Mount Hood

Spotlighting Western artist Tonya Bradley: Vocalist and violinist

Never Retallack  |  Entertainment Editor

Interested in hearing about a fellow classmate and a choir member here at Western? Look no further than this Q&A to get to know Tonya Bradley, a junior and vocalist at Western.

Q: How long have you been at Western? And what are you studying?

T: I’m a junior, this is my third year. And I’m studying Secondary Education with a concentration in Social Sciences with a focus in Sociology with a minor in French.

Q: And how are you involved in music?

T: Within the Western music department you are allowed to be in any of the ensembles no matter what your major is. I’m in Chamber Singers which you have to audition for either in the spring or in the fall. It’s a lot easier to start in the fall because you have a lot of music to learn.

Q: How long have you been part of the Chamber Singers?

T: I’ve been in Chamber Choir since Spring of my freshman year, and then I was in Concert Choir since Winter Term of that year (first-year). 

Q: So you can be in multiple choirs?

T: Yes, there are three choirs and you can be in all three. The Concert Choir is a non-audition group that is mainly classical music, but can sometimes do some pop stuff. Chamber Singers which is mostly classical, and Voices which is mostly Jazz.

Q: What style of music do you usually prefer?

T: I like the classical because you get to learn a lot of different languages, and there’s a lot of different techniques you get to learn and it is kind of the foundation of every other form of music. I also have done classical for my whole life so…

Q: So how long have you been studying music?

T: I started violin in third grade and took it all the way through my senior year in high school, unfortunately I don’t have time to take string ensemble and choir at the same time, so I don’t do both here (Western).

Q: When did you start training when it comes to singing?

T: I started choir my freshman year of high school, and took voice lessons as a sophomore, but I stopped taking them because they take a lot of time and money.

Q: Do you prefer singing over violin?

T: I do, because I feel like I get to be more creative with it and I don’t have to just stick with what’s already written on the page — I get to do more improvisation. And within the choir I am a Soprano 2.

Q: What is your favorite part about being involved with music?

T: You get to meet so many new people, and it’s a creative release for me and I when I am involved in the choir here (at Western) I feel like it improves my mental health and my school performance. It’s really important for me mentally, to keep me sane taking all my other classes.

Q: What is your least favorite part of the music world?

T: Probably just the amount of rehearsals, and the amount of personal practice I have to do to stay at the same level as everyone else, because I have a lot of trouble with rhythm so I have to spend a lot of my own time to practice. This can sometimes take away from my school work.

Q: If there is anyone interested in joining the choir what would you tell them?

T: I would tell them it’s an awesome idea; we got a new professor last fall and he is amazing. I think the choir has improved a lot and we get to do cool performances, like going to the Capitol — it’s a good experience and I think they should talk to him (Dr. James Reddan).

Q: For those interested in listening to the choir what should they look out for?

T: For Chamber Singers and Concert Choir we have a performance Dec. 3 at 7:30 p.m. in Rice and tickets are available now for anyone who calls the box office.

 

Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu

Student actors performed with passion in the production of “It’s a Wonderful Life”

Never Retallack  |  Entertainment Editor

Directed by one of Western’s theater faculty members, Professor Kent Neely, comes “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.” This classic Christmas tale is based on a short story called, “The Greatest Gift” by Philip Van Doren Stern published in 1943. Later on, it became a film, and then adapted into a play — Western’s performance is based off Joe Landry’s adaptation of the screenplay.

Landry’s adaptation is a radio show reading, where the actors on stage are acting like they are actors for a radio. This brought some much needed comedy into the somewhat sad play, with silly ads for dandruff and dirty car windows sung to the tune of classic Christmas carols.

Emily Hedges, an interdisciplinary studies senior at Western said, “I’ve seen the play before, but never as a radio show; it made it a very unique and interesting performance.”

Watching the student actors perform, I was pleasantly surprised with their quality and dedication throughout the performance.

With only ten actors, and one accompianist, it was an intimate cast with each actor playing more than one role. This is where the talent of the cast shone through; certain actors would speak in a heavy Irish accent one minute, then a tough east coast accent within the next breath, never missing a beat.

An interesting aspect of this production was also the use of a live sound effects board containing many objects for two cast members to create realistic noises without technology. The objects included a belt, marbles, a wooden box, a whistle and so many more. Like dropping objects into a box during a scene where they were collecting money.

The two cast members who managed the sound board, Trina Schwabauer and Sara Wright, had other roles as well, juggling the sound effects and their characters. This added another element of interest for viewers, since there were no props for the story of “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play,” they were on a set, but not interacting with anything — staying stagnant in front of their microphones. 

Overall rating: the actors in this production did a great job, jumping around from character to character, all with interesting facial expressions and compelling dialogue. It was an all around enjoyable performance.

 

Cast List

Jake Laurents ……… Matthew Ramage

Sally Applewhite ……… Lea Sheldone

Betty Smith ……… Selena Moreno

Lana Sherwood ……… Citlalli Castaneda

Freddie Filmore ……… Jacob Fritts

Harry “Jazzbo” Heywood ……… William Evans

Homer Duncan ……… Steven Cummings

Opal Ferguson ……… Sara Wright

Sharon Cook ……… Trina Schwabauer

Patricia Dowd ……… Lexie Warner

Accompianist ……… Devin Desmond

 

Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu

Photo by Mikayla Bruley

Review of the unsettling film “The Lighthouse”

Never Retallack  |  Entertainment Editor

There are films that require more than one viewing — and then there are films like “The Lighthouse.” Those like the latter require at least 10 viewings to fully grasp what happened on screen. 

The drama-horror movie directed by Robert Eggers — the same man who brought the fan-favorite “The VVitch” (2015) to life — stars only two cast members: Willem Dafoe as Thomas and Robert Pattinson as Ephraim.

“The Lighthouse” was unique as soon as it started — switching from widescreen trailers to old-fashioned fullscreen, the entire film was in black and white. This set the dark and somber tone of the film before meeting the characters.  With just two men on an isolated island, maintaining the lighthouse becomes a lot more challenging as strange events chip away at their sanity.

The movie is set in the 1890s on a mysterious island in New England. Thomas is the “wickie” or lighthouse keeper, and when Ephraim arrives to do grunt work on the island, he becomes Ephraim’s cruel boss.

Without spoiling too much of the plot, there are several odd elements to this movie that viewers should know about: obscene amounts of masturbation, lots of tentacles, sirens and violence against seagulls.

Throughout the entire two and a half hours of the film, I felt a general discomfort and unease in my stomach, struggling to watch or fathom what I was watching.

A challenging element of the movie was the thick sailor accent that Dafoe spoke with, making most of what he said unintelligible. It would be beneficial to rewatch the film but with subtitles provided; there was so much symbolic imagery — I can’t imagine what I missed in the dialogue.

The film only gets more complicated when the audience doesn’t know who to trust — both Thomas and Ephraim tell completely different tales, and with no clear clarification, it becomes hard to know what is reality in this twisted nightmare.

Between endless amounts of drinking, constant yelling and general distrust, the relationship between Dafoe and Pattinson’s acting was captivating and disturbing. 

Overall Rating: I think the film alludes to a much bigger picture that I could not grasp, but I highly recommend this movie to anyone looking for something unique and challenging for the brain.

 

Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu

Cannon Gallery — a platform for stunning faculty work

Never Retallack  | Entertainment Editor

Cannon Gallery — Western’s very own art exhibit within Campbell Hall, opened its biennial production of faculty art on Nov. 13. The exhibition will be open until Dec. 13 and holds works from the following: Jen Bracy, Clay Dunklin, Jodie Garrison, Mary Harden, Rebecca McCannell, Peter Hoffecker Mejia, Sung Eun Park, Gregory Poulin, Daniel Tankersley, Diane Tarter, Garima Thakur and Jen Vaughn. 

The only art faculty member not showcasing in the exhibition is Paula Booth, who happens to be the gallery conductor; she and her team of interns and students displayed all the faculty’s pieces into a fluid gallery.

There was a very eclectic collection of art that faculty had submitted; these pieces were whatever the professors were working on since the last biennial showcase. Each professor used a different medium; Poulin used oil on canvas, Thakur created a video, Tarter used collage on blackboard and it goes on and on, with each faculty member showing their different specialties.

The flow of the gallery was interesting. Walking in, viewers made two circles around the perimeter before going through the middle.  Booth and her team strategically placed Thakur’s modern video next to Poulin’s classic still-life oil paintings. The stark contrast between pieces was pleasant as a viewer — the way each transitioned to a different faculty’s art was never predictable.

I am no art expert, and some of the pieces left me contemplating what their true meaning was, such as Park’s mixed media work — simple, yet complex. Dunklin’s piece, “Play On,” was a video that reminded me of a more positive episode of “Black Mirror,” featuring trippy visuals and quirky messages on the screen. A couple pieces that did stand out to me in their message were Bracy’s mixed media on wood pieces called, “Packing Heat” and “En Mass(e),” which show horrifying statistics of gun violence within the United States. 

Talking to Professor Rebecca McCannell about her three pieces, “Illumination,” “Chaos” and “Vertigo,” I was surprised to learn about the complexity of her artwork. Her method was that of reductive screen printing, a tedious process that requires precision when attempting to add colors to a piece layer by layer. McCannell went as far as changing the craft of screen printing to better suit her project. 

“I developed this method where I paint a piece of clear plexiglass with red paint, and then any area I want light to shine through I have to scrape away with a palette knife or exacto blade,” explained McCannell. 

McCannell’s pieces were based on photographs that she took underneath the Eiffel Tower which is a unique perspective — less glamour of the overall appearance, but rather the inner workings. 

This gallery was interesting to walk through; whether an art connoisseur or not, this exhibition showcases stunning art by Western’s faculty, and definitely deserves recognition and praise. 

 

Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu

Photo by Mikayla Bruley

Get to know the musician Kali Das on his college radio tour

Never Retallack | Entertainment Editor

Interested in hearing music from a unique artist? Check out Kali Das, a musician living in New Mexico, reaching out to universities on his college radio tour so that his music travels far and wide.

 

Q: Tell me a bit about yourself, how long have you been making music? 

K: I have been recording music for over ten years. I mainly play synthesizer and guitar although I am more well-versed in synth.

Q: What inspired you to start creating music? 

K: I initially started playing music as a part of my spiritual practice. I did a lot of chanting music but have transitioned from that to more mainstream music. I still try to put out conscious messages that I feel will help the audience or make them think. I think though I wanted to have some separation from my spiritual practice and my music although I guess they are still interlinked in a more subtle way.

Q: What is your goal when it comes to producing music? 

K: My main goal is to be in the moment and expressive of where I am at for better or for worse. Musicians are either praised or ignored, and of course there is everything in between, but I think a true artist tries to express his own unique voice regardless of whether that voice is popular or not.

Q: How would you describe your music or your style? 

K: It is multi-genre. Like many artists these days, I have so many influences that I do not particularly feel comfortable in a box. So I have done everything from hip-hop to world music.

Q: Are you part of a band? How exactly do you write and create your music? 

K: I bring in musicians as needed. In terms of the writing process, I pretty much always write lyrics first if the song has lyrics. I try to focus on what I am trying to say. Once I have the lyrics and message, it becomes much easier to add instrumentation to drive the point home.

Q: Are you working on anything else besides music? 

K: I am also a healer and have an energy/body work practice. I plan on getting a masters degree at some point but have been procrastinating.

Q: What are your implications with your new EP? 

K: The lead song of the EP “Don’t Vote 4 Trump” is a call to move our country in a more progressive direction. Trump and what he represents are not conducive to moving forward in a healthy way. The other songs are mainly love dirges. “So Beautiful,” for example, is a song about a guy who falls in love with his dentist, yet he doesn’t feel he’s good enough for her. That one is supposed to be funny. “Pale Blue Moon” was with regard to an epic heartbreak, epic for me, not necessarily for anyone else… “Learn to Fly” is about letting go of those we love when the time comes. The title of the album “Don’t Vote 4 Trump and other love songs” implies that even the first song is a love song because love isn’t always about a partner, but it’s also about your commitment to the world.

Q: Why are a couple of your songs on the EP purely instrumental, or rather, why no lyrics?

K: I just thought they were great songs. I feel music sometimes captures what words never can.

Q: What is the reaction you are hoping to receive from your EP? I am hoping it helps encourage people to be more open and expressive about who they are and to question the political process which has been dominated by money for decades now. Our political lobbyist and election systems need a total overhaul to get money out of politics, which I believe is possible, but there (are) a lot of powerful forces against change.

Q: What is the most important element of creating music for you? 

K: Authenticity. There are a lot of talented people. A lot less authentic people. I have met a lot of people who will say something to your face, but something totally different is going on inside. I strive not to be that way. I strive to be authentic.

Q: Where can people find your music? 

K: On my website kalidasworld.com or gottaimpeach.com It will also be on Spotify and Youtube and all major digital platforms on the official release date November 15. 

 

Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu

Photos by Kali Das

Western dancer and first-time choreographer gets involved in the arts community through an award-winning rock musical

Caity Healy | Managing Editor

With Western Oregon’s Creative Arts Division as robust and successful as it is, with several programs and departments, students involved in it often choose to get involved in the arts in their community beyond the ways they are offered on campus. One such student is Noah Nieves Driver. 

Nieves Driver is a senior at Western, currently in his second year of the ASL/English Interpreting Program. On top of this, he has been a dancer for nearly as long as he can remember. 

“I started dance when I was three. And I continued with that all the way until I was 9-ish, then I got back into it when I was 13,” Nieves Driver explained. While he can’t pinpoint the exact reason he stopped at age nine, he can remember exactly what inspired him to start again at 13.

“I saw Alvin Ailey perform in my hometown, Tacoma, Washington, and I was like, ‘I want to get back into this,’” Nieves Driver recalled.

While his history with dance has been long and extensive, an opportunity for him to do something new came up in the summer of 2019: choreograph a show titled “Next to Normal” — this was his musical choreography debut.

“I choreographed a play in high school … and I took the choreography sequence here at WOU, so I learned how to choreograph for myself,” Nieves Driver said. “But show-wise, this is the first actual show I’ve choreographed.” 

Nieves Driver has been involved in local theater in the neighboring communities to Monmouth for awhile, and when he heard that the Majestic Theatre in Corvallis, Oregon was putting on “Next to Normal” —  a show about a suburban household coping with mental illness, delving into the ways a mother navigates her illness and the treatments that go along with it, as well as the impact it has on her family — he contacted the director, Ruth Mandsager, to see if she’d be interested in him doing the choreography.

“I love the show, I love the people who are a part of the production, and I just had this vision for it and I was like, ‘I want to see this come to life,’” he added. Mandsager gladly accepted his offer, and they got to work. Nieves Driver explained that the songs are very grounded in reality, and therefore wanted to make sure there was a purpose to the choreography that he was planning.

“I just listened to the songs a lot … I tried to understand what the characters were feeling,” Nieves Driver said. “I was working with the music,” he added, asking himself things like, “‘okay what is the music doing here? Oh, it’s accenting that. Let me follow that or let me do the opposite to create some contrast with that.’” 

As a choreographer, Nieves Driver felt elated by how this process went, and explained that, ideally, this is just the beginning.

“I’m hopeful that I can get in — at least in this area — as a prominent choreographer, and then hopefully become a director so that I can cast more people of color in traditionally white roles,” he explained. “In this area, there aren’t a lot of opportunities for people like me, like black people, to get cast in stuff … so with traditionally white roles … why is it traditionally white? Is it connected to the story? Is it about race? If not, then why does that matter? So, there wasn’t a lot of work here for me as a dancer, so that’s kind of why I went into choreography. But I think I’m going to focus more on that, and less on the dance aspect.”

“Next to Normal” does have a content warning under the Majestic Theatre’s website, as it includes subject matter and language regarding depression, self-harm, drug abuse and suicide. 

For those interested in seeing the show, there are still a few more opportunities. It runs Nov. 13–16 at 7:30 p.m., and Nov. 17 at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $16 for students, $18 for adults, and only $10 for those that go Thursday, Nov. 14. 

“Support local theater, we really need it,” Nieves Driver commented. “Everybody has been putting their full heart into this show and I think you can see that from just watching it.”

 

Contact the author at chealy16@wou.edu

Photos courtesy of Mark Hoffman (play)

Photo by Caity Healy (headshot)

Thanksgiving is not always traditional, Hulu’s “Into the Dark: Pilgrim” proves a much darker version

Never Retallack  | Entertainment Editor

Thanksgiving — a holiday with an iffy history at best, but an excuse to gorge oneself on all the delicious food one can imagine. It usually includes an immense amount of family time — wanted or not.

Hulu released their latest movie in their horror series, “Into the Dark: Pilgrim” (2019), written and directed by Marcus Dunstan.

This twisted tale introduces the audience to a dysfunctional family: a father who is always on his tablet, a stepmother who is seemingly cold, a daughter who struggles with abandonment issues and a charmingly naive young son. 

What could possibly go wrong when the stepmother, Anna, decides to hire a group of pilgrim reenactors to stay with them for Thanksgiving? Cody, the daughter struggling to accept Anna as her stepmom, is immediately hesitant to jump on the bandwagon, and expresses her discomfort.

The arrival of the Pilgrim reenactors is immediately disconcerting. Ethan is the Pilgrim in charge, seemingly cool and collected, while delivering each line with a gentle smile on his face. 

The impersonators are unsettling throughout, the female Pilgrims unwavering in their praise of Ethan and how he changed their lives with a sort of reverence that is similar to cult followers.

The movie builds tension, alluding to a sinister side of the Pilgrims’ plans, leaving the audience feeling uncomfortable and on edge for most of the movie.

While I don’t want to spoil the movie for those who have not seen it, I’ll tell you the goal of the Pilgrims in the plot. 

Ethan wants the family to appreciate what they have: food, shelter and each other. The means to which he teaches this lesson are unconventional and horrifying.

While this movie was surprisingly dark and twisted, it was equally amusing. Dunstan managed to weave humor into many scenes, whether through utilizing slow-motion fight scenes, or Cody delivering dark jokes, there were numerous times where I caught myself chuckling.

Overall rating: I highly recommend this unique horror-comedy; it is the perfect way to get into the holiday spirit — watching a family unite together to fight the evil that hounds them.

The end was not quite a twist, but did leave the audience wondering whether or not this movie was more supernatural than it appeared. 

This movie reminds people of what is truly important— appreciating the good things in life and accepting that families aren’t always perfect.

 

Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu

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