Communications

Honors Convocation
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
11:10 a.m.
“Voice, the Muscle of the Soul: Finding Yourself Through Finding Your Voice”
Kenneth Bozeman

Kenneth Bozeman, Frank C. Shattuck Professor of Music, is the ninth recipient of Lawrence’s Faculty Convocation Award, which represents the judgment of faculty peers that the person’s professional work is of high quality and deserves the honor of selection.

A tenor, Bozeman has taught in the conservatory’s voice department since 1977. He is one of only 11 faculty members in the history of the university to be recognized with Lawrence’s Young Teacher Award (1980) and Excellence in Teaching Award (1996). He also was honored by the Voice Foundation with its Van Lawrence Fellowship in 1994 for his interest in voice science and pedagogy.

In 2017, his book on acoustic pedagogy, “Practical Vocal Acoustics: Pedagogic Applications for Teachers and Singers” was published. He is frequently invited to speak at seminars and master classes on acoustic pedagogy at universities and interdisciplinary conferences.

His appearance is supported by the Marguerite Schumann Memorial Lectureship.

On May 24, participate in a “community walk” by walking the city with those from Lawrence and the Appleton area. 

The walk to commemorate LU’s home will begin at 4:30pm in front of Main Hall and conclude with an ice-cream social at 6:00pm, Boldt Plaza, outside the Warch Center. The event is free (including the ice-cream!) and open to the public. 

Beginning Monday, April 30, College Avenue will be closed to traffic at several intersections. The project is expected to be completed in two weeks. See the map below or click here for details.

bkSOUL is the final guest company in the Lawrence University Dance Series this year. Don’t miss this multi-disciplinary performance collective.

There are FOUR ways to interact with bkSOUL:

1. “ILLEGIBLE” performance – Friday, April 13th 7:00pm in Esch/Hurvis, WCC
FB event link and LU Dance Series link here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/205185860238173/

https://www.lawrence.edu/conservatory/performance_series/dance_series

Read below for more details.

2. Open community Dance class – Thursday, April 12th 9:00-10:50am in Esch studio, WCC (contact Margaret Paek for more details)

3. Open community Musicians in Movement creative class – Thursday April 12th 2:30-4:20pm in Esch studio, WCC (contact Margaret Paek for more details)

4. Open Music & Movement Family Jam – Saturday, April 14th, 10:30am-12:00pm,   in Esch studio, WCC.
FB event link here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1703525266392934/

bkSOUL was founded in 2001 by Dr. grace shinhae jun as a space to explore the relationship between Hip Hop culture and modern dance, debuting with the evening length work Women Warriors in Love & Hip Hop. The company began as a bi-coastal company (San Diego – Brooklyn), teaching and performing at various venues in Southern California, Brooklyn, New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia, Indiana, San Francisco, and Mexico. In 2006, bkSOUL deepened its roots in San Diego and began collaborating with Collective Purpose (Ant Black, Kendrick Dial and Rudy Francisco), blending together movement, poetry, and live music to center on issues of social justice and communities of color through a Hip Hop framework. This award-winning performance company has created six evening length works: The Movement (2007), Hip Hop Saved My Life (2009), Love H.E.R. (2013), Illegible (2015), Still Moving (2016), The Lioness (2017), and received “Best Musical Performance” (2016) and “Outstanding Performance” (2017) for their work at the San Diego International Fringe Festival. In 2016, celebrating the 10 years of working together the dancers, the poets, and musicians fully merged to perform solely as the conscious performance group bkSOUL. As educators, mothers, fathers, activists, and artists, bkSOUL is committed to education through the arts, to courageous insight and truth, and to helping strengthen our justice movement today.

Directors: Ant Black, grace shinhae jun, Jesse Mills, Christopher Rice-Wilson
Poets: Ant Black, Kendrick Dial, Miesha Rice-Wilson
Musicians: Shivon Carreño, Loren Dempster, Jesse Mills
Dancers: Lauren Dockweiler, Jessica Gilmore, grace shinhae jun, Ian Isles

Description of their performance work – “ILLEGIBLE”

Legibility – Having a quality that is clear to read.

To be legible is to be easily understood. Black bodies are most legible when they are policed, incarcerated, and subject to surveillance. The alternative to this presentation is through comedic, grotesque, or outrageous caricatures. These legible images of Black men and women reflect the longstanding racial prejudices and the way in which these bodies are dealt with in every institution in the United States.

To be illegible is to have qualities that make it difficult to be read, comprehended, and understood by others. Black bodies are illegible when they are not complicit in their role of the public imagination. To be illegible is to fully embrace the complexity of Blackness in a country that does more forgetting than remembering what we have done to Black bodies.

Illegible is a collaborative project that addresses the acrimony and injustice around the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Through the culture of hip-hop, the scholarship of Mark Anthony Neal, and the narratives of each performer, bkSOUL explores the meaning of illegibility with poetry, music, and dance.

There will be a post-performance talk.

Heavy topic, but family-friendly (meaning that there is no foul language, and children are welcome.)

Free!

Supported by the LU Dance Series and
the following Lawrence University student-run clubs/LUCC:
As I Am
Alianza
Black Student Union
Dance Team
Deep Listening Club
LUNA
Melee Modern Dance Club

 Tuesday, April 3, 2018 from 1:30 p.m to 5:00 p.m • Warch Center

The Wisconsin LGBT Chamber of Commerce is hosting its first Higher Education Summit this year.  Originally planned for another location, Lawrence offered to host recently after a change in availability.  

Provost Katie Kodat will be offering the welcome from the University, VP for Diversity and Inclusion Kimberly Barrett will be a panelist, and Gender Studies faculty Helen Boyd Kramer will be facilitating a breakout session.

We are excited to announce the keynote speaker for the conference will be Matthew Antonio Bosch, Director of the Gender & LGBTQIA Center at Elon University. Elon University recently catapulted from #370 on CampusPride’s Index for LGBTQIA Inclusion to Top 25 in the U.S. and #1 in the South for the last three years. Matthew Antonio’s keynote speech is titled “We’re Here, We’re Queer, We’re Multiplying.” He provided this description of the session: 

LGBTQIA people are multiplying. Coming out younger and younger, LGBTQIA youth and teenagers span K-12, college campuses, and YouTube, alongside queer role models in entertainment, athletics, and the corporate realm. Universities now dedicate resources towards LGBTQIA education, diversity centers, employee groups, alumni networks, and recruiting. 

How can colleges and universities prepare for this influx of LGBTQIA students? How can institutions hold ourselves accountable to LGBTQIA alumni who are yearning for change? 

This session will explore the state of LGBTQIA people in higher education, including Best Practices for multiplying our visibility and impact. No longer the work of a sole student organization or office, LGBTQIA inclusion is the work of us all.

All of you are welcome to attend, and you are welcome to come and go as you may be available during the afternoon.  Lawrence is a member of the Chamber, so there is no charge to attend the conference.  

Best regards,

Christopher Lee

The Spring General Election is Tuesday, April 3, 2018.  The polls will be open from 7am to 8pm, and candidates for Wisconsin state supreme court justice are on the ballot.

If you are eligible to vote (U.S. citizen and age 18 or over), you are strongly encouraged to exercise your right to vote and have your voice heard.

Click here for more information on voter registration and polling locations for students.