Spotlight on Safety at Quartz Mountain

by Catherine Roberts, OSAI PR Counselor

On the first evening of the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute, about 350 students, faculty and staff—that’s the entire Quartz Mountain family—made an easy trip underground for an all-camp tornado drill.

A mechanical room under the Robert M. Kerr Performing Arts Center (PAC) boasts foot-thick concrete walls and plenty of space for keeping safe during an emergency.

“It’s a great safe location here should there ever be the need to use it,” said Julie Cohen, OAI President & CEO.

“Safety is a priority at the Arts Institute,” she explained, “and we have detailed plans in place. Because of the recent severe weather in Oklahoma, we wanted to make sure that our plan to take everyone to the PAC underground shelter would be successful.”

And so it was. From the seating in the PAC, all drill participants made it into the shelter in under nine minutes.

“Everyone did a great job,” Cohen said. “Everyone stayed quiet, and the students showed they took the drill seriously by being on their best behavior.”

During the week before students arrive, OSAI counselors receive training in safety procedures for both fire and severe weather emergencies. With these measures in place, the students have peace of mind and the freedom to focus all their energy on immersing themselves in their art. 

Staff, students and faculty head underground for an all-camp tornado drill. 

OSAI 2013 is in Full Swing!

by Catherine Roberts, OSAI PR Counselor

The 2013 Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute begins! Students have arrived and are already hard at work at the mountain.

Shortly after arrival, this year’s group of students met the staff and faculty and had time to get acquainted with their colleagues.

Staff members who have been here for a week readying the facilities are excited to see students already flourishing. With a full schedule of evening faculty showcases planned for the week, students will have every opportunity to immerse themselves in their own disciplines as well as to learn from the others.

Follow our blog over the next two weeks as we take you inside classrooms, along to evening performances, and all over the mountain for two weeks of learning and fun.

Students gathered in the Performing Arts Center for faculty introductions

Meet the Dance Faculty!

Calling all dancers! The dance faculty for the 2013 Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute has been announced.  Daniel Squire, the 2012 OSAI modern dance instructor, will return for another fantastic summer.  Ballet students can look forward to studying with Brian Reeder, former New York City ballet dancer.

Dance auditions take place at Tulsa Ballet on January 27 and at Oklahoma City Ballet on March 2.  Apply online and schedule your audition now at WWW.OAIQUARTZ.ORG.  Dancers with backgrounds in ballet and modern dance are encouraged to apply for both disciplines.

Daniel Squre, Modern Dance
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Daniel Squire was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire. He studied dance at White Lodge & Rambert, acting at The Barrow Group and the Atlantic Theater Company, and Acting Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He has performed with the West Riding Sinfonia, Royal Military School of Music, Michael Clark, Matthew Hawkins, Ian Spink, Merce Cunningham, Kimberly Bartosik, Magnetic Laboratorium, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, and John Kelly, among others. He has performed at venues including Wellholme Park, Royal Festival Hall, Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, Glyndebourne Opera House, Brixton Academy, Riverside Studios, Palais Garnier, Théâtre de la Ville, Staatsoper am Gärtnerplatz, Roundhouse, Barbican, Tate Modern, Edinburgh's Festival Theatre, the Kennedy Center, New York State Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music, City Center, and Rose Theater. Squire has appeared with Radiohead, John Paul Jones, Sigur Rós, Sonic Youth, Alan Opie, Robert Tear, and Michael Chance. Squire lives in New York City, where he stages the work of Merce Cunningham and works as a dancer, teacher, videographer, filmmaker, editor, and actor.

Brian Reeder, Ballet

Born in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, Brian Reeder began his dance training with Marcia Dale Weary at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. He had the privilege of a dance career that saw him mainly at three widely respected dance companies: New York City Ballet (1986–1990), William Forsythe's Ballet Frankfurt (1990–1993) and American Ballet Theatre (1994–2003). During his time with these companies, questing gigs and international dance festivals, he danced numerous ballets and featured roles in the works of past and present dance masters.  As a choreographer, beginning in 2002, he has created or re-staged his ballets on American Ballet Theatre, ABT Studio Co., and many more. His work has been produced three times for the "Works and Process" series at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC. He has been involved with ABT's Summer Intensives for several years, teaching for its college program and five-week NYC program; and he acted as the coordinating director for Dance Bermuda, ABT's International Summer Intensive. Brian is also on faculty as a teacher and the current resident choreographer for The Manhattan Youth Ballet.

2013 OSAI Orchestra Conductor -- Meet Scott Parkman!

Scott Parkman, photo by Chris Macke

The Oklahoma Arts Institute is thrilled to announce that the 2013 OSAI orchestra conductor will be Scott Parkman from Boston, Massachusetts!  A conductor of remarkable versatility and exemplary musicianship, Scott Parkman is widely recognized for his engaging style and welcoming rapport with audiences. Critically acclaimed for his interpretation of the standard repertoire, Mr. Parkman is gaining recognition for his innovative enterprise and efforts to examine and perform the hundreds of works by 20th century American classical composers - music that is generally underrepresented on today's concert programs.

Mr. Parkman is the founding Artistic and Executive Director of American Century Music (ACM) an organization dedicated to performing the works of 20th century American composers. Launched in 2010, ACM is uniquely designed to work with a wide array of musicians and institutions, presenting repertoire ranging from solo instrument to full orchestra.

Mr. Parkman also has command over a large breadth of the traditional repertoire. During his tenure as Assistant Conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra (2003-2008), he led the orchestra in over 150 performances, including major works by Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner. He also performed works by Adams, Eisler, Reich and Rouse on the SLSO contemporary chamber music series at St. Louis's Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. As Music Director of the highly regarded Saint Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra during the same period, Mr. Parkman performed Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with internationally-acclaimed soprano, Christine Brewer, and premiered several new compositions, including Fêtes and Fireworks by American composer Robert Pound, and his own work, Toward.

As an international guest conductor Mr. Parkman has led the New Zealand Symphony, Hong Kong New Art Camerata, and the Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra. In the United States his engagements include the Minnesota Orchestra, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Lubbock, and Oakland East Bay Symphonies, Oakland Ballet, and the Sacramento and Palo Alto Philharmonic Orchestras.

You can learn more about Scott Parkman at his website, http://www.scottparkman.com/index.php.

Raise Money for OAI while you Shop!

Did you know you can raise money for the Oklahoma Arts Institute just by shopping online? More than 1,300 top retailers, including Amazon, Toys ‘R’ Us, Best Buy, Apple, Gap and more will donate a percentage of your purchase to the Oklahoma Arts Institute. Just go to GoodShop.com, designate us as the cause you support, and then click through to your favorite store. You pay nothing extra - and you can even save money! GoodShop lists thousands of money-saving coupons and free shipping offers. Or, add GoodShop’s toolbar to your browser and your purchases will count even if you forget to go to GoodShop first! Please spread the word, and happy shopping!

Toy Quartz Mountain?

OFAI photography faculty member Ben Long snapped this picture of Quartz Mountain during the last Fall Arts Institute weekend. It looks like a model version of the resort, but it's not! Not only that, there's no post-production or doctoring of the image. Ben explains:

The photo was created with a special type of lens called a tilt/shift. You can tilt and slide different parts of the lens to either correct perspective, or throw depth of field way out of whack.

When we see something with really shallow depth of field, we immediately assume it's small, because when you look at something up close, you don't see a lot of depth of field. So, by compressing the DOF to a thin slice across the middle, our brain interprets the resulting image as a miniature.

 I just climbed up behind the amphitheater with that lens. There's no post-production on that image. You can also shoot video through it, which is cool.

Quartz Mountain Converts

Fair warning to our friends who hail from the coasts – we’re going to have a little bit of fun with you. ;)

As you probably know, every summer and fall artists from across the U.S. and beyond teach at Quartz Mountain. Most have never been to Oklahoma before, and almost none have been to Quartz. All are usually a bit apprehensive at the idea of teaching at an arts camp in the middle of nowhere in a state known more for its football programs than for its arts scene.

Each faculty member arrives with different expectations; some are thrilled at the prospect of spending time in a beautiful setting thirty miles away from the nearest drive-through, but for others, Quartz Mountain is just a little too “natural.” The staff often gets quizzed about exactly what types of bugs, reptiles, and animals might be lurking around the lodge.

My favorite faculty members are always the ones who undergo a complete evolution at Quartz Mountain – the ones who arrive fearful of the fauna, desperate for a Starbucks, and uttering “in New York…” every other sentence. But give them two weeks in southwest Oklahoma, and they are extolling the deliciousness of chicken friend steak, proudly sporting a new piece of western wear, and asking when they can come back and teach again. And then, they utter our favorite phrase – “Why doesn’t my state have something like this?”

Certainly, we wish every state had an Oklahoma Arts Institute. While there are similar programs in other states, there’s nothing like OSAI anywhere in the world. So while we wish we weren’t quite so unique – every artist deserves to participate in a program like ours -- we do feel gratified when our faculty recognize just how special our programs, location, and of course, our students, truly are.

We’ve said it before, but it’s impossible to experience Quartz Mountain without leaving a little bit of your heart behind. Until we can gather at Quartz again, under those modest hills we call mountains, please keep in touch.