February 6, 2008

Ohio State University’s ArtZine Features Strong OWU Participation

In November 2007, The String Machine, an hour-long ballet choreographed by Columbus Dance Theatre artistic director and OWU adjunct instructor of dance Timothy Veach, premiered at the state-of-the-art high-definition Battelle Studio of WOSU@COSI (Center of Science and Industry).

Commissioned especially for WOSU’s locally produced ArtZine arts program, The String Machine was performed before a live audience and taped for later broadcast.

That broadcast date has finally arrived—February 10, 2008, at 12:30 p.m. on WOSU-TV. “It’s different from the live performance, of course, because it had to be edited for television, but the editing job was fantastic. It looks wonderful,” Veach says.

Other OWU faculty members also were engaged in the project. Department of Theatre & Dance professor D. Glen Vanderbilt Jr. served as lighting designer. Because The String Machine was the first major performing arts event held in the new studio at COSI, Vanderbilt was the first-ever lighting designer at the high-tech facility.

The String Machine features classic and contemporary music of Beethoven, Shostakovich, Bennet, Piazzolla, and Glass played live by a string quartet. The musicians selected to play for the ballet’s premiere were the critically acclaimed Carpe Diem String Quartet, in which Korine Fujiwara, an instructor in OWU’s Department of Music, plays viola.

“The focus of the work is humans’ relationship to all the machines we’re so dependent on every day,” Veach says. “It’s about how our lives are aided and impeded by technology and explores how technology may diminish our humanness. Because the piece was going to be performed in a place in which technology was so evident, the idea seemed to work well. I was very happy with how it turned out.”

Throughout the performance, the dancers remain connected to a “machine of movement and music.” Veach had originally thought the musicians might also be connected to the machine, but “it didn’t work. It interfered with their ability to play their instruments, so we abandoned that idea,” he says.

The broadcast of this unique ballet provides an impressive showcase for OWU faculty in dance, music, and theatre.

– Gretchen Hirsch