Prince Fitting #2 . . .

It's beginning to come together. It's beginning to make sense . . .

Rehearsal Begins . . .

Play Performance Calendar

Join in on the fun. . . Download your production schedule here.

Stage to be built for MICA show . . .

The Minions: sewn together, moving as one!

Introducing: Emily Koh, composer

Emily Koh is a young composer currently based in Baltimore, MD and Singapore. She is working towards her masters degrees in composition and music theory pedagogy at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University under the tutelage of Kevin Puts. She graduated with a Bachelor of Music (honors) in composition from the National University of Singapore (NUS) as the valedictorian of her class.

Emily composes in both the acoustic and electronic mediums. She is the 2nd prize winner at the 2010 Virginia Carty deLillo Composition Competition, and was selected as the young composer representative of Singapore at the 2009 Asian-Pacific Contemporary Music Festival 2009. She is also the recipient of Peabody's 2010 Career Development Grant and of five Student Artistic Development Awards awarded by NUS. Full scholarship support for her graduate and undergraduate work is provided by the NUS.

Emily's music has been heard at adjudicated festivals, masterclasses and conferences such as June in Buffalo (USA), Asia-Pacific Contemporary Music Festival (S Korea), Takefu International Music Festival (Japan), Tongyeong International Music Festival (Thailand/S Korea), Composition Today Master classes (UK), Sentieri Selvaggi Masterclasses (Italy) and the Singapore Arts Festival by ensembles such as SIGNAL Ensemble (USA), the Asian Festival Ensemble (S Korea), the Next Mushroom Project (Japan), the Arts Sphere Chamber Ensemble (Singapore), Sentieri Selvaggi (Italy) and the NUS Symphony Orchestra (Singapore) amongst others. Her works have been heard at various venues in Asia, Europe, the United Kingdom and North America.

Costume Designs, in Watercolor.

Introducing: Sarah Edelsburg, performer

Sarah Edelsburg is a painter and illustrator, born and raised in New York City. She received her B.A. in Art History and Judaic Studies in 2006 from The George Washington University in Washington, DC. She has also studied Israeli politics and literature at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel and participated in a studio art program at the Syracuse University in Florence, Italy. She will receive her M.A. in Community Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, in the summer of 2010. In her work, Sarah utilizes the method of contour drawing to create altered and abstracted portraits of Baltimore city residents. She hopes to reveal the unique features, gestures, and characteristics of each individual through the distinctive lines and forms that she creates. She was first inspired to get involved with community arts after the transformative experience of working on a large-scale mural with a team of two mural artists and ten high school students in East Harlem, New York City.

Introducing: Jin-Hwa Choi, composer

Jin-Hwa Choi is currently a DMA candidate at the Peabody Institute of Music at Johns Hopkins University, where she earned her MM in composition studying with Michael Hersch and Judah Adashi. She earned her BM in composition and music education and MM in composition from the Seoul National University in South Korea. Choi's musical language is inspired by various aspects of life including painting, poetry, and her own daily experiences. She is Korean and combines Asian and Western musical characteristics in her works. Her compositions tend to illustrate her impressions through boundary-less tonal and atonal language.

Introducing: Robert Fitzgerald, performer

Robert Fitzgerald is a multimedia visual artist and educator. His training in urban planning and design, along with work in health care, has directed him towards exploring the power of art as a communicative tool. Raised in Connecticut, Fitzgerald earned a degree in urban planning from Cornell University, and studied landscape architecture at Harvard University. Following a recent two-year service with the Peace Corps, his artwork has now shifted towards integrating elements of photography, performance, and sculpture.

Introducing: Elisabeth Gambino, choreographer

Elisabeth Gambino holds an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and has work featured in public and private collections. She is an active painter, performing artist, and community artist. She assisted Mary Jane Jacob with the public art program at the Spoleto Festival, USA, for three years. Ms. Gambino has exhibited in four states and has received fellowships to study art, culture, and art education on four continents. She is interested in relational aesthetics and the art of social change, and has artwork in the Civil Rights Institute collection. She teaches art, mentors art educators in the Baltimore area, and is active in intercultural art education.

The Beginning . . .

Description. My goal for my thesis project is to explore the process of collaboration in art-making, culminating in a performance themed in play. The idea behind this piece is to create a colorful performance piece incorporating botanical imagery, moveable sculptural objects and costuming. Building characters out of paper mache and attaching them to rolling platforms, I will collaborate with participants to combine performance, costume, and installation. The participants and I will become part of the sculptural pieces by climbing inside of them and rolling them around; pushing with our feet, hands, or being pushed by someone else, with the characters moving in and out of the space. The participants and I will be disguised as part of the pieces, via costuming. This piece will evoke humor and collaboration through a unique process and use of media.

Background/Rationale. I became interested in collaboration after seeing a ballet in Austin, March 2008. The ballet, Cult of Color: Call to Color, was commissioned by Ballet Austin, and involved the collaboration of choreographer Steven Mills, painter Trenton Doyle Hancock, and composer Graham Reynolds. Seeing the culmination of this work created a new method of thinking for me.

One year later, I created my first performance piece. Poof!! In Movement was performed in a racquetball court with a team of dancers and a choreographer. It was such an exciting and wonderfully challenging learning experience, fast-paced and extremely gratifying. I wanted to do more.