Fine Arts Bring Hope During an Uncertain Time

By Sherrie Negrea, May 11, 2020
Ithaca College faculty present live performance series on Zoom.
dancer in front of statue of liberty

Daniel Gwirtzman in Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company's "Character."

(Photo by Marc De George)

Daniel Gwirtzman in Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company's "Character."

(Photo by Marc De George)

Every weekday at 5 p.m., Ithaca College faculty have been reading plays, essays, and poems, performing concert works and popular songs, and showing their visual art in a new program broadcast on Zoom.

Fine Artists at Five, launched on March 30, has featured more than 35 faculty members who have given presentations of their artistic discipline before an audience of faculty, staff and students. The series will run daily through May 22, with schedules and directions to the Zoom link published weekly on Intercom.

Fine Artists at Five

Learn about upcoming Fine Artists at Five performances on Intercom.

Fine Artists at Five

“We have so many rich programs — concerts, plays, dance recitals, you name it — and it’s all missing from our lives,” said Gordon Rowland, director of the Center for Faculty Excellence, who created the series. “This seemed like an opportunity to bring a little bit of that back once a day for 15 or 20 minutes.”

Dawn Pierce, an assistant professor of voice who specializes in opera, chose to perform a collection of modern songs, from “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to the “White Cliffs of Dover,” from her home in Ithaca on April 6. She found the opportunity to sing before an audience especially gratifying because several of her performances with orchestras this spring have been canceled.

“I wanted to do anything I could to support our community, but doing it, I found that it was also good for my own soul and my own morale,” said Pierce, a mezzo soprano. “It helped me get past the grieving of things that I had lost and to move into this new reality that we’re in.”

“There’s just a hopefulness in the idea that individuals can still reflect and create and look forward. I think one of our problems is our sense of uncertainty about what’s ahead. I think these artistic performances give you a sense of hope.”

Lauren O’Connell, professor of art history

Hoping to provide a geographical diversion, Fae Dremock, an assistant professor of environmental studies and science, read her story, “The Flyover,” which depicts a woman who decides to leave Cairo and return to the United States. Dremock, who lived in Cairo and taught at the American University, writes fiction that uses environmental issues as a backdrop.

“I think this is a wonderful idea that IC had,” Dremock said of the series. “It’s nice once a day to go someplace that isn’t pandemic, that isn’t within this space that we’re all concerned about, and just to escape for a half hour.”  

What I Can Do

Other faculty members found it more challenging to perform on the Zoom platform. Daniel Gwirtzman, an assistant professor of dance, chose to present a series of 100 slides of photographs of his modern dance company in New York City. The photos showed members of the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company performing in outdoor spaces around the world.

After his presentation, Gwirtzman said, “I really was so excited in a way one has a rush or gets a certain high after a performance. So even though I wasn’t dancing, having the opportunity to share 20 years of work with such a selected and interesting cohort of colleagues — for someone to have some uplifting and some type of joy is really possible from this program.”

A regular spectator of the series, Lauren O’Connell, a professor of art history, said that watching her colleagues perform was “a compelling distraction,” especially after a full day of teaching classes on Zoom. She has been logging into the performances from her living room two to three times a week.

“When you’re listening to the performances, you’re just really absorbed by it,” O’Connell said. “There’s just a hopefulness in the idea that individuals can still reflect and create and look forward. I think one of our problems is our sense of uncertainty about what’s ahead. I think these artistic performances give you a sense of hope.”