With PSU’s move away from a traditional academic model to the integrated clusters model, faculty, staff, and students have been exploring ways to collaborate, create, and innovate. Last fall saw the premier of an exciting project that embodies the integrated clusters approach. Brilliant Being, an original multimedia performance production, was created collaboratively by PSU faculty members Paul Mroczka (writer/director), Amanda Whitworth (choreographer), Jonathan Santore (composer), and Matt Kizer (designer). As the piece evolved, performance studies teaching lecturer Emily Jaworski (voice) and dancer and choreographer Charmy Wells joined the collaboration.
In addition, four students worked tirelessly behind the scenes on this project, collaborating with faculty members and gaining invaluable hands-on experience in the process:
Brilliant Being combines dance, music, sounds, movement, acting, and technology-driven design that includes projections of light, images, and patterns that follow the motions and sounds made by the performers. “It was highly collaborative, which was a lot of fun. Each of us had to feel strongly about our artistic goals and confident in our own areas in order for this to work,” Mroczka said. “We’re creating something from the ground floor—not just the piece but how you’re going to create the piece. The integrated clusters are like that, too.”
In August, Whitworth, Jaworski, and Kizer previewed excerpts from Brilliant Being at an outdoor performance at Canterbury Shaker Village. The production premiered at Homecoming & Family Celebration on September 22, 2016, and ran for five performances in the Studio Theatre in the Silver Center for the Arts.
Top of page: Maundy Mitchell Photography.
A story on the making of Brilliant Being was featured on the October 14, 2016 episode of New Hampshire Chronicle.
Tags: Amanda Whitworth dance integrated clusters Jonathan Santore Matt Kizer multidisciplinary Music performance Theatre
