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Alumnus Jon Plasse’s Photography “Recurring Dreams”
On January 31st a reception was held to celebrate the opening of “Recurring Dreams”, an exhibit of color photography by alumnus Jon Plasse at Binghamton University’s Rosefsky Studio Art Gallery.
Jon first began photographing while attending Harpur College at SUNY Binghamton in the 1970s, where he majored in Cinema Studies. At that time, the Cinema Department, led by Professor Ken Jacobs, emphasized independent, non- narrative filmmaking, which had a great influence on Jon’s work.
After graduating from Harpur, Jon pursued a law degree, and spent the last twenty years as a practicing attorney in New York City, while also raising two children with his wife Bea Plasse, whom he met while at SUNY.
Four years ago, Jon returned to working in a visual medium, and has been using his camera to convey his own inner emotions and concerns.
Jon’s work has been acquired by the New York City Historical Society, and the series exhibited here, “Recurring Dreams” was recently exhibited at the Southern Light Gallery in Texas.
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Students enjoying the exhibit |
Interim Dean Ricardo René Larémontwelcomed the faculty, students, community and staff in attendance. Plasse spoke about his images, passion for photography and described how much of how he deconstructed his work was shaped by his time at Harpur College.
The collection can be viewed at Plasse’s website: http://www.jonplasse.com/rec_dre.html
Artist Statement on Recurring Dreams
Photographs traditionally seek to reveal the essence of a particular person, place or time. The images in Recurring Dreams include seemingly unimportant and unrelated objects and places:
- A close up of a blue door in a small northern town;
- A city street covered with snow, framed by a passing car’s headlights; and
- A clothes line stretched across a blue cement wall.
However, viewed collectively, one can see that each series of images contains rich colors, textures and compositions, which combine to form recurring dream-like sequences reflecting my own internal landscape.
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Law Reception at Chadbourne & Parke
On January 10th, alumni attorneys, law students, faculty and staff gathered for a reception at the Chadbourne & Parke law firm at New York's Rockefeller Plaza.
President Lois B. DeFleur and Interim Dean Ricardo Laremont addressed the graduates in attendance. President DeFleur is pictured with (from left to right) the event's keynote speaker Hon. George Bundy Smith, partner at Chadbourne & Parke and retired Associate Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, and Thomas E. Riley '76, a partner at Chadbourne & Parke.
Over 130 guests were in attendance.
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New Dean to Lead Harpur College
Donald Nieman, a historian who has been a dean at Bowling Green State University in Ohio for eight years, will be the next dean of Harpur College of Arts and Sciences.
Nieman said he admires the college’s record of excellence, especially its commitment to undergraduate and graduate education as well as its high-quality research and creative work. “It really resonates with my values,” he said. “That’s what I think is really special about Harpur. It achieves a kind of golden mean.”
Provost Mary Ann Swain said she has heard nothing but very positive comments about Nieman’s experience, depth of knowledge about the various arts and sciences disciplines and collegial interpersonal style.
“I am confident that his intelligence, insights into the future of the liberal arts, his previous experiences as dean and his enthusiasm for the move to Binghamton will translate into leadership that serves all of the Harpur departments and programs well,” she said. “I look forward to working with him.”
Nieman, an Iowa native, is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Drake University. He earned a doctorate from Rice University in 1975. He said it was at Rice that he first found a passion for researching and teaching, for a balance between pursuing discovery and mentoring students.
Nieman acknowledged that Bowling Green does not have the breadth of research and doctoral programs found in Harpur College, but he noted that the school’s model of focused investment has allowed it to compete with the best in certain areas. And he believes the learning-centered environment for students has something in common with Binghamton’s approach.
Nieman said he also appreciates the strengths of Binghamton’s other schools, which open up possibilities for great collaborations that will benefit Harpur programs and vice versa.
Nieman held teaching positions at Kansas State University, Hunter College, Brooklyn College and Clemson University before becoming professor and chair of the History Department at Bowling Green in 1994. He was promoted to dean in 2000.
He will start work at Binghamton on July 1.
Nieman’s specialty is law and race relations and civil rights in the United States.
Most historians, he said, consider what the legal system did to African-Americans, which was horrendous. His interest has been in changing the focus to consider how African-Americans have used the legal system and broad concepts of constitutionalism to prod the system to better live up to its promises.
Nieman said this line of inquiry takes off from a poem by Langston Hughes that begins, “Let America be America again, the land it never has been yet.”
Nieman, the author of two books, has edited four others. In 1991, Oxford University Press published his book Promises to Keep: African-Americans and the Constitutional Order, 1776 to the Present. One reviewer called it the first Afrocentric history of the U.S. Constitution.
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Student Profile: Christine Muscatello '08
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Children of the Community with Habitat Volunteers |
Christina Muscatello was born and raised in Binghamton’s West Side. A 2004 Seton Catholic Central graduate, she was involved with the select chorus and participated in many school and community theatrical productions. Upon graduation, she attended Hobart and William Smith College, but after one semester Muscatello knew she wanted to transfer to a larger school. “I never planned to go to Binghamton University (I knew I wanted to live in Binghamton when I was older, so I wanted to go away for school), but as a kind of last resort and stepping stone between schools, I decided to follow my grandpa’s advice and see how I liked it for one semester. I fully intended on transferring again in the fall, but I fell in love with it,” she said. Muscatello has been at Binghamton ever since.
Muscatello explained, “I believe that hands-on life experiences are what build knowledge and confidence, and foster both curiosity and creativity. While I have taken many interesting classes at BU taught by wonderful professors, the more I get involved here, the more this school seems to fit.” She joined the Dickenson players her first semester and made many friends through the play, Grandma Sylvia’s Funeral. Her sophomore year she joined Habitat for Humanity as a way to give back to Broome County and meet more people. Christina said, “My experience with Habitat has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my college career. Over the past three years, I have helped build many houses in our area and in South Carolina, where we go on an alternate spring breaks, and I have made some amazing friends.”
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Zamore and Muscatello clearing banana fields |
Working with Habitat made her realize that everyone within this community and elsewhere is in need in
one way or another. Some people are in need of shelter, some need food, others just need someone to vent to. In summer 2006, Muscatello ventured abroad to help people on a global level, traveling to Costa Rica with a group called International Student Volunteers. There she worked on an organic farm and taught English to a small community with nine other college students from around the country.
As luck had it, another student in her group, Richard Zamore, was also from Binghamton. After helping the community paint its two-room school and move its “library” (a rickety old dressing table), the pair was so moved by the lack of resources, funding and adequate facilities that they decided to take action upon returning to Binghamton.
For the past year and a half, they have been developing plans and fundraising in order to build a small library for the community they served while in Costa Rica. In January, 2008, they will take approximately 25 Binghamton University students back to the community to help build the structure.
Muscatello will graduate in May with a BA in History. She hopes to finish an art degree over the summer and possibly travel to Uganda to teach art. She is also considering pursuing obtaining a master’s degree in childhood education or applying for Teach for America or Americorps. |
Galumpha
The Binghamton-based dance company, Galumpha, won the 2007 Moers Comedy Prize for Best Act following its August 4th performance at the prestigious Moers International Comedy Arts Festival in Moers, Germany. The performance starred Binghamton University Department of Theatre Artist-in-Residence, Andy Horowitz, Binghamton University Alumnus, Marlon Torres, and Galumpha company newcomer, Dywon Fisher, under the light design of Binghamton University Alumnus, Howard S. Klein.
The show in Moers was the last of a four-country, thirty-performance European tour that began on July 3, 2007. |
Harpur Palate Publishes Issue on Food, Hunger, and Appetite, Participates in the Writing by Degrees Graduate Conference
BU’s international literary journal, Harpur Palate, published its long-awaited, first-ever themed issue on Food, Hunger, and Appetite in August. Two years in the making, Volume 7 Issue 1 illustrates the variety in how our writers interpreted a call for submissions on this theme. The issue features great new work by established and emerging writers, including fiction by Alice Stinetorf, creative nonfiction by Kelley Evans, as well as poetry by Bruce Lader, Timothy Liu, Laura Johnson, and Maura Stanton. An edible poem insert, The Ghost, by esteemed poet Cole Swensen, allows readers to Eat Our Words, literally! The issue also includes work by BU alums Pir Rothenberg (fiction) and Neil Dvorak (cover art) and The John Gardner Memorial Prize for Fiction, which each year honors this great friend and mentor to the students in the creative writing program at Binghamton University.
In September, Harpur Palate had the chance to launch its new issue at the growing graduate creative writing conference Writing By Degrees, which was held this year at the Bundy Mansion on Main Street in Binghamton. This year marked the conference’s tenth anniversary and featured nonfiction writer Jo Ann Beard, poet Vijay Seshadri, and fiction writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who recently won the Orange Fiction Prize.
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Harpur Palate undergraduate interns hosting a table at the Writing By Degrees conference in September |
Established by BU creative writing graduate students in 2000, Harpur Palate is a semiannual international literary journal publishing works of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry that demonstrate attention to craft, structure, language, and the story well told. Since its inception, the journal has grown to 180 pages, added a visual art portfolio, begun distributing nationwide, and published some of the most respected names in creative writing, including Lee K. Abbott, Marvin Bell, Lydia Davis, Viet Dinh, B.H. Fairchild, Jack Ridl, Ruth Stone, and Cole Swensen, to name a few. Harpur Palate sponsors two writing contests—the John Gardner Memorial Prize for Fiction and the Milton Kessler Memorial Prize for Poetry—annually, and is an active participant in the Binghamton area arts community as members of Gorgeous Washington Street Association and the Broome County Arts Council.
For subscription information and to read some sample prose and poetry from past issues, the editors encourage you to visit them online at http://harpurpalate.binghamton.edu. |
Student Profile: Briana Sakamoto '10
Actor, scholar, musician, socialite, athlete. These are just a few nouns that describe multi-faceted sophomore Briana Sakamoto. Whether she is leading prospective students around campus as a tour guide, working up a sweat as a spinning instructor at the East Gym, singing and entertaining as a member of the Harpur Chorale, hitting the books as a University Scholar or upholding culture as a member of the Binghamton University Japanese Association, Sakamoto is at the heart of the University, embodying a well-rounded Harpur student.
How did you choose Binghamton University?
I took a year off before starting college and applied to a number of schools and conservatories both in senior year of high school and during the "gap year." I love acting and I've been doing it forever, so I acted during the time off and my experience confirmed that my big goal is to pursue a career in performance. I also wanted to explore a broad range of subjects and I wanted to start seriously pursuing vocal studies. Binghamton offered amazing liberal arts, a great music department and a great offer from the University Scholars program. Maybe most importantly, I loved the "vibe" I got when I visited. After all was said and done, I felt that I belonged here and I think I was right!
How would you describe your educational experience so far?
It's been great! Making singing an academic endeavor is one of the best things I've ever decided to do in my life! I'm obsessed with it, so that makes most of what I'm busy with here hardly feel like work. Binghamton professors are so wonderful and intelligent and challenging and kind. My friends are educating me, too. I'm having this very new kind of social experience, but I suppose this is a whole other story.
How have you benefited from your time here?
I'm learning to work harder and relax better, too, sort of paradoxically. I'm focusing more on what I love, which is so motivating. I'm developing new life and learning tactics. I've been such a busybody and I'm still busy, but I'm working on creating space to allow myself to really assimilate what I'm learning and enjoy what I've got rather than getting tunnel vision to the future. This school's environment is helping me with that. It's gorgeous, for one thing! We complain about the cold, but what a gorgeous campus! It's wonderful to just walk around and breathe the air. The community is so nurturing and enriching, intellectually stimulating, welcoming, fun -- it's a great place to do a lot of growing and make a lot of happy memories.
What do you want to do after you obtain your degree? Career goals?
I intend to do some performing! Maybe some teaching! I want to get my yoga teaching certification this summer, so I hope to continue that and maintain a strong yoga practice on my own for as long as I am able. I hope I can do something positive with all that I'm learning now, something to share how lucky I have been in my experience. I definitely want to have a family some day, too.
Do you associate yourself more with Binghamton University or Harpur College? Why?
I have friends and acquaintances from all of the schools in Binghamton and take classes with people in different programs, even some grad students, so I definitely associate myself with Binghamton as a whole. For that matter, I'm happy and proud to associate myself with the SUNY System as a whole. I think public education is a magnificent thing. I feel that I am part of a network of hard-working students all over the state, and we share some wonderful opportunities in this network. On the other hand, Harpur College gives me my academic home base and sets the parameters for how my coursework will be structured. Then there's the music department, Dickinson Community, the Tour Guide office, the East Gym... I feel quite connected to the University as a whole. But this greater connection is made up of various small links.
Who have been the most influential people in your life to date?
My family. I love them so much and they love me so much and I'm so, so, so lucky to have that. That's the solid ground that keeps me rooted. I think that love is the basis of everything in my life.
What experiences have impacted your life?
Well, that love with my family is an ongoing experience that impacts me at every turn. My year off was incredible and life changing. I went on tour with a children's theatre company, got my equity card, saw most of the USA. It opened my eyes in a lot of ways. I think that job was my second big "formative period." I grew up a lot -- not that I don't still have a lot of growing up to do.
What are you involved in on campus? What do you think Binghamton has to offer?
I'm a tour guide, a spinning instructor at the East Gym, a member of the Harpur Chorale, a University Scholar. I'm involved a bit in the Binghamton University Japanese Association. Binghamton has so much to offer. There's a lot of academic achievement and intelligence, yes. But I think participating in extracurricular organizations and activities greatly enrich one's educational experience. The University gets smaller and bigger all at once. You know more people, you connect more personally, but you also think about what your studies can mean in the context of the world when you go to work or sing or do a service project.
Please tell me more about your experiences singing opera? What got you involved?
For a long time I acted so much and I've felt this great desire to be an actor. However, at the moment I'm quite obsessed with singing and realize that I have been obsessed with it for a long time in a qualitatively different way than I've been obsessed with anything else. For one thing, singing and voice has a big emotional, family connection for me -- it means something special and different for me in the context of my relationships with each of my family members. Opera specifically? I don't know why. I have always thought that the operatic voice is a beautiful, magical thing.
Though I didn't see it until recently, I realize I always wanted to make that sound, and felt in my heart that someday I would. I have felt this for as long as I have been forming memories. Into late high school, I sang and enjoyed it immensely and was well received as a singer but I didn't study singing, only acting. And the way I was singing was somewhat antithetical to the classical technique, as I would soon discover, to my chagrin. I did not ever consider myself a musician. Then I had this tugging feeling in my guts at the end of high school that I needed to learn the classical technique of singing. I just had to! I got a teacher in senior year, and he got really excited about my potential as a vocalist, but he wasn't the best fit for me. However, he really sparked my interest in the whole wide world of opera and for this I am very grateful.
During the summer before college, I started really truly studying singing with an amazing teacher, Carol Yahr, in Manhattan, and I came to Binghamton and got to be in the studio of Mary Burgess, my amazing teacher here! So my experience trying to learn to sing opera really centers on the work I have done with these two wonderful women, who both had very full careers in opera themselves. They are very inspirational to me. I'm having a great time learning this art form. We shall see if anything comes of it professionally, but regardless, I am really relishing my work right now.
A junior by credits, Sakamoto is a second-year student expecting to graduate in 2010. She is pursuing a degree in music/vocal pPerformance under the direction of Associate Professor Mary Burgess.
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For all past issues of the Harpur Hotline please click here. |
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