The Academy Street Winds will perform in one of two concerts sponsored by the Kalamazoo College Department of Music this weekend.
Don’t just eat candy and trick or treat this weekend—enjoy something sweet for your ears when the Academy Street Winds performs a free fall concert at 8 p.m. Friday in Dalton Theatre.
Audiences are encouraged, but not required, to wear costumes for “Trick or Tweet, a Howl-o-Ween Concert.” The Academy Street Winds is a wind ensemble providing a performance outlet for woodwind, brass and percussion students. Community musicians joined the ensemble in winter 2016 to expand the group’s sound and capabilities.
The group, conducted by Music Professor Thomas Evans, performs one concert each term, playing exciting arrays of challenging band music. The ensemble’s programs are coordinated around diverse themes, which allow for performances of much-loved pieces, both classic and contemporary.
In a bonus free performance, K’s music department will present “Music for Two Trumpets and Piano,” with trumpeters David Bernard and Keith Geiman, and pianist Tina Gorter at 7 p.m. Saturday at Dalton Theatre.
The three formed their double trumpet and piano trio in 2019, and have been entertaining audiences with their diverse repertoire of music from living composers. After more than a year off, the trio has reunited to perform virtuosic trumpet and piano music.
To comply with the College’s rules regarding indoor gatherings, please wear a mask to both concerts. For more information on concerts and other music department events, visit music.kzoo.edu.
“Unzipped,” complete with monologues and Rebecca Chan’s own music, explores the perception of East Asians in the U.S. and her experiences as a queer Chinese American.
Our life stories make great stage plays and Rebecca Chan ’22 has a chance to share her story with us all. Her self-written coming-of-age story, Unzipped, is a part of the Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College’s Senior Performance Series.
The production, complete with monologues and Chan’s own music, explores the perception of East Asians in the United States and her experiences as a queer Chinese American. Unzipped takes aim at a common racial slur used against Asian Americans and refers to Chan’s life of unpacking and discovering her identity.
“I’d say in the past few years there has been a lot more representation of Asian Americans, and like myself, mixed Asian Americans,” Chan said. “But I find a lot of media has characters who maybe have one white parent and one Asian parent like myself, and the racial experience of that existence is brushed over. A lot of my life has been me questioning my racial identity, trying to understand it and what it means, so I wanted to write a show very specifically about that experience.”
Chan, a theatre major, has participated in Festival Playhouse productions and events since her first year on campus. In 2019, she was selected for the week-long Kennedy Center American College Theatre National Festival in Washington, D.C., where she was one of four students from around the country to participate in its Institute for Theatre Journalism Advocacy (ITJA) events; another one of her self-written plays, Record, was featured at Theatre Kalamazoo’s 10th annual New PlayFest in February 2020; and she earned the Theatre Arts First-Year Student Award at Honors Convocation in 2019.
Unzipped, however, represents her senior integrated project. She had a chance to write the play as an independent study during the spring term of her junior year while taking an advanced playwriting class taught by then-Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts “C” Heaps. Since, Chan has been calculating the details of the acting process.
“It’s been tricky because I want to be emotionally invested in the show, but I don’t want to carry so much of the emotions that it weighs me down,” Chan said. “It’s a very careful balance of being in the moment of the show and knowing I’m telling the story how I need to tell it.”
The production’s storytelling process includes projected pictures of Chan’s own childhood and picks up with her in high school.
“I talk about different high school relationships and how I understood myself, and as I get into college, how those experiences changed my perception of who I am,” she said. “There are two big plot points: my relationship with my family, like with my grandmother and my dad and how those evolved over the course of my life, and my relationships in college. There’s a lot of weaving and intersecting of how my perception of my family influences how I interact with my friends, and then how things I realized for my friends influenced how I think about my family.”
Chan wrote the music for Unzipped over two years and has added new songs to fill in the gaps.
“I started writing the music before I even knew I wanted to make the show,” Chan said. “I was always interested in it, but in high school, I felt very nervous about it. I didn’t think I had a good enough voice to sing on my own or had enough knowledge of music to produce something people would want to listen to. But starting my sophomore year, I got back in touch with the piano and started picking up the ukulele. I would just write little songs as I was going through life. It was a coping mechanism that helped me process what I was going through in the big events of my life. Over the summer, I spent a lot of time recording demos of the songs so I could share them with whoever would be playing in my band. Luckily, I was able to find five musicians who were available for the show. Four of which are current students and one a recent alumna.”
Milan Levy ’23 is the director and Angela Mammel ’22 designed the set and projections for their senior integrated projects. Attendees should be aware the play contains racial violence and language. Tickets for the in-person performance of Unzipped, at 129 Thompson St. in the Nelda K. Balch Theatre, and the virtual show are available online. In-person presentations start at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday. The virtual broadcast is at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is to be unapologetic in who I am,” Chan said. “I think I spent a lot of time trying to make my focus educating other people or changing the world around me. While those are important things to strive for and do, I think the core of my existence should be living for myself and not living to change others who might not be willing to change.”
Marianne Chan is the author of “All Heathens,” the book selected for the Class of 2025’s Summer Common Reading.
Kalamazoo College’s first-year students will take an important first step in connecting with each other and with faculty and staff when the 2021 Summer Common Reading author visits campus this week.
Marianne Chan is the author of All Heathens, which was the winner of the 2021 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award in Poetry and the 2021 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry. She will participate in a book reading and signing with students on Thursday and a student colloquium Friday morning at Stetson Chapel.
In her 2020 book, Chan navigates her Filipino heritage by grappling with notions of diaspora, circumnavigation and discovery by revisiting Magellan’s voyage around the world. The author’s poems have been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, Cincinnati Review, West Branch, Rumpus and elsewhere. From 2017 to 2019, she served Split Lip Magazine as its poetry editor.
Chan grew up between Stuttgart, Germany, and Lansing, Michigan, before earning a Bachelor of Arts in English from Michigan State University. She went on to study poetry at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she earned her Master of Fine Arts. She now lives in Cincinnati with her partner, Clancy, and her cat, Bella, and is pursuing a Ph.D. in English and creative writing at the University of Cincinnati.
Chan’s appearance at K will cap the Class of 2025’s experience with the Summer Common Reading program, which connects the K community in conversations about their book. Frequently, the author returns in four years to speak at the class’s Commencement.
Learn more about K’s Summer Common Reading program at the First-Year Experience website.
Kalamazoo College’s Festival Playhouse will present the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Water by the Spoonful from Thursday, May 20-Sunday, May 23.
A deluge of trouble floods characters in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Water by the Spoonful, coming this week to the Festival Playhouse at Kalamazoo College.
In the play, moderator “Haikumom,” also known as Odessa Ortiz, leads a chat room for recovering drug addicts. From behind their screens, the participants don’t expect to ever meet each other in person yet develop helpful bonds that assist them in recovery.
Off the internet, however, Odessa’s real-life family is suffering through separate issues in a Puerto Rican neighborhood in North Philadelphia. Her biological son, Elliot, has returned from the Iraq War with post-traumatic stress disorder, and her sister is dying of cancer. Alonte Mitchell-Presley ’21 plays Odessa and Trevor Loduem-Jackson ’21 portrays Elliot.
In other roles, Rebecca Chan ’22 plays “Orangutan;” Petra Rodriguez ’21 takes the role of Yazmin Ortiz; Nat Markech ’21 portrays “Fountainhead;” and Arman Khan ’24 plays Elliot’s ghost. Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Bianca Washington will serve as director. The play is the second in a trilogy of plays by Quiara Alegria Hudes. The first was Elliot, a Soldier’s Fugue. The third was The Happiest Song Plays Last.
“I really think this a play that can appeal to everyone,” said Meaghan Hartman ’23, who is serving as the play’s dramaturg. “There might be some parts that are more relatable for most of the audience, but it’s such a powerful story about trauma in families. I just think it’s super impactful, really for anyone.”
As the dramaturg, Hartman researched the history behind the play, which is set in 2009. Although the Great Recession was of primary concern then, Hartman needed to know what troops experienced with PTSD during the Iraq War and learn about the implications of crack and opioid addiction. That exploration helped her create a lobby display at the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse that will help audiences better understand the characters in Water by the Spoonful. That lobby display is available in an online format for virtual audiences.
“This can be a very triggering show for some people, and the lobby display will help set the tone,” Hartman said. “There are a lot of facts about how the themes apply to life here in Kalamazoo, especially with crack addiction and opioid overdoses in our own city. It’s been interesting to figure out how to illustrate those feelings and experiences to the audience.”
Playhouse staff have implemented strict Actors Equity Association COVID-19 compliance safety guidelines and protocols that will allow for live audiences in socially-distanced pods in the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse, 129 Thompson St. Live productions will be available at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday. Reserve your tickets through the Playhouse’s Ludus system box office. Adult tickets are $15, seniors are $10 and students are $5 with an ID. Kalamazoo College students, faculty and staff are admitted free with their College IDs. No tickets will be sold at the door because of the limited number of tickets available.
A virtual broadcast will be available with the Friday production. To watch for $5 from the comfort of your home, purchase your access online.
“We’re just excited to start doing live theater again,” Hartman said. “Professor Lanny Potts opens just about every single play meeting with how grateful we are, recognizing that there are actors, theatre technicians and directors who are unable to do it. We’re pleased and thankful.”
The in-person audience attending the Festival Playhouse’s production of The Compass Thursday through Sunday will ultimately determine the fate of the main character, Marjan, played by Xochitl Robertson ’23. Graphic by Angela Mammel ’22.
If you’ve ever wanted to choose a character’s fate when you’re watching a play, Kalamazoo College’s Festival Playhouse has a production coming this week you’ll want to see.
Originally devised and produced at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, The Compass explores technology’s impact on decision-making. When an app tells Marjan, played by Xochitl Robertson ’23, to commit a crime to prevent a mass shooting at her school, the audience helps decide her fate by answering whether she should be held accountable.
“The Compass poses several questions that we seek to answer together with the audience,” said Visiting Professor of Theatre Arts “C” Heaps, the play’s director. “What role does technology play in our lives? When does the greater good outweigh the strictly lawful? What, ultimately, is the right thing to do?”
Through a series of flashbacks and real-time scenes, the in-person audience learns the full story of her decision, and ultimately influences the trial’s outcome.
“The audience acts as a jury for the trial at the heart of the play,” Heaps said. “Juror facilitators lead discussions with them at key points in the play and then represent their section’s opinions on stage. The biggest challenge was finding a way to seamlessly take a vote, collate those responses and get them back to the jury foreperson, who is on stage the whole time, so he can announce the verdict. We also had to provide multiple options for sound cues to account for different choices by the audience.”
The cast includes Trevor Loduem-Jackson ’21 as Chaz Perez and Kenneth, Isaac Presberg ’24 as an entrepreneur and Mr. Ferguson, Meaghan Hartman ’23 as Ada and Blanca, Emma Fergusson ’22 as prosecutor and Ms. Ellis, and Matthew Swarthout ’22 as a defense lawyer and principal. Arman Khan ’24, Abby Nelson ’24, Brooklyn Moore ’24, John Carlson ’23 and Melody Kondoff ’24 serve as jurors and facilitators.
Playhouse staff have implemented strict Actors Equity Association COVID-19 compliance safety guidelines and protocols for The Compass that will allow for live audiences in socially-distanced pods in the Nelda Balch Playhouse, 129 Thompson St. Live productions will be available at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday. Reserve your tickets through the Playhouse’s Ludus system box office. Adult tickets are $15, seniors are $10 and students are $5 with an ID. Kalamazoo College students, faculty and staff are admitted free with their College IDs.
A virtual broadcast will be available with the Friday production. To watch for $5 from the comfort of your home, purchase your access online.
Amanullah De Sondy, a senior lecturer at University College Cork in Ireland, will provide the 2021 Armstrong Lecture.
A global expert in contemporary Islam will speak at a Kalamazoo College Religion Department virtual event about a prolific figure in Pakistani music whose voice empowered queer identities.
Amanullah De Sondy, a senior lecturer at University College Cork in Ireland and an affiliate of the University of Glasgow’s Department of Theology and Religious Studies, will provide the 2021 Armstrong Lecture at 5 p.m. Tuesday, February 23. His talk, titled “Music, Empowerment and Queer Pakistani Identities: The Case of Madam Noor Jehan 1926-2000,” will discuss the flamboyant Noor Jehan, an entertainer known lovingly to many as Madam ji.
Noor Jehan’s success came from her entertaining acts of disruption which spoke to parts of society that were suffering at the margins. From difficult marriages to challenging the Pakistani army, Noor Jehan was known for her wit and strength. De Sondy will explore her anarchistic style and show how she disrupted neat structures in society as she remained rooted in Islamic traditions.
The Armstrong Lectures are made possible by the Homer J. Armstrong Endowment in Religion, established in 1969 in honor of the Rev. Homer J. Armstrong, a longtime trustee of Kalamazoo College. To attend the free event Tuesday, register through the Religion Department website.
MacKenzy Maddock ’22 leads Kalamazoo College’s Virtual Kitchen every Thursday, giving students a chance to connect over prepared foods such as masoor dal, a spicy Indian red lentil soup. Photo credit: “Masoor Dal” by elstro_88 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/.
A cooking show served with a dash of Kalamazoo College is available to students this term. If you’ve ever wanted student-suitable ideas for easy-to-make, inexpensive, palate-pleasing meals that offer a change of pace and a variety of flavors, make sure to tune in.
Every Thursday, from 6 to 7 p.m., MacKenzy Maddock ’22 leads K’s Virtual Kitchen via Microsoft Teams through the Office of Student Activities (OSA). In each show, at least one student staff member cooks meals while talking with other K students.
“I make a new meal every week and try to pick affordable ingredients as well as try to include options that are vegan and vegetarian friendly,” Maddock said. “My goal is to include as many students as possible and consider their financial capacity, accessibility to resources, and interests in food. Students that participate have the option to get a cooking kit provided by the school which includes utensils used in the kitchen.”
MacKenzy Maddock ’22, a chemistry and psychology double major and a Kalamazoo College volleyball player, leads K’s Virtual Kitchen every Thursday.
Masoor dal, a spicy Indian red lentil soup, was a recent featured recipe prepared by Alaq Zghayer ’21, and students can expect such diverse dishes in future editions of the Virtual Kitchen.
“I’m working on diversifying the event to be more inclusive to other cultures, religions and groups of people on campus as well as to just learn about other kinds of food,” Maddock said. “I’m doing this by collaborating with the many student organizations we have on campus, and I’m excited for what the next few weeks are going to be like. I think the event is constantly developing and I would love for more participants every week.”
The event’s evening time slot makes it accessible to students across the country. Recordings make it available to students around the world. Students can register for each Virtual Kitchen by emailing k18mm01@kzoo.edu or messaging Maddock on Teams to receive access to the cooking channel, which includes previous editions to the show as well.
“I would like to think that this event is an easy way to socialize while doing something that you need to have to survive, food,” Maddock said. “I also think cooking is a huge thing that brings people together and I think that is something that is really necessary right now.”
Maddock, a double major in chemistry and psychology and a volleyball player, understands the need to unplug from a busy schedule. “I am trying to make this space a safe place to decompress after a long day of work, school, sports, etcetera, and I think that that is really worth it to the students that participate.”
Dr. D-L Stewart ’95 will deliver a virtual keynote Monday, January 18, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
A renowned professor, author, scholar, activist, TED Talk speaker and Kalamazoo College alumnus will help K celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a virtual event at 11 a.m. on Monday, January 18.
Colorado State University School of Education Professor Dr. D-L Stewart ’95 focuses on empowering and imagining futures that sustain and cultivate the learning, growth and success of minoritized groups in postsecondary education. His work is motivated by an ethic of love grounded in justice and informed by the lived experiences of individuals with multiple marginalities, along with the effects of systems of oppression. Stewart will deliver a keynote titled “I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free.”
The address will share a title with a song performed by Nina Simone in the 1970s, a time when any gains from the Civil Rights Movement, led by many including King, were threatened with a white flight to the suburbs, protests against school desegregation in northern urban cities and the beginnings of mass incarceration. Stewart will compare those times to our current times and note many similarities.
The event, which is open to the public, will include an opening address and introduction from Asia Smith ’21. Access the event at the scheduled time here through Zoom. The passcode is MLKDay. For more information and any accommodations, email Director of Intercultural Student Life Natalia T. Carvalho-Pinto at ncarvalh@kzoo.edu.
Aija Turner ’23 portrays Juanita, a student who encounters the ghosts of former Kalamazoo College President Weimer K. Hicks, played by Isaac Presberg ’24, and Festival Playhouse Founder Nelda K. Balch, played by Claire de Vries ’24, in the original Festival Playhouse production titled K.
A Festival Playhouse production written over the past two years by Kalamazoo College students is challenging administrators and faculty to better fight institutional racism, and students to consider their own biases.
In the play, simply titled K, Aija Turner ’23 portrays Juanita, a student who encounters the ghosts of former Kalamazoo College President Weimer K. Hicks, played by Isaac Presberg ’24, and Festival Playhouse Founder Nelda K. Balch, played by Claire de Vries ’24.
The dialogue, presented in virtual conversations, shows how the College’s policies and historical events are still leading to friction between students, and injustice on campus through issues the institution never publicized, examined or resolved, especially as K’s faculty demographics don’t match the diversity of its students.
The play was written with Jens Rasmussen of the Bechdel Project providing exploratory scenarios, Emilio Rodriguez of the Black and Brown Theatre Company providing guidance and sustaining support, and dramaturgy provided by Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts “C” Heaps. Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Lori Sands served as the costume designer.
Watch K at any time through Vimeo. Stay online after the play for a discussion with some of the writers and actors. Read the online program, assembled by Rebecca Chan ’22, at the Festival Playhouse website.
Milan Levy ’23 (left) and Rebecca Chan ’22 portray a scene in Kokoro, which was filmed October 23 at the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse.
The Kalamazoo College Festival Playhouse is producing two plays this fall with the first available now through a performance that was recorded October 23.
Kokoro, meaning True Heart, was directed by Ynika Yuag ’21 as a part of her Senior Individualized Project (SIP). The play, filmed in front of a small audience of socially distanced invited guests in the lobby of the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse, explores the struggle of a young Japanese mother as she tries to navigate the foreign culture of the United States. The countries’ cultures and moral codes clash after Yasako, played by Rebecca Chan ’22, commits a horrible crime.
Other cast members include Fadi Muallem ’24 as Hiro, Autumn Buhl ’21 as Angela, Milan Levy ’23 as Evelyn, and Karly Paige Im ’21 (of Western Michigan University) as Shizuko. Costume Designer Marie Townsend ’21, Scenic Designer Chris Diaz ’21 and Stage Manager Teyia Artis ’21 also worked on the play for their SIPs.
A second production, simply titled K, is an original script that was devised by K students last spring to explore systemic racism. More information will be coming soon about how you can see it November 5-8.
