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North Carolina School of the Arts
Editorial
from the morass of confusion regarding an artistic reality. We ar
understood to believe that the purpose, or at least the function, oi
NCSA is to train students of promising talent for a career in the
Performing Arts. As a viable institution of education, it also provide:
living quarters, food, and possibilities for social interactment as well
as a variety of entertainments. Responsibilities to the immediate
community take the shape of cultural events when an audience is
required, and a colorful artistic arena providing incentive for those
with a cultural twinkle in their minds’ eye. At times students go out
and perform their various talents as a mirror of our era as well as of
other eras. The role that an Arts School plays on our pleuiet tends to be
measured by the importance Society places on its Artists. Today,
many artists and budding artists are faced with the reality of an ar
tistically un-educated majority of persop who possess a limited
awareness of life as a direct ou^owih of lii^ted concepts of
education. It is well known, in fact it is a cliche, that we are using only
a tenth of our potential. This is like saying “I am drinking a Fresca
and over there is a glass of milk, which I know is much better for me”-
just an awareness that hangs in the air while the decision to act on it
becomes precisely that: a decision. What is there to decide about
Fresca and milk, if you’ve got any sense in your noggin? Would your
decision between choosing 10 percent and 100 percent depend on
laziness or lack of motivation? Who’s to say?
In redefining the purpose of an institution, specifically this in
stitution, one is faced with the rather temporal question of defining an
arbitrary reality. It is very easy to say that reality consists of every
human’s conception of it, but it is one of the finer achievements of the
human race that enough realities have been on rou^y similar levels
to have gotten to where we are now. One can see examples everywhere
of people who with either a lack of integrity or education or both allow
themselves to be misled to such a degree that their lives aggump
proportions existing only in nightmares and bizarre dreams. A good
example of this is life in most of the U.S. Besides our inept and archaic
system of public education, we are bombarded on all sides with a
staggering amount of mass media with pleas for us to think a certain
way about a certain thing by playing on trend-setting human
weaknesses such as desires for status, money, sex, power, and
nostalgia. Catering to these insecurities tends to stren^en them as
ends in themselves, thus prolonging most persons’ conception of these
false realities. When one has to contend with a national government
that you can’t really trust, with poison being sold on the open market
mislabeled food, with vast amounts of destruction being waged on our
natural environment, and with the knowledge that a hjmdful of people
have the power by a variety of means to completely annihilate our
existance, where do you turn to for rationale?
Well, first of all, of course, one tends to have oneself as a starting
point. If you pe in the position whereby you can consider yourself
your own oasis, the game is practically yours. Morality, integrity,
dedication, energy, intelligence, brilliance, genius are all another
story; the question now is how does this apply to the Arts and to the
roles we hope to fill as Artists?
First, let’s start with the basics. What is Art? Let’s define it two
ways: Art can be considered the “human effort to imitate, sup
plement, alter, or counteract the work of nature”. A more immediate
definition might include “the conscious production or arrangement of
sounds, colors, form, movements or other elements in a manner that
affects the sense of beauty”; beauty, being defined at its most com-
frehensive, “applies to what stirs a heightened response of the senses
and of the mind on its highest level’ ’ (American Heritage Dictionary of
the English Language). Artists in almost any era have been those of
the population who feel a need to express themselves, in most cases, to
other people; those with an inner core of m?.gic that tends to manifest
itself in the form of talent. A talent is nurtiu'ed and exercised and
possibly encouraged, and the result invariably is an Artist with
whatever distinctions the society at hand chooses to bestow.
And what is it that an Artist does? Eight times out of ten you get your
run-of-the-mill, in any field, who limits him4ier self to a static
existance of artistic conformity, whose general product consists of
imitation, boredom, and little realization of what could be.
And then there is your artist who subsists on egotism and a brand of
individualism that insists on a rest-of-the-world-be-damned
philosophy. The career of such an artist (should it happen to get off the
ground) consists of an undisciplined and riotous exhibition of
hallucinatory fantasies and non-art, with the delusion that every
molecule he comes in contact with comes out beauty in its most
profound moments; underneath, Ihe secret gnawing frustration
persists that he knows he’s not really that good while hiding under a
cloak of hau^ty statements proclaiming public ignorance and
misunderstanding. Of course, we must not mistake him for the one
who may be talented but because of his basic nature finds himself
unable to communicate with a populace; such an artist is either ahead
of the times (or perhaps behind the times) or has merely been
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mistaken in the role he has fantasized for himself. Even though this
may all be common enough knowledge and a lot of this forms a vast
majority of myths surrounding the perpetual romance of artists in
general, I merely include it to form a perspective and to make a point.
Now, in order to explain our third type of artist we must use as a
point of reference and, in fact, accept at face value, the (^tinction that
an Artist has the power within him-her to affect and change people,
either for the better or the worse. Our third type of artist realizes this
and decides, first, to utilize these powers, as a justification of their
existance, and then use them to e^ect and change people for the
better, possessing an awareness of life and living, of retdity and the
reality of a force higher, higher than we can possibly imagine, sur
passing good in its ultimate form, which we call God. To this extent it
becomes self-evident that true good is an advocation of True Order
and that evil is an advocation of Chaos, if we are to be able to truly
justify ourselves in terms of the raw potential which every single one
of us has.
Our path is clear: Chaos or Order.
An Artist employing an artistic concept encompassing and utilising
these ideas in an active energy expenditure would be reinforcing the
True purpose of Art, would be a living example of Existance as it was
intended, and would, in essence, be making a proclamation to the
Universe that divine beliefs constitute the natural order of life.
October Issue
“I AIN’T
MAD AT
NOBODY”
Thus proclaims the sign atop
Mickey’s Place, comer of Broad
Street and Acadia. Mickey’s is
the food store that serves N.C.-
S.A. Inside one will find an un
paralleled selection of fine wines,
local and imported beers, and
exotic munchies. Service is quick
and the atmosphere pleasant. A
sense of humor is prevalent
among the employees - one
wears a Grocho Marx costume
year round. Prices are
reasonable and Mickey is even
willing to give a few cents credit
here and there.
A recent study revealed that
weekdays from 5:00 - 1:00 a.m.
N.C.S.A. students frequent
Mickey’s at the rate of one every
6 minutes. Simple calculations
show that this amounts to 70 Art
Schoolers shopping every
evening. With an average pur
chase of $2.00, further
calculations show that the Artists
pump 140 big ones to Mickey
every day or $840 a week. That is
week days only. On Weekends,
figures soar astronomically.
Careful research determined that
every party of major importance
pays Mickey $100. Figuring three
major parties every weekend,
that’s $300. One further sum must
be figured in arriving at Mickey’s
total income from the Arts
School: money collected from
those supporting a habit
(chronics were excluded from the
1 per 6 minute average). A
conservative estimate of $7.00
per day habiter, of which there
are an estimated 15 habiters,
fattens Mickey’s wallet and
additional $105 per day or $735 a
week. The grand total of the 3
weekly sums calculated above is
$1,875 per week!
Hell! No wonder Mickey ain’t
mad at nobody.
*^the above report based on
figures collected by Ferbel
Charquit Newton
Clifford Young VIEWPOINT
REFLECTIONS
The old saying that we cannot see the forest for the trees represents
a natural state of confusion. When we are learning to read, we cannot
see the sentence for the words. Each word is a new experience which
has to be understood as a word before it can be understood as part of a
sentence. When we are learning to dance we are so preoccupied with
the mechanics of moving our feet properly that we have little sense of
rhythmic motion. In such situations we respond the parts before we
respond to the whole: we see the trees before we discern the forest.
N.C. ESSAY STAFF
OCTOBER ISSUE
Editor Clifford Young
Layout Larry Faw, Mark Cedel, Clifford Young
Advisor
Bill King
VINCE BARBEE
MICHAEL BURNER
MARK CEDEL
SHEILA CREEF
LARRY FAW
BOB GAMBRILL
SEBASTIAN DE GRAZIA
CONNIE KINCAID
JOHN NEWTON
HENRY PANKEY
DALE PHILLIPS
PAMELA REID
DAVID WILSON
CLIFFORD YOUNG
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This is also true of the first few weeks of college. Then everything is
so new that we are aware only of individual experiences, not of the
pattern of those experiences. We move into a new home, live with
strangers, try to find our way around an unfamiliar campus, make
decisions we never had to meJce before, plan academic programs we
do not understand, go through a registration process that baffles and
frustrates us at every step, listen to numerous “orientation” speeches.
In all these activities we lack a sense of relationship. So for a few
weeks we live in a world that defies cohesive shape.
But gradually a pattern begins to emerge. The campus itself takes
on firmer contours. The strange roommate begins to display a in
sistent personality. Lectures develop theme and direction, assign
ments make sense, instructors become less remote, and everywhere
method becomes apparant. Most of all habit takes over, and much of
the business of daily living becomes routine. Then the sum of all our
separate actions assumes a pattern. The forest becomes perceptible.
And as this happens, we begin to acquire a sense of identity with the
college. Things which were apart from us become part of us, and we,
in turn become part of them. We become involved in the fortunes of the
dance company and the drama productions, in the issues presented in
the paper and the ideas presented in class. More and More, we respond
to people we meet in the classroom. We feel the stimulus a campus has
to offer through the diversity of the student body. Almost without
realizing it, we become an element in the pattern of college life. We
become part of the forest.
- Michael Booner
Coming in on U.S. 52,1 took an
alternate route to reach school. I
did this so I could get a good look
at the campus that I knew so well.
I was surprised to see that toe
campus seemed the same.
Automatically thoughts turned to
a special convocation held last
year. It was then that plans were
revealed for massive summer
renovations. We were told how
some three million dollars of
work would improve our campus.
I wanted first to see the
auditorium. As planned, by now it
should have been quite beautiM.
A new stage and carpeting plus
air-conditioning would be the
most noticeable changes. .Similar
improvements were to be made
in the theatre.
I was discouraged to see that
the auditorium was almost the
same. Only thing different was a
bare stage. The theatre in
vestigation produced a similar
report. Knowing Oiat all changes
take time, I kept my feelings to
myself.
Now weeks later, work has yet
to take a progressive step.
However, I now notice a round
mass of wood in a parking lot. Ah,
how sweet the signs of progress.
If funds were uncertain, work
^uld not have been started. As
it stands now, conditions are
worse than last year. The music
faculty is still crowded. Students
are still fighting for practice
rooms like cats over garbage.
True, my feelings may be
reflective only of the music
division, but I think the same
feelings can be found in the other
departments.
Looking toward the future, it
seems improvements are far
away. We are working in a
crowded atmosphere. No solution
seems to be presently tangible.
-Mark Cedel