Everything Nac

Dr. John Allen Hendricks, chair of the Stephen F. Austin State University Department of Mass Communication, left, accepts a check from Neal Slaten, president of Tipton Ford Lincoln of Nacogdoches. The dealership is sponsoring mass communication students in an upcoming trip to the National Student Advertising Competition, which will be held Thursday through Saturday, April 14-16, in Lubbock.

SFA students have spent two semesters building a campaign for the national client Snapple, which includes research, strategy, paid and earned media, creative, print, broadcast, jingles, digital and retail in-store activation tactics. The students will compete against universities from Texas, Louisiana, Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

During the fall American Advertising Federation District 10 competition in Houston, two SFA students were members of the first-place team and one was a member of the third-place team. For that competition, participants had only eight hours to create an advertising campaign.

The Percussion Ensemble at Stephen F. Austin State University will welcome a guest artist when the group performs at 6 p.m. Monday, April 18, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

Dr. Josh Armstrong, assistant professor of percussion and assistant director of bands at Delta State University, will perform on Ivan Trevino’s piece, “Flow,” which features a soloist who alternates between snare drum and marimba, accompanied by percussion trio, according to Dr. Brad Meyer, director of percussion studies for the SFA School of Music.

Armstrong has performed at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention and the National Conference on Percussion Pedagogy, and he has appeared as a guest artist at multiple universities around the country. He has performed with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony, North Mississippi Symphony, Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra, Lubbock Symphony Orchestra and Midland Symphony. He has appeared at numerous Days of Percussion including in Arizona, Iowa and Mississippi. He has also been a guest soloist with the Waterloo Municipal Band.

The Percussion Ensemble will also premiere Elliot Cole’s “Amen,” which is a slow-motion walk through the “Amen Break,” a seven-second clip from a funk song from 1969 by The Winstons, Cole explains.

“It has been called the most influential seven seconds in music,” the composer said. “DJs have used it as the drum break in innumerable tracks, spawning whole genres of dance music where it is an essential element.”

Also on the program is the piece “Signals Intelligence,” which “explores the experience of hearing an electronic transmission in which order is clearly audible, but the information density is too high for any human to parse,” Meyer explains.

“The experience is one of being made aware of that which is always just out of reach, just beyond comprehension,” he said.

Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.

Presenting to an audience packed with students, faculty and staff members, and eager mothers, fathers, siblings and friends, nine Stephen F. Austin State University undergraduates presented a snapshot of months spent pouring over facts and findings Thursday, March 31, during the 2016 SFA Undergraduate Research Conference.

One undergraduate student research project from each SFA college was chosen as top scholar and received $250. Seven additional outstanding student research projects were selected from each college as finalists.

“After conducting my research, presenting and talking to the public afterward, it was truly a transformative experience,” Paige Sumney, senior general business major and the conference’s first presenter, said following her presentation. “I know more about records management than I previously thought possible because of that experiential learning, and I learned from several audience members afterward that I’m rather articulate and portray confidence well.”

Sumney was chosen as top scholar among the Nelson Rusche College of Business research finalists. She presented her findings of a records management experiential study she undertook at Ward Animal Hospital, a Nacogdoches veterinary clinic.

“Records management is a very continuous cycle and every business needs to learn ways to improve and preserve all the information they gather from customers,” Sumney told the audience gathered in the Baker Pattillo Student Center Theater. “I was able to review Ward Animal Hospital’s policies and procedures and wrote them their own personal SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, which I gave to them and identified areas they could improve in or were strong in. “

Marie Wilhelm, senior kinesiology major and top scholar from SFA’s James I. Perkins College of Education, was second to present. She reviewed the results of her research on stress and stress management in kinesiology undergraduate students.

“Stress experienced by students contributes to poor academic performance, lack of motivation, obesity and chronic illness, so for these reasons, studying stress in college students is important,” Wilhelm said. “Results indicated ‘academics’ and ‘work’ were the two main causes of stress reported by students.”

Other top scholar individuals and groups to present included Shelby Gilliland of the College of Fine Arts; Cassey Edwards of the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture; Amber Juarez, Meagan Beckwith, James Hardcastle, Meagan Sellers and Jovita Ndong of the College of Liberal and Applied Arts; and Carmel Tovar of the College of Sciences and Mathematics.

Conference presentations provide students research experience beyond data gathering and organization.

“This was my first time to present at a conference. I was so nervous I wrote ‘breathe’ in my notes so I wouldn’t forget,” Wilhelm said. “Being chosen as top scholar is amazing — working on a project and then having your work recognized is an awesome feeling. I am humbled, honored and overjoyed. From this experience, I have gained confidence in myself as a speaker and as an academic.”

Dr. Steven Bullard, SFA interim provost and vice president for academic affairs, and Dr. Eric Jones, associate professor of kinesiology and health science, introduced the top scholars before the conference’s presentations and made a comment that resonated with Sumney.

“This is a transformative experience,” she said. “Before I went to Ward Animal Hospital, I had only a vague idea of what records management actually meant. I hadn’t yet created those connections between the classroom and the real world. The research was relatively easy because I had a great business leader, Cathy Hammond, to help me.

“The planning was a little difficult because I’ve never been an amazing writer,” Sumney added. “It’s something I’ve struggled with since I was little, and this was the longest paper I had to write at more than 13 pages, so you can imagine my anxiety. I did conquer it and wrote one of the best research papers that I’m proud of — even more so now.”

All projects chosen by the URC executive committee, which includes Dr. Leslie Cecil, SFA associate professor of anthropology and chair of the Department of Anthropology, Geography and Sociology; Drs. Mark Faries, Eric Jones, Elizabeth Tasker-Davis and Michael Tkacik, were presented during the conference. All URC finalists presented posters in the Twilight Ballroom following the presentations.

“The purpose of this annual conference is to highlight and honor outstanding undergraduate research,” Cecil said. “Students present on the paper or project they submitted, which must be completed during the previous calendar year and be faculty sponsored.”

Now in its ninth year, the conference was created by SFA’s College of Liberal and Applied Arts in April 2008. Twelve students presented in its first year.

“I’m proud of my fellow top scholars,” Sumney said. “During rehearsal, we were nervous and all kind of leaned on each other for support and tips because they were our peers. Compared to the rehearsal, we all did so much better at the actual conference. Plus, I think that shiny purple plaque with our names and project names helped boost our confidence a bit.”

In recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, Stephen F. Austin State University’s health science program’s senior seminar class will hold the second annual SFA Take Back the Night event beginning at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 21, in front of the Baker Pattillo Student Center on the SFA campus.

Take Back the Night aims to provide information about the necessity of sexual consent and to encourage support to victims of sexual violence. During the event, participants will receive information about sexual violence and the resources available on campus.

Speakers include John Fleming, Nacogdoches County attorney; Russell Maness from the Nacogdoches Black Belt Academy; Quinn Runnels, advocate from the Family Crisis Center of East Texas; and Brandi Guidry, SFA health science student.

Additionally, participants can join in an on-campus march and witness a self-defense demonstration.

The event is free and open to SFA students and community members.

For more information, contact Cyndra Krogen-Morton, SFA lecturer in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Science, at (936) 468-3988 or mortonca1@sfasu.edu.

Stephen F. Austin State University’s dance program and Repertory Dance Company will showcase senior choreographic works and company performances in the Danceworks production, In Reel Time, which premieres at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 21, in the Lucille Norton Health and Physical Education Complex, Room 201, on the SFA campus.

Additional showings will be held at 7 p.m. Friday, April 22, and 1 p.m. Saturday, April 23.

This semester’s show will present a “cinematic” feel, according to Heather Samuelson, co-coordinator of SFA’s dance program. She said the In Reel Time theme was chosen to reflect the variety of dance genres and content that will be showcased.

“More than 25 dancers are participating in this semester’s production,” Samuelson said. “Danceworks will present two SFA senior choreographic works by Mariah Lavallais and Meagan Torres; three independent choreographic projects; two faculty member productions and three dances from SFA’s Repertory Dance Company.”

Additionally, guest artists Elijah Gibson and Sarah Imhoff-Jones created two choreographic works, which will be featured during the event. Gibson’s contemporary production includes intimate partnering and solo work. Imhoff-Jones’ choreography is a modern dance based upon Native Americans’ belief in spirit animals.

Samuelson and Haley Jameson, associate professor in SFA’s dance program, also created works for this semester’s show. Samuelson choreographed a fun-filled production incorporating acrobatics and intricate partnering work. Bringing her theatre and performance experiences into the mix, Jameson choreographed a jazz production to “Cell Block Tango” from the movie, “Chicago,” which will be performed in the Broadway jazz style of Bob Fosse.

Tickets cost $5 for students, $8 for faculty and staff members, and $10 for general admission. Tickets will be sold at the door in the HPE lobby prior to the performance. All funds raised from Danceworks will go toward the production of future concerts and student productions.

The College of Liberal and Applied Arts and the School of Theatre at Stephen F. Austin State University are preparing to host the Region II Conference 5A UIL One-Act Play Contest Thursday, April 21, in W.M. Turner Auditorium on the SFA campus.

The One-Act Play Contest is a precursor to the UIL 2016 Regional Spring Meet for Region II Conference 5A that will take place on the SFA campus Friday and Saturday, April 22 and 23. In addition to contests in journalism, speech and debate, STEM activities, and theatre and film, the UIL offers activities in several other subject areas, including business skills, language arts, social studies and essay contests.

Six plays will be performed back-to-back beginning at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, and acting awards will be announced following the conclusion of the final play that evening. Two plays will advance to the state contest, according to Melissa McMillian-Cunningham, SFA School of Theatre faculty member who is overseeing the One-Act Play Contest.

The state is divided into four regions, and each has schools in 1A to 6A size categories, with 6A being the largest. Competition begins at the zone level and continues through district, bi-district, area, region and state.

“Usually, by the time a school’s play gets to region, it has advanced from three contests minimally,” Cunningham said. “By the time they get to region, we have 24 schools still in the game that will then get compressed down to eight for the state level – two from each region.”

“Even to get to regional contest is super huge,” she said.

Three adjudicators selected by the state UIL contest will independently rank each play. Each school will be critiqued.

“It’s very focused on theater education,” Cunningham said of the process. “It’s not just about a contest. It’s about supporting theatre in the schools and helping high school students develop their artistic process. This allows students to hear different points of views about their work.’

Schools competing are located in a region from north of Dallas to the East Texas area.

For many smaller schools, UIL is one of the more important activities in theatre for the entire year, Cunningham explained.

“The good thing about UIL is that it really encourages the development of theatre programs,” she said. “It gets communities involved with this process as students travel with their plays. It teaches high school students some skills in terms of flexibility, or moving from space to space during a contest, that they may not otherwise have experienced performing a play at home. They get to take their show on the road, which is exciting.

“From my own personal experience, I feel like my initial success with one-act play as a high school director really awakened my administration to the attention that a quality theatre program could bring to our school district,” she said.

As the schools tour and judges observe students, recruiting opportunities are plentiful, Cunningham said.

“Hosting this event brings faculty members and administrators to our campus,” she said. “One of the great selling points of SFA is bringing people to this beautiful campus and town and allowing students from all these different schools to see what we do here. This heightens awareness of the possibility of these students coming here.”

Another benefit for the university hosting the play contest is that it allows SFA theatre teacher certification students to be involved in the process, “so that as they are training to become theatre educators, they will have had this experience as a crew member, or working in the back stage area, that helps them understand the process from a different perspective than they had as a high school student,” Cunningham said. “This helps to prepare them to be a high school theatre teacher.”

The contest also provides a great opportunity for SFA students and faculty to observe “this level of work,” she added.

“I would encourage area high schools to come after school or perhaps to take a field trip to attend and see the work and learn from it, and to support these schools,” Cunningham said.

Tickets to see all six plays are $10 and can be purchased in the lobby of Griffith Fine Arts Building the day of the contest.

The elaborate opera houses in metropolitan cities aren’t the only places to experience the beautiful sounds and scenery of a full-scale opera production.

Each spring, Stephen F. Austin State University voice students have the opportunity to perform in an opera on W.M. Turner Auditorium stage on campus, and East Texas audiences have the opportunity to see and hear “beautiful young people with beautiful voices perform,” according to Dr. Deborah Dalton, professor of voice at SFA and the opera’s director.

The SFA College of Fine Arts, School of Music and School of Theatre will present “The Bartered Bride” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, April 7 through 9, in Turner Auditorium. Considered Czech composer Bedřich Smetana’s most beloved and well-known comedic opera, “The Bartered Bride” will feature SFA’s outstanding student singers accompanied by an orchestra and staged with full set and costumes.

“If you like musical theatre, and if you like a good comedy, you’ll like this opera,” Dalton said.

“The Bartered Bride” takes place in a Bohemian village on festival day when a traveling circus troupe stops to entertain the villagers. Costumes are colorful European village attire, and the set is a village street with colorful houses lining the street.

Prior to coming to the university, many SFA voice students had never experienced opera. But after four years of training, many of these same students have landed “major roles in major opera houses all over the world,” Dalton said. SFA provides opportunities for voice students to perform in full-scale operas that many universities of similar size do not.

“We teach singers to sing really well; we build voices,” she said. “We have hardworking students, wonderful teachers and a tradition of excellence.”

Voice students Amanda Sheriff and Brenton Mattox, who have lead roles in “The Bartered Bride,” had little experience with opera prior to attending SFA. Both students came to SFA with the notion that choral conducting would be their focus of study. But their vocal training in opera at SFA has given them other options.

“I didn’t have a lot of experience with opera, other than seeing little snippets on YouTube,” Mattox said. “It wasn’t until my freshman year when I was in the chorus of ‘Susannah,’ and I thought ‘wow, this is amazing.'”

Taking voice lessons, working on technique and learning the repertoire and vocal literature also spurred their interest in opera.

“When I originally came to SFA, I was not anticipating being trained as a classical opera singer,” Sheriff said. “I expected we would take voice lessons to make us better choir singers. So when I was told we were going to start singing arias, I asked, ‘what’s an aria?’ I was familiar with a few solo and ensemble pieces in high school, but that was all the experience with opera that I had prior to coming to college.

“Now, where we’re at with ‘Bartered Bride,’ and having the leads, that’s something I could not have imaged,” she said. “I think that’s a stigma that opera has with a lot of people … that opera is not attainable for everyone.”

Justin Dunkle, a graduate voice student from Greencastle, Pennsylvania, agrees that opera is “a stigmatized genre,” he said.

“It’s not only stigmatized, it’s misrepresented by the public media,” he said. “People think of a big fat lady with Viking horns. That’s one opera.

“I hear people say they don’t like classical music or opera, yet, if you look at film scores and movies, classical singers play a huge part, whether in a chorus or a solo role,” Dunkle said. “I believe that if people just give opera a chance, they will be pleasantly surprised at how relatable opera is to the human experience. People have the misconception that opera is about really lofty or elitist topics. But the stories of opera are based on love, hate, greed, sadness, happiness, joy … so many things that are crucial to the human experience. And to put that together with costumes and lighting and fabulous sets and music, I can’t believe that someone would go to an opera for the first time and come out totally hating it. Everyone needs to experience opera.”

Making their characters “easily understood and relatable” to the audience is important to the performers, Mattox said.

“It makes it easier for the audience to be engaged in the performance, and audience engagement makes us want to be better performers,” he said.

Sheriff, a senior from Houston, plays the character of Mařenka, who is in love with Jeník. But Mařenka’s parents have engaged marriage broker Kecal, played by Mattox, a graduate student from Jasper. Kecal’s job is to marry Mařenka off to the son of Tobias Micha, a wealthy landowner. The son turns out to be a bumbling, stuttering simpleton – Vasek. It seems that Mařenka’s father owes Micha a long-standing debt. When Kecal bribes Jeník to renounce his claim on Mařenka, all seems to be lost, until Jeník reveals that he is the long lost son of Micha from a previous marriage.

“Mařenka is being forced into a marriage that she doesn’t want; she’s in love with another,” Sheriff explained. “She’s trying her hardest to be with her love while trying to respectfully defy her parents. That’s relatable to anyone. I try to put in my actual emotions and how I would react. Dr. Dalton’s blocking and instructions throughout allows us to easily become those characters.

“And, it’s just beautiful music,” she added. “So you want to sing it.”

Mattox describes his character as “over the top.”

“He is a marriage broker who is trying to follow through with a contract that was signed when the two were children,” he said. “But he runs into complications, because Mařenka doesn’t want to do it (marry Vasek). But Kecal is good at what he does and does not fail. I enjoy being Kecal because he is charming and very engaging, and he uses that charm to get the job done.”

Dunkle, who plays the lead character of Jeník, appreciates the cleverness of his character and his ability to be inventive and a little tricky.

“There’s a lot of mystery to this character, but he is confident,” Dunkle said. “I see a lot of myself in Jeník. He loves deeply and passionately. The crux of the opera is when Jeník ‘sells’ Mařenka off, but it’s for his own gain. He knows what’s going on, but no one else does. I think that’s one of my favorite aspects of this character – to have insider knowledge.”

While some student performers discovered their passion for opera only after coming to SFA, Dunkle said he began at an early age singing, performing and “wanting to be the center of attention,” he said.

“And for me, opera seems to be the apex of what the human voice can do,” he said. “It’s the best of the best. That’s not to say that pop or jazz singers aren’t any less of musicians. But opera pushes the human voice to its utmost limits, and that, for me, was a goal that I had to chase. The more I experienced opera and the more I learned about the craft and classical singing, the more I found that it was the thing that fulfilled me the most.”

“The Bartered Bride” is double cast, and different students play leading roles on alternating nights.

Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and $7.50 for students and youth. For tickets or more information, visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu or call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407.