Arts & Entertainment
“Connections” With
Textiles
Stephanie Livesay, layout editor
On Sept. i8, the Con
nections exhibit opened in
the Frankie G. Weems Gal
lery in the Gaddy-Hamrick
building. This exhibit fea
tures fiber and textile pieces
of art from a group of women
that are close to Meredith
College. This group of wom
en includes former Meredith
students, artists who have
taught workshops at Mer
edith and current or former
Meredith faculty.
Gallery assistant Lean-
na Pai, says, “It was a group
that was created in order to
further thSif education about
fibers and surface design and
also to help encourage each
other. They eat together, cre
ate together and critique to
gether to encourage one an
other with their work.” The
idea for the exhibit was born
from the gallery director, Lisa
Pearce, and gallery assistant
wanting to “create an exhibi
tion that would have educa
tional merit for our current
art students,” Pai said. “The
fibers class on surface de
sign and dyeing is a more
advanced class that doesn’t
photo via Julia Dent
run as often as others, so we
thought this would be a great
opportunity to bring in some
fibers artists who are also very
close to Meredith’s heart.”
The exhibit has a va
riety of work to view. It was
very interesting to see fiber
pieces and learn all the ways
one could create art with fi
bers and textile. I loved the
various textures, colors and
patterns in the art. It was in
credible to see a collection of
work that had similarities in
the materials used but were
so different from each other.
The exhibit is very meaningful
to the members of the group
because in the past year, one
of the members, Cheryl Har
rison, who was a former Mer
edith student passed away.
She had an unfinished piece
and all the group members
came together to add to the
piece, completing it. This
piece is included in the ex
hibit and is a testament to the
friendship and bond shared
amongst the group.
“Shored Up” Encourages
Students To Be Environmen
tal Advocates
Katrina Thomas, Staff Writer
Environmental discus
sions sometimes do not consid
er the serious impacts made by
ordinary citizens, but “Shored
Up” takes a different approach.
Filmmaker Ben Kalina touch
es upon some close-to-home
coastal issues. From moving
sand to banning the acknowl
edgement of scientific studies,
this shocking documentary ex
amines disastrous attempts to
fight nature and deny science,
and it challenges us to step up.
“Shored Up” opens with
footage of Union Beach, New
Jersey in the aftermath of Hur
ricane Sandy. While coastal
counties account for just 20
percent of our nation’s land,
they are home to
50 percent of our
population. Nev
ertheless, loosely
enforced laws and
low insurance
rates have blinded
people to storm
risks and encour
aged continual
construction in al
ready-overcrowd
ed areas. The re
sulting struggle
against nature has massachusetts
made once-wild land square
and ugly, and beach filling, a
popular restoration method,
has resulted in reduced waves.
During a lecture on Sept.
16, Kalina said that he was orig
inally planning to use North
Carolina as the better standard,
and indeed, “Shored Up” does
applaud the Banks’ 150 unde
veloped miles of beach, along
with our state’s ban of many of
the sand-shifting “restoration”
techniques seen elsewhere. The
issue is that many residents and
developers no longer think as
highly of these laws as the film
crew does. People are starting
to clamor for nature-fighting
structures such as walls that
would, in theory, hold sand
in place but could also lead to
downhill erosion.
One of the topics ad
dressed in a post-film interview
with Dr. Erin Lindquist, Biol
ogy professor and coordina
tor of the Environmental Sus
tainability major, was climate
change and its long
term effects. After
discussing sea level
rise, she mentioned
other habitats’
waves of change.
Salinity is rapidly
increasing in for
merly freshwater
wetlands, disrupt
ing their uniquely
rich ecosystems.
Furthermore, she
explained, these
.surfrider.org areas’ sponge-like
absorbency could wreck fishing
profits under salty conditions.
Although conservation is a com
plex issue, there is agreement
on one idea: students shouldn’t
be afraid to be involved advo
cates both on and off campus.
North Carolina Dance Festival Meets High Expectations
Kiara Glover, staff writer
Beauty, elegance, grace, passion and
power are all words that can best describe
the dancers and choreography at the 24th
annual North Carolina Dance Festival. The
dance festival was held at Meredith College
on Sept. 20 and 21 at Jones Auditorium.
The festival showcased touring artists, lo
cal artists, dance theaters, high schools,
middle schools and dance programs from
Meredith and throughout North Carolina.
Some of the companies and dance theaters
that performed throughout the two day
event included Meredith College Dance,
Gaspard & Dancers, Black Box Dance The
atre, Diego Carrasco Dance, Tapestry and
Ligon Dance Company, Broughton High
School, Raleigh Dance Theatre and North
Carolina State University Dance. Founded
by Jan Van Dyke, the festival had first be
gan in 1991 in Greensboro, North Carolina
by a non profit organization called Dance
Project. Since then, it has spread to four
more cities in North Carolina.
The beginning of the festival gave
high expectations for the next day, opening
with creative and imaginative performanc
es throughout the night. The first day in
cluded choreography based around dramaz
such as “Rublx” by Gaspard & Dancers and
“Mess” by Leah Wilks.“A Place Apart” by
Diego Carrasco Dance included romance,
complex relationships and the struggles of
living in an overwhelming world.
The second day lived up to the ex
pectations made by the first, with marvel
ous performances even better and more
inspiring than the day before. Some of
the performances included “Shortest Dis
tance Between Two” choreographed by
Megan Marvel of Raleigh Dance Theatre
and “Brushing Past “by Eleanor Smith. A
staff of Arts Together and part of the Mer
edith College Dance Program’s faculty put
together “Dystopian Conformity: Do Not
Go Gentle” choreographed by Elizabeth
Friedman, which was performed by the
Meredith College Dance Program. With
so many beautifully choreographed pieces
and extravagant dancers, it was one of the
unforgettable events to happen on Mer
edith’s campus so far.