Arts Ball curses students
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 10:00PM By Alison Angel
angela@thejohnsonian.com
Winthrop students get a taste of Mardi Gras early this year courtesy of the arts department students.
The 2010 Arts Ball is taking us down to New Orleans for “The Curse of the Creole.”
The event is planned, designed and executed by art students and will double as a fundraiser.
Jill O’Neill, music professor, teaches the class in charge of planning the Arts Ball.
The class, Special Topics in Interdisciplinary Arts Production and Performance, is designed to teach the different arts majors how to work together, O’Neill said.
“The Arts Ball is a multidisciplinary event,” O’Neill said. “It’s an event we put together to establish the idea of teaching people of certain art forms how to deal and work with people of other art forms.”
The class meets twice a week to plan the Arts Ball and does everything from designing costumes, sets and lighting schemes to picking the theme for each Arts Ball.
The play, “The Curse of the Creole,” will take place down in Louisiana during the preparation of Mardi Gras.
The story follows a witch doctor in the town who hates Mardi Gras and decides to stir up a hurricane to stop it.
Students from each of the arts disciplines will play different characters throughout the event and some are employed to help the witch doctor carry out his schemes.
“Some of the girls in the class are dance majors, and he (the witch doctor) turns them into voodoo dolls. They will be doing three dance numbers,” O’Neill said. “One is to the theme song from ‘True Blood.’”
O’Neill said two music majors, a flutist and a cellist, will work with the witch doctor and act as gypsy women.
A student will be a weatherman and report on Mardi Gras and the hurricane’s progress.
This year marks a turning point in the class, which used to only have students from different arts disciplines.
“This year, we have kids outside of the arts participating,” O’Neill said. “One of my students in my music appreciation class is a business major and he’s going to be our witch doctor. He’s going to be the lead role in the whole thing and he’s not even an arts student.”
The Arts Ball will serve as a fundraising event for arts schools in New Orleans.
O’Neill said the class found arts schools that had not been able to replace lost supplies after Hurricane Katrina hit.
The money raised at this year’s Arts Ball will help these schools.
“Because this is the 15-year anniversary of Katrina,” O’Neill said. “We decided to do this theme and do a fundraiser to send those kids money.”
The Arts Ball will be at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 29 in Byrnes Auditorium and is a free event.
All proceeds from Mardi Gras accessories sold at the event will go toward arts schools that Katrina affected in New Orleans.
