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Student Performers Win Kahan Fellowship

Hannah MacKenzie-Margulies ’16 was one of the winners of the Jim Kahan Fellowship.

Dance/music major Hannah MacKenzie-Margulies ’16 and art/dance major Grace Poetzinger ’16 are first-ever winners of Reed’s new Jim Kahan Performing Arts Fellowship.

The purpose of the fellowship is to provide students with the means to be able to spend their summer working on a music, dance, or theater project, which is performed at Reed during the following year.

Both students took creative risks with their projects. Grace travelled to Vienna to study an obscure but influential modern dance movement. Hannah, a talented dancer, spent the summer learning the clarinet. They performed a joint concert (or was it a Kahan-cert?) of music and dance in October.

Reed Dancers Score Major Achievement

The Reed College faculty unanimously approved a new major in dance at its November meeting, expanding the fields of study where students can pursue their passions.

“Dance is central to the liberal arts experience,” says Prof. Carla Mann ’81 [dance 1995–]. “It sparks innovation across disciplines through the way it teaches students to interrogate historical, aesthetic, and social issues; to engage kinesthetically with space, time, and movement; to approach solving problems with creativity and rigor; and to pursue productively both individual and collaborative endeavors.”

In January, Reed won an $800,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to strengthen its dance program with more classes, more workshops, and now a major. Reed is the only college in Portland that offers a dance major.

Tango from the Inside Out

Max Boddy ’16 got the chance to study with some of the world's foremost tango masters at Reed's annual summer workshop, Tango for Musicians.

I dashed along SE 28th Avenue with my case on my back and my phone in hand, checking the time anxiously to see how much time I had before rehearsal. It was brutally hot for a June day in Oregon, but my sweat wasn’t due to the heat alone. I was three days into an intense, weeklong “tango bootcamp” with some of the world’s leading tango musicians. Incredibly, I was supposed to be performing with them on stage in two days. And now my violin was acting up. How did I get here, anyway?

Last year, Astillero, a contemporary tango group from Buenos Aires, visited Reed, and I had the opportunity to accompany them in Reed’s orchestra. Playing their original compositions with them was exhilarating, and I wanted to play and understand that kind of music better, so I applied for a Rothchild summer stipend to study at Reed’s summer workshop, Tango for Musicians at Reed College. But first, as was emphasized in our workshops, it is important to play and understand the classic tangos before venturing out into the new territory of tango today, so I had to learn some fundamentals—fast.

At the front counter, I explained my situation to a young luthier as I got out my violin and handed it over for inspection. It was a little hard to believe that I was about to perform tango music on the same stage as Ida Kavafian and Chamber Music Northwest. I’d often imagined something like this—I just didn’t think the opportunity would come this soon!

Tango Masters Tear It Up with Reed Orchestra

Tango ensemble Astillero, led by pianist Julián Peralta, performing live with students in the Reed Orchestra.

When the soundcheck wrapped up and the doors swung open, hundreds of excited music lovers swarmed inside, packing Kaul Auditorium for a once in a lifetime opportunity. Astillero, a highly influential band on the cutting edge of Argentina’s contemporary tango vanguard, spent a week at Reed visiting classes and rehearsing with the student orchestra, culminating in a performance of Soundtrack Buenos Aires on February 20. Led by pianist Julián Peralta, the band spent the evening alternately bantering with the audience in Spanish and delivering their revolutionary original music – urgent, aggressive, and bursting with rhythmic energy. By the end of the concert, the crowd was on their feet, cheering and shouting for more.

Astillero’s visit to Reed was co-sponsored by the departments of music, Spanish, political science, the office of the dean of the faculty, and the office of institutional diversity, and was made possible by donations from Christine Green, John Clark, Elizabeth Barringer, and James Richardson Clark ’14.

The event was presented by Tango for Musicians, North America’s leading tango workshop for musicians. Led by Prof. Morgan Luker [2010-present], the workshop takes place at Reed each June and attracts musicians from across the globe. It now boasts an artistic faculty coming directly from Buenos Aires that includes some of the most outstanding tango musicians and educators active today.

Jump for Joy! Reed Wins $800K Grant for Dance

With a leap and a bound, the swift Reed students fly through the new Steiner Dance Studio. Leah Nash

Reed has won an $800,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to strengthen its dance program with more classes, more workshops, and—pending approval from the faculty—a freestanding dance major.

“I am thrilled by what the Mellon Foundation's support will mean for dance at Reed,” says Prof. Carla Mann ’81 [dance 1995–].

The grant will allow the college to expand faculty positions in the dance department from 2 to 2.5, enabling professors to teach 12–13 courses a year. It also sets the stage for us to offer a dance major—something Reed dancers have long hoped for. Reed will launch a search for a new tenure-track professor to begin in the fall of 2015. After that, the dance department, including Prof. Mann and Prof. Minh Tran, will devise and propose a major. If the faculty approves, Reed would be the only college in Portland that offers a dance major (although Lewis & Clark and Portland State University both offer a dance minor).

PAB Wins “People’s Choice” Award

The undeniable curb appeal of Reed’s new Performing Arts Building (PAB) earned it a thumbs-up in the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Portland awards for design excellence. The PAB won first place in the People’s Choice Award in the Portland AIA’s annual competition, open to firms, members, and associate members throughout Oregon.

The public was invited to participate by voting on their favorite of the 68 entries displayed on presentation boards for more than two weeks in the rotunda of the Pioneer Place shopping mall in downtown Portland. More than a thousand people cast their votes by going to a website or scanning a QR code.

Designed by the Portland firm of Opsis Architecture, the building celebrated its grand opening in September, when thousands of students, faculty, staff, and visitors admired the its light, airy spaces and dramatic interior. Architecture possesses a vocabulary all its own. Rather than attempt to imitate, we will quote the description Opsis used for the atrium, where:

Performing Arts Building Takes Center Stage

Dancers perform "L'esprit de l'escalier," choreographed by Heidi Duckler ’74, to ring in the new Performing Arts Building. Photo by NashCo

Reed’s performing arts just got an 80,000 square-foot, glass-paned, light-filled, no-holds-barred, swanky new home. Years in the making, the Performing Arts Building is finally ready to take center stage. Classes are already being held in the building and its myriad rooms and performance spaces are beginning to hum.

The building opened Friday, September 20, amid pomp and circumstance, shiny red ribbons, and several gargantuan pairs of scissors.

The ceremony began with Blast!, a fanfayre for trumpet and synthesizer, composed by Prof. David Schiff [music 1980–]. Then, standing on the grand staircase that graces the atrium, President John Kroger welcomed students, faculty, staff, alumni, and guests, giving thanks to the many people who ushered the building into reality.

"Star" Graces Performing Arts Building

Artist Lucinda Parker ’66 adds the finishing touches to the installation of "Our Solo Round Star Squeezed Between the Sky and Sea" in Reed's Performing Arts Building. Chris Lydgate ’90

Reed has received a grant of $28,000 to acquire the painting Our Solo Round Star Squeezed Between the Sky & Sea by celebrated Portland artist and Reed College alumna Lucinda Parker ’66. This acquisition was made possible with the assistance of the Ford Family Foundation through a special grant program managed by the Oregon Arts Commission (OAC). “The college is thrilled to acquire such a substantial work of art by a distinguished alumna during an era of profound growth and innovation in the arts at Reed," says Cooley Gallery director Stephanie Snyder ’91. "Lucinda Parker is a visionary painter, and an integral part of the Reed community. Her work chronicles the living history and vitality of the Northwest with unmatched vibrancy.”

Our Solo Round Star Squeezed Between the Sky & Sea, completed this year, is a monumental acrylic on canvas painting, measuring 91 x 153 inches. Its particular subject matter and the circumstances of its creation are unique within the artist’s oeuvre. Parker created the work while an inaugural artist-in-residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency Program at the late artist’s Florida studio complex. During the residency, Parker spent an entire month observing and making small gouache studies of the sunset. Concurrently, she began working on this encompassing vision of natural rhythm and spiritual transformation. In her words: “The painting explores death and renewal—the mystery of where the sun goes when it disappears into the ocean—old myths.”

Lucinda Parker is one of the Pacific Northwest’s most significant and enduring painters. She is associate professor in painting and drawing, emerita, at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, where she studied fine arts in a dual-degree program with Reed, and an MFA graduate of the Pratt Institute. Her work has been shown at numerous institutions, including the Portland Art Museum, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum, and Marylhurst University. Her work is represented by the Laura Russo Gallery in Portland.

Tangled up in Tango

Click photo to view slideshow
Photos by Heidi Hoffman

Fanning themselves with their programs in a standing-room-only Eliot Hall chapel, the audience was transported straight to the barrios of Buenos Aires as the violins, basses, bandoneones and piano plunged into a sultry tango beat.

The nine players kicked off the grand finale of the Reed College Tango Music Institute, held June 23-30, 2013. For the next two hours, 53 musicians of varying experience and combinations showcased what they’d learned that week under the tutelage of four of the world’s preeminent tango musicians. Bassist Pablo Aslan, pianist Octavio Brunetti, and bandoneonist Julian Hasse, all Argentine-born, and U.S. violinist Nick Danielson capped the evening with a couple of virtuosic romps that lifted the applauding crowd to its feet, stomping for an encore. Many in the crowd refused to sit back down until they’d tangoed well past midnight at the milonga that followed in Student Union, led by Alex Krebs ’99.

Reed Griffin is Rose Parade Royalty

Photo by Dan Schaffer

Six-inches high and stuffed with cotton, a griffin sits atop a few worn books stacked on the cluttered desk of Mike Teskey, director of alumni & parent relations. For years this figurine—a plush model of the mythical creature, half lion, half eagle, which Reed takes as its mascot—had fixed its glassy eye on Mike while he worked, and it must have made an impression, because when he walked into the office of the Portland Rose Festival representative to discuss what Reed's float would look like in the upcoming parade, Mike had the stuffed griffin in his hand.

Mechanical wizard and construction leader Rob Mack '93. Photo by Patrick Bryan '13

The last time Reed entered a float in the Grand Floral Parade was in 1936. From time to time, alumni would broach the dream of returning to the parade, but like a lot of great ideas, they never got past the broaching stage. Then, at a centennial apple-pressing party in the canyon orchard, Mike struck up a conversation with Jon-Paul Davis '93 and mechanical wizard Rob Mack '93. Rob was the natural choice to spearhead the project; during his Reed days he turned an old Nissan into the infamous Mobile Outdoor Plush Super Upholstered Den (MOSPUD), a mobile beverage-distribution system that graced several Renn Fayres. Rob signed on as Reed's construction leader for the 2012 parade with just one demand: Reed would build the float.

Reed Breaks Ground for Performing Arts Building

By Alex Walker '12

President Colin Diver and several professors broke ground for Reed's new $28 million performing arts building before a crowd of alumni celebrating Centennial Reunions last week.

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