FALL 2016 On the (Silk) Road Alumna Cristina Pato celebrates 10 years with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble DO THE MATH percent of the fall 2016 25 entering undergraduate class hails from out of state and abroad We’ve got 4, 200 square feet of gallery space CHRISTINA MARIE PHOTOGRAPHY We’re busy. Mason Gross Performing Arts Center & Galleries offers more than 550 events annually The Hollywood Reporter recently ranked us No. 7 among the Top undergrad schools 25 for drama Theater student Gihee Hong in Don Nigro’s short play Lurker . WWW.MASONGROSS.RUTGERS.EDU 3 A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN n July I had the pleasure of attending the Summer The increasingly global nature of our undertakings at Mason Dance Showcase, which featured high-school –age Gross is well illustrated, too, by the accomplishments of alumna dancers from the Extension Division's dance conser - Cristina Pato, who is featured in this issue of the magazine Ivatory. More than 100 teenagers took part in the perform - (page 6). A graduate of the collaborative piano program, Cristina ance, including 28 young dancers from Riverbank Dance is one of the world’s leading players of the gaita , or Galician Company of National Chupei bagpipe, which she performs in High School in Taiwan. The stunning international engage - Chupei visit stemmed from a ments with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road recruiting trip in the fall of 2014, Ensemble. It was a memorable when Julia Ritter, Chien-Ying day, indeed, when I turned on Wang, and I visited schools the television to find Cristina and universities in Taiwan to playing with Mr. Ma on The Late begin building bridges to the Show with Stephen Colbert . East for the Mason Gross Dance Finally, I am happy to re - Department. port that a quarter of the in - In the summer showcase coming undergraduate class at concert, the Chupei students Mason Gross consists of out-of- (below) both joined the Amer - state and international students, ican students for contemporary JODY SOMERS the highest percentage of any choreographies and presented undergraduate program at two separate, native- Taiwanese works. Our visiting dancers Rutgers (the rate in the Dance Department was 40 percent). were so enthralled with the beauty and expanse of the Dou - This, too, underscores our growing national and international glass Campus that they also created an improvised outdoor presence. With our robust recruiting efforts, which will include video piece at the Passion Puddle. One suspects that Mabel a trip to Singapore by dance and music faculty in October, one Smith Douglass would have been pleased. anticipates that Mason Gross will become more global yet. — George B. Stauffer, Dean 4 FALL 2016 RODERICK MICKENS “An artist’s job is to be open to experimenting and trying every - MASON thing—trying new mediums, new materials. I admire artists that don’t have a style.” GROSS — Visual Arts faculty member, critic, and poet John Yau, in the Los Angeles Review of Books 8 Faculty & Staff News 10 Student & Alumni News 14 Commencement 23 In Memoriam 24 The Last Look 6 ERIN BAIANO 18 KEITH MUCCILLI 22 JANA MARCUS ON THE (SILK) ROAD STUDENT VOICES SPARKED Alumna Cristina Pato discusses her globe- Andrew Moore, above left, says working Head of costume design Valerie Ramshur, trotting life as a ‘citizen artis t’ and member with professional singers at the who often creates a soundtrack that a character of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. International Vocal Arts Institute pushed might listen to, calls her approach “‘Method’ him to hone his craft. costume design .” MASON GROSS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ON THE COVER George B. Stauffer, Dean Photo by Erin Baiano Lisa J. Baratta, Associate Dean Mandy Feiler, Dean of Students STAFF To Be Announced, Associate Dean for Advancement EDITOR : Laurie Granieri Julia Ritter, Dance Department Chair and Artistic Director CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Risa Barisch, Alexandra Klaassen, Robert Livingston Aldridge, Music Department Director Andrew Moore, Fredda Sacharow David Esbjornson, Theater Department Chair DESIGNER : Cara Bufanio, BFA ’85 Gerry Beegan, Visual Arts Department Chair Robert E. Mortensen, Trustee Liaison DIVISION DIRECTORS Ruqqayya Maudoodi, Rutgers Arts Online Marti Mayo, Brodsky Center Christopher Kenniff, Mason Gross Extension Division Nicolás Pereda, Rutgers Filmmaking Center MASON GROSS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS 848-932-9360 THIS MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED FOR ALUMNI, FACULTY, STUDENTS, EMPLOYEES, DONORS, MASON GROSS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER AND FRIENDS OF THE MASON GROSS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS. YOUR LETTERS AND 848-932-7511 COMMENTS ARE WELCOME. PLEASE WRITE TO [email protected] OR TO MASON GROSS MAGAZINE , MASON GROSS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS, 33 LIVINGSTON MASON GROSS GALLERIES AT CIVIC SQUARE AVENUE, NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ 08901. 848-932-5211 WWW.MASONGROSS.RUTGERS.EDU 5 Alumna Cristina Pato discusses her globetrotting life aOs a memnbe r otf Yho-Yeo M aS’s Silk Road iElnksem ble Road BY LAURIE GRANIERI Here’s a twist on how to get to Carnegie Hall. A decade ago, Cristina Pato was working toward her doctorate of musical arts in collaborative piano, assisting Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov with his master class on campus. Their shared affinity for global music and the Galician language (Pato, a native of Spain, also plays gaita , Galician bagpipes) spurred Golijov to extend an invitation to Pato to haul her bagpipes north to Massachusetts, collaborate with cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s famed Silk Road Ensemble, and, as she describes it, “make a party.” “And the party began,” Pato, now 36, says in an email. “A week later I was playing TAEUK KANG Golijov’s music at Carnegie Hall with the ensemble and Yo-Yo ... and the rest is history.” Pato (right, with bagpipes) with Silk Road Ensemble members, including founder Yo-Ya Ma (top center). n September, Pato celebrated her 10th multicultural collaborations via educational, theaters June 10. The film explores notions of anniversary crisscrossing the globe as cultural, and performance programs. The Boston culture, home, and dislocation via the Grammy- a member of the ensemble, an eclectic Globe describes the ensemble as a “roving mu - nominated ensemble, an experiment Ma de - I group of esteemed musicians from more sical laboratory without walls”; NPR calls it “one scribes as “a group of musicians getting together than 20 countries. The nonprofit Silkroad organ - of the most visionary arts initiatives of our time.” and seeing what might happen when strangers ization, which Ma initially established as the Silk Now Pato is prominently featured in a docu - meet.” No doubt, The Music of Strangers is Road Project, in 1998, was inspired by the inter - mentary from Academy Award-winning director especially trenchant in a year that has seen mass change of traditions along the ancient Silk Road Morgan Neville ( 20 Feet from Stardom ). The Music migrations from the Middle East into Europe. trade routes, which stretched from Southern of Strangers premiered at the Toronto Interna - The companion album, the ensemble’s sixth, r Europe to Asia. Silkroad’s mission: promote tional Film Festival in 2015 and was released in eleased in April, is called Sing Me Home , and features guest performers Rhiannon Giddens, Abigail Washburn, Gregory Porter, Lisa Fischer, and jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, among others. Pato says Neville traveled with the group for several years and that the issues he explores in The Music of Strangers aren’t merely theoreti - cal; she grapples with notions of culture and home herself. In fact, Pato says, traveling and collaborating with artists rooted in a wide range of cultural traditions has only nudged her to - ward a deeper understanding of herself. “I’m still struggling with the idea of what or where is home for a person like me who spends eight months a year on the road,” says Pato, who lives in New York City, “but this movie has helped me to understand that your roots go with you wherever you go, and that they only get richer in the process of searching for your own path. No matter where you decide to live, those roots re-root in the land you now call home, and something richer grows. It’s amazing to think how connected we all are in places like New MAX WHITTAKER York City, where everybody comes from another place but we share a common sense of identity.” Pato (front) performs with shakuhachi (flute) player Kojiro Umezaki in 2011 at the Mondavi Center at the University of California, Davis, with the Silk Road Ensemble. 6 FALL 2016 Inset: A still from the recent documentary The Music of Strangers. ‘CITIZEN ARTIST’ For nearly two decades, Pato has enjoyed a robust career as a recording artist, composer, and solo performer in her own right. The New York Times calls her “a virtuosic burst of en - ergy,” while The Wall Street Journal has dubbed her “one of the living masters of the gaita .” But the Silk Road Ensemble isn’t merely a high- profile side gig: Pato seems driven to forge and sustain meaningful exchanges between communities in concrete ways. She serves as educational advisor to Silkroad’s leadership council and says the ensemble has inspired her to establish an annual multidisciplinary festival back home in Galicia, as well as a conference on arts and education. YO-YO MA HAS HELPED ME TO UNDERSTAND THE ROLE OF THE ARTIST IN SOCIETY, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING A CITIZEN ARTIST, OF ASSUMING THE RESPONSIBILITY THAT COMES WITH YOUR TALENT. Meanwhile, Pato clearly adores her boss. She insists there are no stars in Ma’s orbit. Instead, she says, he has cultivated an “incredibly dem - ocratic environmen t— this ensemble is like a book of values.” Working alongside Ma, whom she describes as “empathetic, full of joy, and always ready to listen to everybody in the room,” reminds Pato of the bigger picture: that she’s not merely an entertainer but an active contrib - utor, one with obligations to the wider world.