"iPlace" Archive

Conference on the intersections of poetry, science and art, May 13-16

Art and science will come together at Entanglements: A Conference on the Intersections of Poetry, Science, and Art next week from May 13-16.

The 2019 Reynolda Conference at Wake Forest will bring together a diverse range of 10 leading poets, scientists, artists, and scholars from around the world whose work and/or teaching engages with trans-disciplinary investigations into shared principles and methods in literature, science and art.

Featured presenters will be joined by Wake Forest faculty and staff presenters, special guests, visiting attendees and the generalpublic for three days of innovative programming.

The conference is free. No registration is required. A schedule is available here.

Entanglements is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with an award granted to the conference convener, Amy Catanzano, by the Wake Forest University Humanities Institute and the Reynolda House Museum of American Art.

Additional sponsors are the Wake Forest University Humanities Institute with a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Creative Writing Minor in the Department of English, and the Interdisciplinary Performance and the Liberal Arts Center (IPLACe) at Wake Forest University.

Entanglements is named after the quantum mechanical phenomenon of entanglement in which states of subatomic particles are intertwined with each other despite being spatially separated.

Categories: Inside WFU

Artists partnering with Facilities/Campus Services on large-scale performance

Dance company choreographer Krissie Marty, center, talks with landscapers Andrew Norton, left, and Chris Boston.

Wake Forest and Forklift Danceworks are co-creating “From the Ground Up” – a dance featuring the movement and stories of custodial, maintenance and utilities, landscaping, construction, and waste reduction employees.

Through a series of residencies, Forklift artists are partnering with Wake Forest Facilities and Campus Services staff on a large-scale performance to take place on Hearn Plaza on Oct. 4 and 5.

Wake Forest’s Interdisciplinary Performance and Liberal Arts Center (IPLACe) has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New England Foundation for the Arts to help fund the interdisciplinary collaboration with Forklift Danceworks – a dance company based in Austin, Texas, that activates communities through a collaborative creative process.

More information is available here.

Categories: EventsInside WFUStaff News

NEA, NEFA grants help bring Forklift Danceworks to WFU

The Forklift Danceworks company, led by Wake Forest alumna Allison Orr (’93), follows landscaping staff on their morning duties.

Wake Forest’s Interdisciplinary Performance and Liberal Arts Center (IPLACe) has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New England Foundation for the Arts to help fund an interdisciplinary collaboration with Forklift Danceworks – an organization based in Austin, Texas, that uses creative collaboration to spark conversation and inspire change.

Through a multi-visit residency on the Reynolda Campus, IPLACe has worked to connect Forklift with staff, students and faculty for a community-based art making project celebrating the work of the University’s facilities and campus services team.

Throughout the spring of 2019 and into fall, Forklift choreographers and Wake Forest students, under the direction of Wake Forest humanities professor David Phillips and journalism professor Ivan Weiss, will be job shadowing Facilities and Campus Services staff to learn more about the work they do and their contributions to campus life.  In the fall of 2019, another course, taught by professors Christina Soriano (dance), and Cindy Gendrich (theatre) will continue this work.

As part of these professors’ courses, students will learn more about those Wake Foresters who often work behind-the-scenes caring for the health, well-being, and safety of our campus community. The students will produce a website and multimedia to document their experiences, and many will act as support staff for the performance.

In October 2019, Wake Forest members of the facilities and campus services team will work with faculty and students in theatre, dance, and music to create a large-scale performance highlighting the skill and grace involved in the work of groundskeeping, construction, maintenance, custodial work, and landscaping.  The performance will be held on Hearn Plaza.

Founded in 2001 by Artistic Director Allison Orr (‘93), award-winning Forklift Danceworks presents innovative performance projects with diverse communities. Wake Forest is the second of three universities who are collaborating with Forklift Danceworks.

Categories: Inside WFU

Provost Kersh: Christina Soriano appointed as associate provost

Provost Rogan Kersh emailed this announcement to faculty and staff on April 26:

Dear faculty and staff colleagues,

I am delighted to announce that Christina Soriano, Director of Dance, Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance and Administrative Fellow in the Office of the Provost, will continue her tenure in the Provost’s Office as the inaugural Associate Provost for Arts and Interdisciplinary Initiatives. This position is intended to strengthen and further develop interdisciplinary partnerships across the university while enhancing the visibility of the arts at and beyond Wake Forest. Professor Soriano will officially assume this role on July 1, 2018.

Professor Soriano joined the Wake Forest Theatre and Dance faculty in 2006 and has served as director of the dance program since 2016. Soriano has cultivated partnerships between Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and the Reynolda campus that transcend departmental, school, community and disciplinary boundaries.

In addition to creating new works for the Wake Forest Dance Company each year, Professor Soriano’s choreography has been presented across New England, North Carolina, New York and in Vienna, Austria. Each year, Professor Soriano is a key force behind the annual interdisciplinary symposium, Aging Re-Imagined, which brings together the work of artists and scientists around the topic of Healthy Aging. She also serves on the executive committee of IPLACe, our Interdisciplinary Performance and Liberal Arts Center.

Soriano’s wide-ranging interests and expertise have led her to identify points of connection between seemingly siloed concepts. Since 2012, Professor Soriano has taught a community dance class for Parkinson’s patients, underpinning her work to define the relationship between improvisational dance, mobility, balance and neurodegenerative disease. This research has received funding from the National Parkinson Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC and most recently the National Institutes of Health. This work led to her being named one of the Six Outstanding Women of the Triad by For Seniors Only! Magazine.

Professor Soriano’s research has been profiled in local and national news outlets. Her published work has appeared in Journal of Dance EducationResearch in Dance EducationDance MagazineTheatre JournalJournal of Mathematics and the ArtsThe Journal of Physical and Occupational Therapy in Geriatrics and Frontiers in Neurology.

Professor Soriano’s ability to bring colleagues together to advance transformative change—within and beyond Wake Forest—is an added source of my enthusiasm for her joining our office as associate provost.

Please join me in congratulating Christina Soriano on her new appointment!

Aging Re-Imagined symposium begins March 17

The symposium “Aging Re-Imagined” brings leading scholars, artists, medical professionals and researchers together at Wake Forest who will share insights on four key ideas that inform how we age, and how we think and feel about aging: Mobility, Mind (including memory), Mortality, and Meaning.

The symposium begins March 17 at 4 p.m. with a presentation by and Q&A with Liz Lerman, a famed choreographer known for her work with multi-generational ensembles to dispel the idea that dance is only for youth.

Following the keynote by Jay Olshansky at 6 p.m., the aging symposium resumes on March 18 at Bridger Field House with a full schedule of speakers and presentations. More information can be found here.

“Aging Re-Imagined” came about because of associate professor of dance Christina Soriano and her work teaching dance to people living with Parkinson’s Disease. As a member of Wake Forest’s Translational Science Center (TSC), she is one of many faculty from the biochemical, physiological, psychological, behavioral disciplines and the arts whose goal is to improve functional health in aging through research and academic training programs. Read more

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