’ll be performing our final piece at 2pm this Thursday in the Matthews Acting Studio at the Lewis Center; admission is free and all audiences are welcome.

Apr 25, 2010

Lewis Center Living: Day Two

By Julia Bumke
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Photo 27

The oh-so-lovely Troupe 185.

As you might remember from yesterday’s post, AMS 332/THR 331 is living in the Lewis Center for the Arts this weekend as part of a communal living experiment for our final class project.  It’s 24 hours in, and living in 185 Nassau just keeps getting better and better.  So, without further ado, the Top Five Best Moments of the Weekend thus far:

  1. Stargazing from the Lewis Center roof at 2AM–with only minor vertigo.
  2. Eating healthy, non-dining hall food–with the Department of Theater picking up the tab.
  3. Watching the townies coming to and from Communiversity–and especially seeing toddlers take each other out with balloon swords (”We do not fight with our light sabers on the sidewalk, young man!”).
  4. Supporting each other as a class 24/7, which translated into driving Sara Shaw ‘10 to her TFA Spanish proficiency exam, traveling en masse to see my Mahler 6 concert with the PUO, and supporting Josh Lavine ‘10 in his final DiSiac show.
  5. Combining intense, round-the-clock workshops and rehearsals with relaxing bonding time.  In order for The Serpent: A Ceremony to work, we need to get painfully close to the events we’re depicting, especially the King and Kennedy assassinations, which has been pretty harrowing.  For one of our most difficult scenes, we’re creating a series of disjointed, stop-motion images of the Kennedy shooting in the style of the infamous Zapruder film. Four of us are taking on the roles of JFK, Jackie, and Governor and Mrs. Connally, and the rest have the equally difficult task of portraying lookers-on at the motorcade.  We need to trust each other completely and be utterly un-self-conscious in order to pull it off.  We’re on our way: one day to go!
Apr 25, 2010

Lewis Center Living: Day One

By Julia Bumke
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The Open Theater performing "The Serpent" in 1967. (source: http://caffecino.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/serpent.jpg)

The Open Theater performing "The Serpent" in 1967. (source: http://caffecino.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/serpent.jpg)

If you take our advice from yesterday’s Weekend Arts Roundup and head over to see Pilar Castro Kiltz’s senior thesis, Liminal, at the Lewis Center this weekend, be warned: you may also run into a band of puffy-eyed, sweatshirt-clad theater types dragging sleeping bags behind them.

That’s right: students from AMS 332/THR 331, Performance and Politics in the 1960s, will be living in the Lewis Center for the Arts from 11pm tonight until 10pm on Sunday as part of a communal living experiment.  Over the course of the next two and a half days, ten students will sleep and eat together in the building as they prepare an authentic restaging of The Serpent: A Ceremony, which the Open Theater Troupe premiered in New York in 1967. The play is an avant-garde piece that draws from hot-button topics, including the JFK and King assassinations and the Vietnam War, to retell the story of Genesis.  Students will only be allowed to leave the building for emergencies, and will spend the weekend working intensively on creating their final product.  As class member Josh Lavine ‘10 described:

The atmosphere will be one of a creative commune [to evoke the rehearsal style of the Open Theater Troupe], with no outside communication except for 2-3 designated times during the day. We will have highly structured, tightly scheduled days with designated times for guided exercises, to be led by volunteers from class.

Full confession: one of the members of this daring experiment is none other than yours truly. I’ll be providing you all with updates throughout the weekend–wish us luck as we journey back to the 1960s!

Apr 23, 2010

Real World: Princeton; watch people live in the Lewis Center!

By Julia Bumke
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Dinky

source: unigo.com

460 feet.

That’s the distance the Dinky Station would move toward Princeton Junction if the University has its way.

But ever since the University announced in 2006 its intention to move the Dinky Station to make room for the Arts and Transit Neighborhood, Borough officials and residents have been up in arms about the proposed relocation. Aside from the perennial debate over the University’s tax-exempt status, the Dinky relocation is shaping up to be the major friction point in town-gown relations.

The controversy came up again recently when Borough residents elected Jenny Crumiller and reelected Kevin Wilkes to the Borough Council last week. The two Democrats stated their opposition to the Dinky relocation in the run-up to the election. Despite the opposition, University officials have not signaled any intention to back away from its proposed project.

Watch Pulitzer Prize-winning Professor Paul Muldoon (Chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts) and VP Bob Durkee duke it out with Borough Councilman Andrew Koontz, former Borough Mayor Marvin Reed, and Triangle Repro Center owner Bob Howard.

PART 1:

PART 2:

Nov 8, 2009

VIDEO: The Dinky Controversy Explained

By Brian No
Posted in Goings On Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , One comment