College of Fine Arts productions to draw attention to violence

This year, violence, a theme “endemic to our times and societies,” will be the focus of many students of the College of Fine Arts’ programs and performance.

“We find it in the family, in the workplace, around issues as diverse as gender, religion and social,” said CFA Dean Benjamín Juárez in an interview.

The initiative aims to show how the “emotionally challenging” theme is omnipresent in family life, the workplace, religion and artistic expression, Juárez said.

The theme could shed light on violence in politics, as well as methods of prevention and its interpretation in the arts.

“It has raised our collective awareness of how constant a presence violence is in our society, and so in the theme that artists feel compelled to express – in music, plays, poetry, fiction and through painting, films and drawing,” Juárez said. “So CFA faculty and students have had no problem coming up with work that they want to present to take a truly multidisciplinary look at violence and its possible solutions.”

The violence theme was proposed by Jim Petosa, director of the School of Theatre, and then adopted by the School of Music and School of Visual Arts, Juárez said.

Not every play, opera or showcase will have physical violence in it, said CFA senior Callie Farnsworth, who said she will be acting in “The Violence Project.”

“Despite being directed by a fight choreographer, we have taken a route that involves no physical violence,” she said. “Fist fights and full-blown fights are the expected, and we want to challenge that ideal.

“The power of words is enough,” she said. “I am really excited about this because it takes the glamour out of violence and finds it at its core. When we cease to follow our impulses, and suppress emotion, that is when violence is incited.”

Christiaan Smith-Kotlarek, a graduate student in CFA’s Opera Institute, said he is starring in the Three Decembers, and that the heartfelt and emotional aspects of these violent themes give him a “rush.”

“It’s the perspective of loss as a result of violence and that’s a very emotional thing to portray,” Smith-Kotlarek said. “It does somehow feel good to portray that and go to that place and be able to take other people there, as well.”

“I have to experience the worst parts of myself. I have to go places I don’t like to live in,” Farnsworth said.
Farnsworth said that she hopes the upcoming performances will spark a conversation among audiences about violence.

“Hopefully performing our show will give an opportunity to the audience to safely explore those same places in themselves … I hope this starts a conversation with the community about where we face violence every day,” she said.

“It isn’t just on television, or in wars. It can be about how we treat each other, or ignore what is going on. Once we start talking about it, we can start doing something.”