AHA! | A FIERY VISION | INSIDE/OUTSIDE SCALES | UNDER HER SPELL SPRING 2020 THE MAGAZINE OF WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY FEATURES 46 UNDER HER SPELL By Carol L. Hanner Photography by Ken Bennett How Allison Orr (’93) worked her magic to win over a host of skeptical carpenters, custodians and landscapers to put on a show. 2 74 SHINING A LIGHT ON THE ARTS A FIERY VISION By Carol L. Hanner By Harlan Spector Christina Soriano aims to give every student Jeannette Sorrell (’86) made her way from access to a transformative experience. modest beginnings with a piano fashioned from paper to the red carpet of Los Angeles and the stage of Carnegie Hall as a pioneering female conductor who lets nothing stop her. 6 112 AHA! CONSTANT & TRUE By Kerry M. King (’85), Maria Henson (’82) and By Allyson Currin (’86, P ’19) Carol L. Hanner Dreams need power tools to build a life The shock of encountering abstract expressionism. in the arts. Playing a trombone from dad. A studio art class that upended career plans. Faculty cite these among seminal events that set the arts as their destiny. 32 DEPARTMENTS INSIDE/OUTSIDE SCALES 84 Around the Quad Director of Photography Ken Bennett shares a few 86 Philanthropy favorite photographs that serve as defining images of the movement, spirit and multifaceted creativity 88 Class Notes abounding in the fine arts scene at Wake Forest. WAKEFOREST FROM theh PRESIDENT MAGAZINE 2019 ROBERT SIBLEY i have a sense that maybe we need art more than ever before in our MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR society. Our lives are cluttered and noisy and constantly moving. We don’t stop to understand the profound nature of our lives, and art — great art — makes you stop and see the wonder. It grabs you by the collar and makes you focus. SPRING 2020 | VOLUME 67 | NUMBER 2 I think a lot of people ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT AND EDITOR-AT-LARGE who saw the perfor- Maria Henson (’82) mance of “From the MANAGING EDITOR Ground Up” on cam- Carol L. Hanner pus will never be the SENIOR EDITOR same in terms of how Kerry M. King (’85) they view this cam- DEPUTY EDITOR pus and the people Michael Breedlove who support its CREATIVE DIRECTOR maintenance. I felt it Hayes Henderson was profound and beautiful in the way DESIGNER Julie Helsabeck it took ordinary things and tasks and PHOTOGRAPHER Ken Bennett Ernie Johnson, who does recycling work and performed in made them artistic, "From the Ground Up," welcomes Nathan and Julie Hatch to flowing, compelling a rehearsal of the show on the Quad. STUDENT INTERN and deeply moving. It Katherine Laws (’20) revealed the dignity of things people take for granted, ignore and sometimes PRINTING implicitly demean. In that sense, “From the Ground Up” dignified work of all The Lane Press, Inc. kinds, particularly work with people’s hands. There was great music. The per- formance had elements of humor, pathos and conscience. Wake Forest University Magazine (ISSN 0279-3946) is published three times a year in the Spring, I like a statement by poet and theologian Eugene Peterson that can be applied Summer and Fall by Wake Forest University, P.O. to art: it doesn’t so much tell us what we never knew “as bring into recognition Box 7227, Winston-Salem, NC 27109-7227. It is sent to alumni, donors and friends of the University. what is latent, forgotten, overlooked or suppressed.” For me this is true of The magazine is part of University Advancement, visual art and theatre. led by Vice President Mark A. Petersen. [email protected] This issue of the magazine is devoted to the arts and highlights “From the magazine.wfu.edu Ground Up” and the other ways the arts are a part of Wake Forest. For some twitter.com/wfumagazine students who were involved in music, dance or visual arts before they arrived, facebook.com/wakeforestmagazine instagram.com/wakeforestmagazine Wake Forest offers a major outlet for their creativity and opportunities to wakeforestmagazine.tumblr.com hone their skills. For any liberal arts student, the college experience should open up new vistas involving the arts. Send address changes or cancellation requests to: Wake Forest Magazine Alumni Records P.O. Box 7227 I remember taking a music appreciation class in college. To this day, when I go Winston-Salem, NC 27109-7227 to New York I love to go to the symphony. It is because I have some under- [email protected] 1.800.752.8568 standing, for example, of what Baroque music is and its origins. That one col- lege class has enriched my life profoundly. I wish for our students to have © 2020 similar experiences in which the arts become a more integral part of life. Enjoy this issue of the magazine. I hope you will have a chance to reflect on the wonder of art in your life. Sincerely, ON THE COVER Illustration by Gina Triplett 2 WAKE FOREST MAGAZINE FEATURES shining a lighT on the Christina Soriano aims to give every student access to a transformative experience. BY CAROL L. HANNER SPRING 2020 3 How does “From the Ground Up,” the performance by the Facilities & Campus Services group as directed by Allison Orr, connect to your goals for the arts at Wake Forest? The biggest thing I want to stress is this is a movement. This isn’t a passing fad or something that’s going away after this big show. This big show is a way to highlight what’s already happening, the way there is an arts community deeply connected to this campus, deeply invested in this campus and in many christina soriano ways is the nucleus of this campus, and was named in 2018 yet that is not necessarily the way that story has been told or that history’s as the first associate been written. Now we have a chance, provost for the arts I think, to say, “We’re here!” There’s a and interdisciplinary lot of dynamic energy on this campus, and guess what, a lot of it often comes initiatives. Her role from the visual and performing arts involves enhancing visibility community that’s here. of the arts and forging interdisciplinary connections What is your job as the through what is called Wake The Arts. She is an inaugural associate provost for associate professor of dance and director of the the arts? University’s dance program. She also researches My job is to highlight that work in seen and unseen ways. What are the ways how improvisational dance can improve brain health behind the scenes I’m trying to elevate in older adults. She has choreographed works in the work of my colleagues, the work New England, North Carolina, New York and Vienna, of our extraordinary students, our extraordinary alumni? What ways am Austria. She is a 2019-20 Kennedy Center Citizen I also doing that in “seen” ways — on Artist Fellow, one of eight change-makers in a the Quad, with bucket trucks, right? yearlong fellowship. She was instrumental in getting It’s getting our communications plans organized. It’s getting ramped Allison Orr (’93) to choose her alma mater as one of up now that we have our talented three campuses supported by a grant that allows curator of collections here, Jennifer Orr to choreograph spectacular performances in Finkel. Now we have a communications which workers’ movements and their equipment are strategist for the arts that’s going to be helping curate and get together all put to music and dance to explain and highlight of the assets, the stories, the content their work. Wake Forest Magazine interviewed Soriano about her goals for emphasizing the arts at Wake Forest. These excerpts have been edited and condensed for clarity. 4 WAKE FOREST MAGAZINE FEATURES Why are the arts emerging now at Wake Forest? I think it speaks to Provost (Rogan) Kersh’s (’86) leadership. He has recognized that Scales (Fine Arts Center) has been, as a facility, not serving our students, our faculty, our staff, our community at the high level that we expect of Wake Forest, and it is time to revisit the way we put that work out there, and so Rogan wanted to have dedicated support toward this. It’s been his vision and his leadership. “Every student As the campus has has been the bedrock of Wake The grown, facilities and Arts. (In the past eight years, IPLACe on this campus buildings respond to the has supported 578 events within growth. We — and this 240 separate projects, mostly with can and should is to our detriment — performing arts faculty and students. we’re creative problem The events include interdisciplinary and will have a solvers, so we figure out performances, guest artist visits, how to make do with commissioned works, panel discus- transformative less, and that’s what sions, receptions, classroom projects, art experience artists do well. But it’s lectures, research and conference time to lift up the arts. support, and intimate “salons.”) or access to it.” In doing so, you have to focus on the spaces Talk a little bit about the liberal where we do our work. arts engagement with the arts. about what we do, who we are, how I am grateful that this year the I’ll do better. I’ll read you a quote that we operate and help translate that to a (Harold C.) Tedford Stage (in Scales) came from President Hatch: “The arts centralized, improved arts website so is now finally ADA (Americans with invite us to look at a problem and see we have a more organized and clear arts Disabilities Act) compliant.