2nd Annual Muse:
A Celebration of Women in the Arts
A Performance
in Support of Women’s Month
and the Community Arts Office and Information Center
March 19, 2010
Dance
Becca Obert Imbur
Becca Obert Imbur first began hoop dancing two years ago as she began her journey into grad school. She began to use the hoop as an excuse to move after spending many hours in front of a computer. While the stress relieving benefits of hoop dance were immediate, other aspects of hoop dance began to surface. Mentally, Becca felt more centered after each hoop dance session allowing her to focus. Spiritually, Becca found spinning to be a powerful way to connect to the Universe. Most importantly, Becca found a group of beautiful, creative and reflective people who use the Hoop as a way to build, create and enhance their local and global community.
Mandara Dance
Mandara is a world fusion belly dance ensemble based out of southwest Virginia. We perform group dances that are inspired by dance traditions from along the Silk Road (India, Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain). Our dancing celebrates the human spirit and expresses physical strength and beauty as well as each dancer's unique interaction within the community as a whole. The dances we perform are meant to celebrate life in all stages through music and movement.
Fiction Writing
Michael DuVall
At the age of seven, Michael wrote her first story--a Snoopy murder mystery--and has been trying not to write ever since. Unfortunately, writing fiction is the one habit that she can't seem to quit, so she has decided instead to dedicate herself to writing, success be damned. Along with a couple of obscure publications in minor literary magazines, Michael won the 2007 Virginia Tech Literary Award. Her ultimate goal in life is to teach, write...and be paid.
Disclaimer: While the performance of “Smokey” does not contain any sexuality or violence, it does, however, deal with adult themes and uses mild language which may not be appropriate for younger children or may be considered offensive to other members of the audience.
Music
Anne Elise Thomas
Originally a pianist and harpsichordist, Dr. Anne Elise Thomas began learning the qanun as an undergraduate at the College of William and Mary, studying with Anne Rasmussen. She graduated from William and Mary in 1996 with a B.A. in music and minor in anthropology, and received her M.A. (2000) and Ph.D. (2006), both in ethnomusicology, from Brown University. During her graduate work she founded and directed the Brown Middle Eastern Music Ensemble. From 2001-03 she lived in Amman, Jordan and Cairo, Egypt, studying qanun and violin performance and doing fieldwork for her dissertation.
Anne Elise has performed on the qanun in New York, Boston, Cairo, Jakarta, and throughout the United States; she is a member of the all-female Arab music ensemble al-Hawanim. She also works as Educational Program Coordinator at Jefferson Center in Roanoke, Virginia; in that capacity she both administers and participates in programs for K-12 students that highlight the arts and performance of diverse cultures. In the summers, Anne Elise teaches a workshop on Middle Eastern music at Legacy International’s Global Youth Village, a unique leadership program in rural Virginia in which young people from around the world come together to create a working model of the global community. Anne Elise has also published articles on Arabic music and presented her work at conferences worldwide.
Cedar Run Duo
Kaily Moon Schenker and Erica Ann Sipes, make up the Cedar Run Duo. Although there is a 20-year difference between these two friends, they both share a passion for the cello and for music-making in general and have enjoyed working together for the past four years, ever since Ms. Sipes moved to Blacksburg with her husband and daughter.
Kaily has been studying the cello since she was 4 years old and began her studies with Lisa Liske-Doorandish. She is currently studying with Alan Weinstein, the cellist of the Kandinsky Trio and Assistant Professor of Cello at Virginia Tech. When she isn’t practicing cello, she likes to cook, or to work on a self-published magazine that she and a friend have created called “The Schmatte”. You can also hear Kaily on Thursday evenings, from 5 until 7pm, on Virginia Tech’s WUVT radio station, where she deejays her own radio show along with her good friend Cambria Mcmillan-Zapf. The Schenker family is a Blacksburg institution at the Farmer’s Market. Their family can be found there every market day at the Greenstar Farm booth.
Cellist and pianist, Erica Ann Sipes, is slightly older than Kaily, and was born in San Francisco, California. She began her musical studies when she was 5 years old and has studied with many different teachers in many different places, receiving her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. She is married to Tadd Sipes, currently the Assistant Professor of Voice at Virginia Tech, and is the proud mother of Emma Katherine. Since moving to Blacksburg in 2005 she has accompanied many musicians, young and old, in the New River Valley, performed as a guest artist at Virginia Tech, and has played with the Roanoke Symphony in their performance of Carmina Burana. This coming May she will be performing as a soloist with the New River Valley Symphony. Although she has many other interests such as reading, knitting, and gardening, Ms. Sipes’ main passion is helping people of all ages find relevance and joy in learning, performing, or listening to classical music. You can learn more about her by viewing her blog at http://ericaannsipes.blogspot.com.
Kat Mills
Kat Mills is a powerful solo performer that lives in Blacksburg and tours throughout the east. She is a wife and mother, and has been writing, producing and performing her own brand of soulful folk for over 15 years. Kat's material is reminiscent of another time, but reflects on the now. She is a fixture at local festivals, wineries and fundraisers, but has also shared stages with the likes of Pete Seeger, Amy Fradon and Tom Pacheco.
Kat has recently released her third solo album, "Townie", a warm mix of originals and traditional songs.
New River Winds
After playing together for many years in larger ensembles, flutist Mary Walters, clarinetist Mary Keffer, and oboist Meredith McCree formed The New River Winds. Small chamber sized groups offer musicians a unique and rewarding opportunity to work closely together as a musical unit, demanding the greatest precision of tuning, rhythm, and phrasing. The trio has performed with the New River Valley Friends of the Roanoke Symphony Artist in Residence program for schools, at wine tastings, and in concert. The New River Winds also appear on occasion as a quintet, adding the bass tones of bassoon and horn. All three musicians are active freelancers, performing in symphonies, weddings, church services, solo recitals, musicals, and even the Mountain Lake Oktoberfest Sauerkraut Band.
Theatre
Susanna Rinehart
Susanna Rinehart is Associate Professor in Virginia Tech’s Department of Theatre and Cinema, and Director of Education for Diversity and Inclusion in the Office for Equity and Inclusion. At VT, she has appeared in the premieres of Ed Falco's Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha and Radon, and staged readings of his The Pact and Ordinary Dreams; and is currently in rehearsal for a production of Falco’s latest, The Center, playing at Studio Roanoke on November 6th and 7th. She has directed and acted in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues four times for the national V-Day Initiative campaign, helping to raise well over $50,000 for the NRV Women's Resource Center and multiple international aid organizations. Among her roles at VT are Dr. Vivian Bearing in Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit, Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, and Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music. In addition, she has directed Anton in Show Business, The Laramie Project, Kimberly Akimbo, Fuddy Meers, The Imaginators, Proof, The Yellow Boat, and Cinderella Waltz. Prior to joining Virginia Tech’s Theatre Arts faculty in 1999, she was on the faculty of the Department of Dramatic Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a resident actor for 10 seasons at PlayMakers Repertory Company from 1989 to 1999. Susanna teaches more than 600 students per semester and has received numerous teaching awards as well as the Advancing Women Award in 2005. As OEI Director of Education, she is responsible for providing leadership and direction to the facilitation of a broad range of programs and initiatives designed to expand Virginia Tech’s cross-cultural competencies and capacity for diversity and inclusion. Some words that resonate with Susanna at the moment? "It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time one stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, one sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." --Robert F. Kennedy
Visual Arts
Isabelle Marchand
French born, internationally renowned portrait photographer, Isabelle Marchand discovered her love of photography while living in Australia. The beauty of the country made her want to learn how to record all she saw. After moving to the US, She went back to school to master her craft.
The birth of Isabelle’s first child was a significant turning point. When he was a month old, she photographed him. For the first time she was taking pictures of a baby, and she loved it. The results of that first session led to the decision to open her own portrait studio. She now specializes in pregnant mothers, newborns and children.
