2019 College Report

College Report 2019 28 College of Fine Arts and Communication 29 spotl ight story for theatre JOHNNY MCALLISTER Assistant Professor Theatre and Dance BULL Cannes Film Festival Cannes, France JASON KWAK Professor Music 10 TH ANNUAL TEXAS STATE INTERNATIONAL PIANO FESTIVAL Texas State University Johnny McAllister has written and produced flms that have screened at international festivals including Cannes, Sundance and SXSW. Raised in the Middle East and North Africa, McAllister pulls from a wide cultural spectrum to inspire his work. Johnny enlisted the help of six students on his and his wife Annie Silverstein’s movie Bull , which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this summer. Te students didn’t get to go to France, but the work looks great on a resume. “I felt a little bad that they began work as interns for no pay,” he says, “but within no time, most were hired full-time by someone and got paid!” Bull was one of 18 flms that competed in a Cannes’ category that attracted flms from 12 countries and only three from the U.S. Te flm revolves around a washed-up African- American rodeo bull rider who is now working as a bull fghter, the rodeo worker who protects the cowboys from the bulls once they are thrown. He has an unfortunate run in with his neighbor, a young wayward teenage girl. Te flm explores their relationship and how the rodeo can have both a benefcial and not so benefcial efect on their lives. “We researched this subculture for fve years,” Johnny says, “and worked on the flm itself for a year and a half. Tis African-American side of rodeo was a whole new world to us.” Tey got to know many of the riders, some of whom credit rodeoing for saving their lives by redirecting them after prison or giving them a more positive path than gangs or crime. Johnny, one of the movie’s producers along with Monique Walton and others, and Annie, its director, are now talking with domestic distributors after successfully dealing with by T.Cay Rowe Palais des Festivals et des Congrès foreign distributor Sony Worldwide. Meanwhile, the movie will continue to be featured in other festivals. B.K. Frizzell was one of the students who worked as an intern with Johnny and Annie on Bull . “I was studying abroad when student involvement in the project started, so I arrived a couple of weeks late. I had wanted to be on the camera side of the production and was a little disappointed that I got on the G&E team instead,” he says, explaining that G&E stands for grips and electricians under direction of a gafer. “I quickly found out that lighting is the best part of being on a set. Tey are some of the most creative people working on a project. Tey are invisible – when they do their job, you don’t notice it.” B.K. will be one of the frst graduates of the new flm production concentration when he gets his B.F.A. in December. Te San Angelo native, now president of the Texas State Film Club, is also an Honors College student, meaning he is now working on his Honors Tesis, which he describes as a full-length screenplay retelling the David and Goliath story from Goliath’s point of view. Johnny loves to open opportunities for students like B.K. Johnny too has benefted by such opportunities and continues to do so. One source of ideas and encouragement is Tom Copeland, former director of the Texas Film Commission who recently retired as a faculty member at Texas State. Another is the fruitful collaboration he and Annie have nurtured with other flmmakers through the Sundance Institute. “I have to re-educate myself constantly,” he says, “and wrestle with new ideas about what we can do at Texas State.” ■ Te College of Fine Arts and Communication has 170 examples of faculty and students involved in international activities during the past year. While we encourage them to go out into the world, sometimes we beneft from having the world come to us. Such is the case with the Texas State International Piano Festival that celebrated its 10th anniversary in June. “We have welcomed participants from 40 countries on fve continents through the years,” says festival Co-founder and Director Jason Kwak, professor of piano and a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching. Tis year drew 38 college and pre-college participants who were taught by 12 festival faculty members, two of whom were past participants who recently earned their D.M.A. degree. Faculty came from the Juilliard School, Eastman School of Music, Peabody Conservatory, the University of Toronto, the University of Nebraska-Omaha, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of South Carolina, as well as Texas State. Te fnal night featured a live recording at the Performing Arts Center for NPR’s program From the Top , which showcased nine of the festival participants. “In celebration of our 10th year,” Jason says, “our opening concert featured all of the faculty performing double piano concerti with the Round Rock Symphony. It was spectacular!” Jason explained that the event is a festival, not a competition. Its eight days of lessons, master classes, recitals, seminars and recreational activities are conducted in what Jason calls “a family atmosphere.” Its purpose is not only to nurture spotl ight story for mus i c by T.Cay Rowe Patti Strickel Harrison Theatre students’ artistic talents and create an international network of musicians, but also to give students advice on practical things such as how to get a job or plan an appealing program. “We knew what we wanted to accomplish with this festival,” adds Washington Garcia, co-founder, now with Nebraska-Omaha. “We wanted it to be international caliber with a human element.” “Okay,” Jason admits, “there was no featured competition this year, but there are some blind competitions.” Te winner of this year’s biggest blind award (Ben I. Gomez Award) was Martin Kesuma, a 2016 Texas State graduate who is now a D.M.A. student at the University of Texas’ Butler School of Music. He traveled from his native Indonesia to San Marcos for the festival in 2011 and decided he liked what he saw. “I realized Texas State was a serious place with really good faculty and facilities,” he says. Martin has also watched the progression of the festival. “Te level of performance seems to get higher and higher as recognition of the festival grows. For me it was kind of scary to see how well the other pianists perform. Tere was no ‘I’ll sit back and watch!’” At the festival, students like Martin, who come from countries around the world, are able to interact with one another. Jason hopes to pass on to them and his students on campus his own appreciation for engagement with diferent cultures. Born in Seoul, South Korea, his family immigrated to Atlanta when he was 8. He began piano lessons at age 4, and his life has taken him to study and performances around the world. But his current focus is San Marcos. “We want to make San Marcos a hot spot for thriving young artists!” ■