Author: Nick Rallo

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Music

SMU Opera Behind the Scenes: A New Way of Rendering Costume Designs

Post author By Nick Rallo
Post date December 19, 2016
1 Comment on SMU Opera Behind the Scenes: A New Way of Rendering Costume Designs

When creating costume designs for the upcoming opera comedy “The Elixir of Love,” designer Mari Taylor (M.F.A. Stage Design ’17) drew her designs on actual images of each actor instead of using traditional sketches.

Costume shop staff Genie Stallings, Cayla Tally and Allie Elsey say the hybrid renderings help them capture the physicality of each actor as they cut and sew the costumes. “The Elixir of Love” will be presented by SMU Meadows Opera Theatre Feb. 9-12, 2017 in the Bob Hope Theatre.

Buy Tickets | Call 214-768-2787

Note

The Fall 2016 Semester in Photos

Post author By Nick Rallo
Post date December 6, 2016

All photos by Kim Leeson — Photo by Kim Leeson

From A-to-SYZYGY, it’s been nothing less than a busy year at SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts.

As we continue on to the next academic year and reflect on the inspiring events of fall 2016—which includes Meadows Prize winner New Cities, Future Ruins’ hybrid conference on art and urbanism in America’s Western Sun Belt, the many, electric events of Ignite Arts Dallas, stunning dance premiers, Mayor Rawlings’ Sammons Media Ethics lecture, swing dance, a lighting battle, the election, and much, much more—we present a look at photos we love from the year at SMU Meadows School of the Arts.

The indefatigable photographer Kim Leeson was on hand for many Meadows events. Here are just some of our favorites:

Meadows Division of Dance presented To Have and To Hold, choreographed by Danial Shapiro and Joanie Smith in 1989 in response to the devastation of the AIDS epidemic (Photo by Paul Phillips)

Scene from the New Cities Future Ruins walk around Dallas’ Jubilee Park neighborhood, see installations by artists and designers throughout the neighborhood, and enjoy an evening of food, discussion, keynotes and presentations.

All photos below by Kim Leeson

Ben Voth, Ph.D., of SMU's Corporate Communications and Public Affairs division, held a debate during the Presidential election in November. — Ben Voth, Ph.D., of SMU’s Corporate Communications and Public Affairs division, held a debate during the Presidential election in November.

ncfr_themac — A night together at The MAC, punctuated by performances by Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Autumn Knight, Postcommodity, and Lee Escobedo, during the New Cities Future Ruins fest in Dallas.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings at the 17th annual Rosine Smith Sammons Lecture in Media Ethics

The Rosine Smith Sammons Lecture in Media Ethics at SMU presented “Making Sense of a Tragedy in Real Time: Media Coverage of the Dallas Ambush"--featuring Steve Pickett, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, and Mike Wilson (R), editor of the Dallas Morning News. (At center, Journalism professor C Jake Batsell) — The Rosine Smith Sammons Lecture in Media Ethics at SMU presented “Making Sense of a Tragedy in Real Time: Media Coverage of the Dallas Ambush”–featuring Steve Pickett, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, and Mike Wilson (R), editor of the Dallas Morning News. (At center, Journalism professor C Jake Batsell)

Kathleen Gallagher is an Arts Management and Arts Entrepreneurship professor at SMU. Gallagher took her International Comparative Cultural Policy class to the State Fair of Texas in Fair Park.

Students, and faculty re-lived the classic era of the famous big bands and spend an evening dancing to the music of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Count Basie and other legendary artists of the 1930s and ’40s.

The SMU Meadows Jazz Orchestra presented its second annual swing dance concert onOctober 29.

theatremitu-1 — A performance from the Alternate ROOTS Weekend-Dallas, presented by SMU’s Ignite Arts Dallas (run by Clyde Valentin)

For the second year in a row, judges selected a team of SMU Meadows M.F.A. Theatre Design students as a top-three finalist for High End Systems’ “Hog Factor 4” live show lighting competition. Kolby Clarke, left, and Andrew Garvis, with Russ Bockemuehl on laptop screen.

SMU Provost Steve Currall named Associate Professor of Organizational Communication and Director of Corporate Communication and Public Affairs Maria Dixon Hall as Provost’s Senior Advisor for Campus Cultural Intelligence. Dixon is seen here teaching her course at Meadows.

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SMU’s Highly-Ranked Guildhall Wants You to Play Student-Designed Video Games

Post author By Nick Rallo
Post date November 28, 2016

The SMU Guildhall is Southern Methodist’s video game design school located in Plano, Texas. The graduate school is ranked #2 for video game design and is the only program in the world to offer a Masters in Interactive Technology.

As a part of the master’s program, students are required to create their own game. Students here at SMU will have the opportunity to playtest these games on November 29. It’s free, and there will be doughnuts.

We checked in with Marc Mixon, graduate student specializing in production at SMU Guildhall, to tell us a little bit more before the playtest:

SMU art majors who are pursuing a B.F.A. are eligible to apply for a two-part B.F.A./M.I.T in Digital Game Development.

Can you tell us about the students’ games? Are they first person narrative? Web-based or console?

They are all 2-D mobile games built for android tablets in the Unity 5 engine. Each game is unique and at this stage in development quite a bit can change, so that is little tough to answer right now.

How long have the students been working on them?

2-3 months. That includes pitching the initial concept on paper all the way to a final product complete with marketing materials like posters and logos. It is the first of three games that students will design as part of a team during their master’s program. Team includes programmers, artists, level designers, and producers.

Why is testing an important part of the process, within the curriculum?

Testing is crucial to game development, and SMU Guildhall prides itself on a curriculum that simulates what development is like in the industry. Testing identifies usability problems i.e. when players don’t understand how a game works. It helps developers discover which mechanics are the most fun, so they can allocate their resources to focus on those areas. Bug testing is the aspect that people are most familiar with; it’s part of the quality assurance process to make sure the game functions correctly. Although there are many facets to testing, its overall goal is to improve the end user’s experience.

Music

10 Photos We Love from the Second Annual Swing Dance Concert

Post author By Nick Rallo
Post date November 10, 2016

The SMU Meadows Jazz Orchestra presented its second annual swing dance concert onOctober 29. Students, and faculty re-lived the classic era of the famous big bands and spend an evening dancing to the music of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Count Basie and other legendary artists of the 1930s and ’40s.

An introductory/brush-up swing dance lesson was held led by local swing dance expert Emily Spraggins, and it was a kick-the-shoes-off good time. Photographer Kim Leeson was on hand to capture our favorite photos. Check them out, and follow @smumeadows for more.

Arts Management and Arts Entrepreneurship Photos We Love

A Texas-Sized Trip for One SMU Arts Management and Arts Entrepreneurship Class

Post author By Nick Rallo
Post date November 9, 2016

Kathleen Gallagher is an Arts Management and Arts Entrepreneurship professor at SMU. Recently, Gallagher took her International Comparative Cultural Policy class to the State Fair of Texas in Fair Park. It might not seem like an obvious choice for a Cultural Policy class at first, but the visit was important to the theme built into the curriculum.

Professor Gallagher has designed the course around information literacy, which is defined as “the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning.”