Undergrad Art Student Receives Grant for Research Proposal
By Staci Wilson, Student Intern, CHASS Dean’s Office
January 18, 2011
UCR undergraduate Alexander Gabrielli, a film and visual media student with an emphasis on dance, has been awarded a $450 research grant for Winter 2011 as a result of his proposal titled, “Choreographing for the Camera”. The proposal was completed under the direction of Wendy Rogers, professor of dance, who also worked with Gabrielli last year when he was a part of her cast for an interactive performance workshop called “Motion Capture.”
As related in his proposal, Gabrielli was inspired by Sir Ken Robinson, PhD, who argued that modern scholastic measures inhibit creativity by introducing the concept of being wrong to children at too early an age. Because they grow up fearing the idea that they will be wrong, modern children take fewer chances in their work and become less creatively expressive. Gabrielli feels, especially through his personal experience in the UCR art department, that the art of dance has the power to reawaken this lost creativity. He describes being taught to actually embrace the concept of “wrong” in relation to dance, and being emboldened and more creative as a result of this practice.
Gabrielli feels that exposing the public to visual productions of dance would imitate his own experience on a large scale, benefiting both art and creativity. Dance, however, is traditionally and most commonly displayed in a stage setting, which is not exactly accessible to most people on a regular basis. His proposal, then, is to find a more popular medium that people can and will access. Gabrielli will attempt to portray the passion he has seen the UCR art department exert through the medium of dance, highlighting chorographical processes, in a short film that will be circulated throughout the academic community. This particular chosen audience seems to be the perfect recipient for Gabrielli’s work, as they are the very people entwined in the current, potentially creatively repressive, academic system.
According to Professor Rogers, “Alex’s interest in promoting experimental dance forms through digital media is to be encouraged. He will be using the process of making a dance for the stage as a vehicle for reflecting on dance, the dancers and their experience making art. I anticipate that as the film takes its shape alongside the dance he and Rachel Holdt are choreographing for UCR is Dancing, that there will be unexpected and valuable artistic directions that will emerge from the intersection of film and live dance activity.”
