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News Release

Last modified: Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Fran Snygg Grant for Artistic Collaboration and Endowment Fund award winners perform

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 21, 2008

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The 2008 winners of the Fran Snygg Grant for Artistic Collaboration and the Fran Snygg Endowment Fund have been announced by the Office of the Dean of Faculties and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Indiana University.

The awards honor the memory of Professor Fran Snygg, the founder of ArtsWeek, an annual showcase for the arts on the IU Bloomington campus and in the Bloomington area. Snygg guided the event through its first 10 years and was a prime force in supporting artists at IU and in the Bloomington community.

The Fran Snygg Endowment Fund was established in 1998 to develop and enhance awareness and appreciation of dance as a performing art. The fund is used to support and promote modern dance and movement in the arts.

The Fran Snygg Grant for Artistic Collaboration was created in 2002 to encourage artistic collaborations in conjunction with ArtsWeek. The project may be a performance, an exhibit or some other collaborative endeavor between artistic disciplines fostering interests in new groups, new ideas and new collaborations.

Fran Snygg Grant for Artistic Collaboration

• "The Body Politic: Dance Performances in Sites that Shape Our Lives" -- Laura Poole, visiting guest lecturer, kinesiology; Selene Carter, adjunct lecturer, kinesiology; Joe Galvin, associate professor, kinesiology; and Amy Burrell, community visual designer.
• "Sensing Space: A New Work for Dancer, Sensor Network, Video, and Digital Music" -- Jeffrey Haas, professor, composition, and director, Center for Electronic and Computer Music; and Elizabeth Shea, clinical assistant professor, kinesiology.

Fran Snygg Endowment Fund

• "Just Dance" -- George Pinney, professor, theatre and drama.
• "From Past to Present: The Tradition of Modern Dance" -- Elizabeth Shea, clinical assistant professor, kinesiology, with Gwendolyn Hamm, associate professor, kinesiology and Laura Poole, visiting guest lecturer, kinesiology; George Pinney, professor, theatre and drama; Iris Rosa, associate professor, African-American and African diaspora studies; and Jeffrey Haas, professor, composition, and director, Center for Electronic and Computer Music.

About the winning projects

• The Body Politic: Dance Performances in Sites that Shape Our Lives -- This project focuses on the history, architecture and every day use of space as an expression of freedom and equality within a democracy. In IU Bloomington's Woodburn Hall the dancers explore themes rooted in the controversial Thomas Hart Benton Indiana murals. And in the Monroe County Courthouse, performances coordinate with the centennial celebration of the building and integrate themes of justice, politics and architectural beauty. Performances will take place during ArtsWeek at Woodburn Hall 100, 1100 E. Seventh St., Feb. 23 (Saturday), three performances in 30-minute cycles at 5 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 6 pm., as well as at the Monroe County Courthouse atrium, Bloomington town square, Feb. 26 (Tuesday), three performances in 30-minute cycles at 11:30 a.m., 12 p.m. and 12:30 p.m. For more information on the project see the following article at https://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/7364.html
• Sensing Space: A New Work for Dancer, Sensor Network, Video and Digital Music entails researching the integration of new technologies for digital interaction to create an intelligent network for sensing movement, sound and deliberate sensor input by a live performer. The results then will be used to create a new work for dance with live interaction computer-generated music and video. A lecture/demonstration of the early research, along with other new interactive dance technologies, will be available during ArtsWeek 2008.

• Just Dance places the pianist center stage and central to as well as part of the choreography. The project is a dance composition focusing on the imagination of a musician. It opens with a piano and pianist center stage. She begins to play. Dancers emerge out of her imagination, motivated by the notes from the piano. As the dance progresses the pianist's imagination becomes wilder and more kinetic to the point that she becomes part of the dance. Still playing at virtuosic speed, the dancers move the piano about the stage integrating the pianist and the piano into the piece. Pianist /Music Arranger: Michael Langlois.
• From Past to Present: The Tradition of Modern Dance features original choreography by dance faculty and guest artists. The first half of the performance featured works by modern dance icons Paul Taylor, Bella Lewitsky,and Anna Sokolow. The second half of the concert includes a new work by choreographer Elizabeth Shea in collaboration with composer Jeffery Hass and lighting designer Robert Shakespeare, as well works by IU faculty Gwen Hamm, George Pinney and Iris Rosa. The concert is an opportunity for dance faculty to produce research, teaching and service to the participating IU students, who include 40 dance majors, 120 dance minors, musical theatre majors and graduate students in technical theatre. Both dances were performed at the IU Contemporary Dance Program's annual guest artist and faculty concert on January 11 and 12, 2008 in Ruth Hall Theatre. For more information on the performances, see https://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/7121.html.

Fran Snygg biographical information

Snygg chaired the Arts Coordinating Council and shepherded ArtsWeek from its beginning in 1985 through 1994, and was a prime force in expanding recognition of artists in the area until her death in1996 at age 53.

Snygg began studying dance seriously in her native state of New York with American modern dance legend, Erick Hawkins. She came to IU to study dance with Jane Fox and earned her undergraduate degree in physical education with a dance specialization at IU in 1967. She attended the Tisch School of Fine Arts at New York University, completing a Master of Fine Arts degree in dance theatre in 1971.

Snygg then returned to IU and began teaching as an assistant professor of modern dance in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation (currently the Department of Kinesiology), where she became associate professor in 1980, and full professor in 1990. She joined the school's graduate faculty in 1982 and became associate dean of faculties in 1984.

In addition to being a professor in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, Snygg was also an associate professor in the School of Music and in the Department of Theatre and Drama.

For more information on the endowment fund or grant, see https://www.indiana.edu/~deanfac/download/download.html#grfel

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