Every year, the Studio for Interrelated Media (SIM) department has their own department-wide show, showcasing the breadth and variety of its students’ work. This year is my first year in SIM, and I’ve been involved in SIM-related projects and events more than any thing I’ve done at any school yet. It’s fantastic. I was asked to stage manage the performance portion of this year’s Big Show, and not knowing what that meant or even what the Big Show was, I said ‘sure.’ It was really big, pretty stressful, and really awesome.Walking into the building, we’re greeted by a sort of living flower form, with a handwritten letter and a memory of childhood; a mixed-media piece involving projection, masking tape sculpture and a walnut. Up the stairs, we enter the populated realm of the Big Show.
On the right is the Pozen Center, where we’ll see performances, but not just yet. First, straight ahead, is the North Crakertorium, an open space for student-run shows and exhibitions; tonight it’s been dressed up for the Big Show.
Blacklight Painting by Aly Stoltz
Blacklight paintings, reminders of the music-painting performance series ToonColor, interactive pedestal pieces and the giant hand-painted SIM Big Show sign!
Awesomeness is still in store if we turn around and head back toward Pozen. On the left is the Godine Gallery, a very nice space in the school for visiting artists’ shows and the like, also displaying SIM students’ fine work. In it are the tree of dreams, a mesmerizing wall-mounted wood piece, my piece titled Practical Nature, decorated pests, and a sculpture selling satirically on eBay from the Mighty Leaf Tea Company, among others.
Next to that is N181, an open space most often used for performance classes (and the near-monthly open mic/poetry slam events), also dedicated to tonight’s’ shindig. Plaster caps on steel make up Growth, a closet opens to the Mac Shrine, Mighty Leaf hosts a poetry contest, and lithograph prints spread to pyramid form on a wall.
Lastly, though certainly not least, is the Pozen Center performance show. At 8 o’clock the audience began filing in, ready for splendor. And it was delivered. Beginning with a performance piece, phone conversations mumbled through the sound system while people moved to the tone of the words, echoing the tone of communication in their twinges and tensions of muscle.
Next up, we had live-music-driven animation, followed by a dark room to a brief sound piece. Phoebe Amis brought the Mighty Leaf Tea Company’s advertising presence full circle with her nomination of the poetry contest winner and his grand prize of herself stuffed into a giant teabag-like cloth.
Following that were a song from a musical, a rapping duet, DJing, and three performances of music-driven light shows. Using our LED Colorado fixtures and a DMXIS box, the three performers delivered mesmerizing mood, an infectious dance party, and an engrossing techno-remix beat that echoed in lights and darks throughout the whole event space.
Pozen alight with music and dancing, lighting up the friezes of the Parthenon lining the hall.
One of the performances inspired a dance party that involved most of the audience. It was pretty awesome to watch.
Kerri had a dark and droning piece, shifting the lights' tones and colors to match her own.
My job during this madness of awesome was to coordinate the moving of each act into and out of their spaces in the room, be they on or off stage, with whatever equipment they needed or had with them. It varied from case to case; the dancers needed nothing, the first music-light-show was simply a guitar plugging in; but the DJing and the other light shows had carts to be wheeled in and out, a piano was moved, and mics were placed and removed. Simple, really, and at the base of it not a tough job in the least, but a hectic atmosphere gives my mind plenty to run with, and so it was a long night. Immediately after the performances ended and the room cleared, we struck everything set up for the show to make way for another event the following evening. Tons of work, lots of fun, but I don’t think I’ll do it again next year. I missed all of the other show, and only know of it from pictures and what I’ve heard or seen while setting up.
Photos from SIM Studio’s Flickr. Pozen info @ SIM site.