Handbell Ringing
Conducted by: Les Robinson Hadsell

The handbell workshop will be a hands-on opportunity to become a "choir" of handbell ringers, experiencing the delight, beauty, and intricacies of bell ringing. No previous experience is necessary, but an ability to read rhythms and time signatures is. Participants will learn the fundamental and special techniques of ringing and some repertoire. Our goal will be to perform music for Friday night's talent show, chapel service, or some other special time. Registration may be limited unless we can secure more bells. 

Plan to wear garments that have no buttons or metal clips at the shoulder area. White cotton gloves are needed to play. Please bring your own or purchase at the bookstore. Come experience the joy and healing beauty of ringing bells!

About the instructor: Les Robinson Hadsell has been Director and Conductor of Master Singers of Westchester since its founding in 1981.The group of 75 amateur singers performs major choral works with professional orchestra and world-class soloists. Ms. Hadsell has studied at the Oregon Bach Festival with Helmuth Rilling, one of the foremost choral conductors of our time. 

She has also studied with John Nelson, former Music Director of the Caramoor Center, with Robert Shaw, and at the Westminster Choir College in Princeton. She has held church and choral directing positions in the greater New York area including Director of Music at the First Presbyterian Church of Yorktown for 19 years and at Temple Israel of Northern Westchester in Croton-on-Hudson for 8 years.

DANCE WORKSHOP - 2005

Spiritual Dance with the Delsarte Method
Conducted by: Joe Williams

Spiritual Dance with the Delsarte Method. The Delsarte system of expression is a body-mind-spirit approach to movement developed in the mid nineteenth century. All but forgotten, its teaching gave birth to the foundations of modern dance and claimed Unitarian minister W.R. Lager as one of the first teachers in the US. Learn the movement Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis. No skill or experience needed. All levels of mobility welcome!

About the instructor: Joe has been working for nine years to rescue this powerful movement study from oblivion. He is perhaps the top expert in the United States in this practice. Joe is a member of the Fourth Universalist Society in New York City, where, for three years he has led a Delsarte-based Spiritual Dance Group whose performances frequently bring admiration, tears, and smiles to the congregation.

DRAMA WORKSHOP - 2005

Performing for the Media
Conducted by: Michael R Brown

Performing for the Media
Beginning with warm-up exercises for body and voice, each two-hour session will build on aspects of performing for media, especially voice., and including limitations and possibilities for physical movement, relationships to microphones and cameras, tone and texture, character interactions, and the variety of sit-coms, melodrama and drama will all be included.

Michael R Brown is a professor of communications at Mt Ida College in Newton , MA , with long ago experience as an actor and folksinger and current experience as a performance poet who directs an ensemble in a different 90-minute theater show every week.  

PHOTOGRAPHY 
WORKSHOP - 2005

The Photographic Portrait
Conducted by: John Sharlin

The Photographic Portrait. The portrait is a collaborative effort between the subject and the photographer. This workshop will introduce you to both historical traditions as well as contemporary trends. Working with available light, flash and combinations we will explore various lighting techniques. Also film choices, lenses and camera formats will be discussed.

John will bring a large format camera and Polaroid film for the group to use, which will allow you to get some feedback. The emphasis of the workshop will be to develop a personal vision. This workshop is for anyone, from beginners on up.

Bring a 35mm camera with a manual program if you have one, or can borrow one, and 6-10 rolls of 35mm E-6 (slide) film. There will be a lab fee of $10, plus costs for off island film processing. Optional, but helpful equipment: a tripod, gray card, and cable release.

Also when purchasing film, try an assortment. Suggestions: Fuji Sensia 100, 200, 400; Fuji Astia; Fuji Velvia; Fuji Provia 100, 400; Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100, 400; Kodak E200; Kodak E100GX; Kodak E100VS.

About the instructor: Jonathan Sharlan received his BA from Goddard College in VT and his MFA from SUNY Buffalo's Visual Studies Workshop. He has teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design, the Community College of Rhode Island and Roger Williams College. Over the past twenty years his work has been shown widely throughout the United States. He is also the recipient of a dozen grants and fellowships from the Rhode Island Foundation, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and the New England Foundation for the Arts, a regional branch of the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a member of the Image Bank – Getty One stock agency, a photo archivist for the Rhode Island Historical Society, a guest artist at the Adobe Systems Photoshop Invitational, and has a commercial business as well. His work is in the collections of The Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis, the Polaroid Collection in Cambridge, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, RISD, The Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY, Lightwork in Syracuse, NY, the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, the Museum of New Mexico, Fidelity Investments and numerous private collections.

WRITING WORKSHOP - 2005

Poetry: From Inspiration to Publication
Conducted by: Simone Muench

From Inspiration to Publication. Have you ever been pleasured by the sound of words as they bump, stutter, deflect, reflect, slide into/onto/over one another? Language — slang, medical lexicons, car jargon, song lyrics, flower taxonomies — is our primary method of communication, and the ability to write effectively and creatively is becoming increasingly important in our growing globalized world. 

This workshop will provide you with the skills of creative communication by engaging your imaginative and analytical faculties. This workshop is intended for both beginning and advanced writers with a willingness to read, write, experiment with language, and question why and how conventions exist. We will create forms for poems, engage in collaborative writing exercises, and use the physical landscape surrounding us as muse and method, abiding by Wallace Stevens’ maxims that “perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake,” and “the most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself.” We will also devote a portion of the workshop to discussing the practicalities and possibilities of publishing.

About the instructor: Simone Muench is the poetry editor of ACM. She was raised in Benson, Louisiana, and the Ozark Mountains in Combs, Arkansas, before moving to Colorado to receive her B.A. and M.A. She has had poems published in Paris Review, Poetry, Indiana Review, Notre Dame Review and Bellingham Review, and one of her poems is recently anthologized in Iowa Press’s Red, White, and Blues: Poets on the Promise of America edited by Ryan G. Van Cleave and Virgil Suarez. 

She is a recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, and has received the 49th Parallel Award for Poetry, the Charles Goodnow Award, the AWP Intro Journals Project Award and the Poetry Center’s 9th Annual Juried Reading Award. Her book, The Air Lost in Breathing, received the Marianne Moore Prize for Poetry and was published by Helicon Nine Editions in 2000. New Michigan Press released her chapbook Notebook. Knife. Mentholatum in 2003. Most recently, she received the Kathryn A. Morton Prize for Poetry from Sarabande Books for her manuscript Lampblack and Ash, which will be released in 2005. Currently, she is Assistant Professor at Lewis University as well as a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. You can visit her website at www.simonemuench.com.

Of special interest to poets and writers: Painting With Words. Stephanie Nugent, one of our evening entertainment performers, has also asked to present a one-afternoon workshop for Star Arts on an examination of the poetry of Celia Thaxter. Stephanie invites us to examine how Celia Thaxter used sound and rhythm to make her island world come alive in her poetry. 

Scanning the meter in several of Celia’s poems, studying her use of alliteration, and analyzing the rhyme schemes she employed may prompt participants to try their hand at writing an island poem or two. This workshop may also lead to such writing experiments as describing a scene or telling a story first in prose and then translating the prose into poetry.

VISUAL WORKSHOPS 2005

Workshop I:
Color, Light, Luminosity in Watercolor
Conducted by: S. Barre Barrett

Workshop II:
Rice Paper Collage
Conducted by: Ingrid Davis

Color, Light, Luminosity in Watercolor: Enjoy the luminous light of Star island with expressions in watercolor. Watercolor is the medium of light and transparency so it is ideal for water and seascapes. In this course, aimed at beginning and intermediate artists, we will explore materials and techniques of watercolor. The transparency of watercolor pigment will be explored along with luminous color. Watercolor paintings can be completed using just one brush and the class will concentrate primarily on the use of the #12 round watercolor brush. In addition to traditional ways of painting, special techniques will be demonstrated. Each student should complete one painting every day.

About the instructor: Dr. S. Barre Barrett retired from active teaching in the Art Department at Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, Florida. During his thirty-year career at JU he led the Art Department, the Division of Art, Theater Arts, and Dance, and served as Interim Dean of the College of Fine Arts.

More information about Dr. S. Barre Barrett, as well as more examples of his artwork may be found on his website at: http://home.comcast.net/~barrebarrett/

-----

Rice Paper Collage. This workshop will be a class in collage using Japanese colored rice paper and art tissue paper. A simple drawing is made on a piece of canvas board and then torn pieces of the rice paper and tissue paper are applied to the board using acrylic medium as the adherent. The image is built, layer upon multiple layer using nothing but small pieces of the paper until completed. The finished work has a very painterly quality to it though no paint has been used. Images can be as simple as a single flower or as complex as the students wants. The rugged island landscape lends itself to ideas for this type of creativity. This class is for accomplished artists as well as would-be artists and is a great deal of fun. Students will complete one or two pieces by the end of the week. The instructor will bring the rice paper and tissue paper for the class, which will be available for purchase at cost.

About the instructor: Ingrid Davis studied art at the Art Students League in New York City. She spent five years in Japan teaching English as a second language to Japanese students. While there she participated in many arts workshops. One of these was a course in Rice Paper Collage with a Chinese woman who was living in Japan at the time. Ingrid currently teaches art in the Mercer County school system in New Jersey.

Guest Artists 2005

Stephanie Voss Nugent performed last year at Star Arts in a costumed evening entertainment in which the historic figure of Celia Thaxter spoke to us of her art and her life. This year Ms. Nugent will present a slide program entitled “A Visit to the Isles of Shoals”. This program introduces the rocky archipelago that lies just off the New Hampshire coastline. We meet some of the hardy people who have lived on these islands over the past four hundred years and hear tales of ghosts and pirates, shipwrecks and grand hotels that make up the lore and legend of the shoals. The presentation includes wonderful archival photographs from the 1870s that chronicle the transformation of Star Island from the tiny fishing village of Gosport into an island resort.

Stephanie Voss Nugent is a professional actor and theatre producer who has made new Hampshire her home since 1976. She studied acting at the University of Texas at Austin, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts. Stephanie was fortunate to be a part of the professional company at Theatre By The Sea in Portsmouth, NH where she had the pleasure of playing such fine roles as Emilia in Othello, Lizzie in The Rainmaker, Sonya in Uncle Vanya, and Agnes in Shadowbox. In 1998 Stephanie and Thaxter historian Sharon Stephan wrote the multi-media theatre presentation, Of Pirates & Poets – A Visit to The Isles of Shoals with Celia Thaxter. 

-----

Konstantin Soukhovetski is a highly gifted young Russian pianist; he is presently residing in the United States and is studying at Julliard School of Music in New York City. He recently appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra and has performed worldwide to much acclaim in numerous venues including Alice Tully Hall, Bolshoi Hall and National Public Radio.