An upcoming performance seeks to tell stories — 60 seconds at a time.
The show 60×60 will take place in Rudder Auditorium Tuesday night. The show consists of 60 one-minute performances by students and faculty in the fields of theater, dance and visual arts. The performance will begin with a performance from an artist in the Department of Visualization, followed by a performance from an artist in the A&M Dance Program then the A&M Theatre Arts Program. These three groups will then continue this pattern of performing for 60 seconds at a time for an hour.
“The artists who are performing collaborating with the pieces of music have free reign to interpret the music however they please,” said Amy Guerin, theatre faculty coordinator. “It’s a very wide open performance concept that is really only bound by the time frame in these 60 one-minute pieces and the sound of the music itself.”
The concept of 60 different performances for such a short duration of time is unique for several reasons, Guerin said.
“I think that we see both within the arts at A&M and within the larger campus community a familiarity with familiar modes of storytelling,” Guerin said. “These pieces don’t necessarily tell a story. Or if they do, it’s not a story that you follow in a straight line from ‘Once upon a time’ to ‘They lived happily ever after.’ It may be broken up and jagged.”
University studies dance concentration senior Kadiedre Henderson, who is choreographing two of the pieces and performing in others, said the broken up performances keep the audience better engaged.
“The idea of taking the audience in and out of stories in a minute — I think it’s pretty
brilliant,” Henderson said. “Because people don’t have great attention spans anyway. Giving them a snippet either makes them feel satisfied or makes them want more.”
This style of performance is new for some of the performers, including dance and mathematics senior Kathy Quigley.
“It’s different than how you choreograph normally when you start with an idea and a movement and you find music that accompanies it or have a composer create the music for you,” Quigley said. “So this is like a backwards way of choreographing for us, but it’s a challenge.”
Quigley said this is one of the few times the Department of Visualization, the A&M Dance Program and the A&M Theatre Arts Program collaborate to put on a show.
“Because we’re all in separate colleges, the arts are kind of separate at this school,” Quigley said. “The more that we have events that bring us together, we’ll start having more collaboration between the colleges, and it’ll allow for greater growth in each program. This is going to help open doors, create connections, networking us between each other.”
Henderson said the event allows attendees to see arts in a full spectrum.
“That’s what I’m hoping people will be able to relate to. Art and artist and artistry,” Henderson said. “It’s one color. It’s one sound. It’s all of those things. That’s why I’m so glad I got to do [60×60].”
The 60×60 performance will take place at 7 p.m. Student tickets are $7 at the MSC Box Office.
