Arts faculty research fueled online student performances in 2020

Arts students learned creative work-arounds and new techniques thanks to faculty’s real-world connections.

Janel Shoun-Smith | 615.966.7078  |  06/30/2021

Covid-19 social distancing restrictions meant major behavioral changes for everyone on campus in the 2020-21 school year, and Lipscomb’s artists were certainly no exception. 

In a field often reliant on one-on-one instruction and large groups gathered in a relatively small space for performances or production work, the pandemic brought special challenges for the College of Entertainment & the Arts. 

To overcome those challenges, CEA faculty began a process of intense research to discover, develop and implement policies and best practices for presenting artistic performances and exhibits during a pandemic, said Scott Baker, the college’s director of community outreach. In a short time period, faculty did everything from assessing and embracing new technology to researching health safety protocols, from learning new skills in live broadcasting to working with live composers to overcome copyright challenges. 

Even in a regular school year, research in the creative fields is application-based and practitioner-oriented, often measured by studio output and curriculum enhancement, Baker said. 

“Our research is voluminous and ongoing, but it doesn’t end up in academic journals; it ends up being presented for the community,” said Baker.

“We study professional theatre practices, theatre union practices, industry-related magazines and journals and also view a lot of live professional theatre,” said Beki Baker, associate professor and chair of the theatre department. “In addition, the theatre faculty take guest directing, acting and design jobs at professional theatres in order to stay on top of trends.”

As the internship director for the Department of Visual Arts, Associate Professor Angela D. Lee, specifically works to create classroom projects that result in artistic pieces relevant to the current job marketplace for students’ portfolios. She does that by regularly interviewing design practitioners and hiring managers and seeking out quantitative data on job growth and salary in the visual arts fields, she said.

“My job is to help all of our students know what is current and what is historical in terms of their creative medium – and to experience them both – for they each influence the students’ performances, as well as how they approach their own music making down the road,” said Benjamen Blasko, director of instrumental studies in the School of Music. “My research involves seeking out, what is current, why is it current, how does it differ from what our students’ know, and what is a way that they can learn this new material that will stretch them.”

That application and practitioner focus became highly valuable in 2020 when it became clear that Lipscomb’s 2020-21 school year would be held in the midst of tight social distancing restrictions. In addition to researching and learning how to teach art, music, film and fashion virtually, CEA faculty had to research and learn how to present its annual slate of live performances.

Blasko consulted scientists about aerosol spread, as breathing is an important component of playing a musical instrument. It was determined that musicians had to be at least seven feet apart for safety. “Plexiglass, HEPA filters, additional cleaning, masks and limited rehearsal time were all put in place. This made rehearsing and filming extremely challenging,” he said.

Lee spoke with various professionals who recommended shifting graphic design work to web-based software, which is less dependent on what type of computer the designer is using. This shift was greatly valuable to design students studying remotely in 2020-21 and better prepares them for the professional workplace, which is increasingly moving to web-based apps, she said.

“I think we learned how powerful remote work can be, both professionally and through internships, and I think the marketplace will hang on to what we learned. My Lipscomb students truly shined throughout the year and I saw some of the strongest portfolios to date” she said. 

Eric Stars, visiting professor of computer generated imagery, was awarded an institutional research grant for the summer of 2020 to conduct preliminary cinematography tests for animated visual effects. Like so many other things, that project was derailed by Covid-19 restrictions, so he threw his efforts into researching the ideal virtual teaching space for computer animation.

The additional equipment, such as a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR), a condenser microphone, iPad Pro and Cintiq 16 Pro, that he has added to his in-home live streaming studio, have made him a “better instructor and a stronger communicator and professional,” he said.

The theatre department had to learn how to safely handle props and costumes as well as how to properly clean microphones and place them on the performers, said Beki Baker. More importance was placed on having understudies selected and prepped, which became important when lead actors were quarantined during the school year, she said.

The usual live presentation of performances was itself curtailed when Nashville’s Covid-19 guidelines restricted the size of audiences, so the CEA leaders decided to present their usual slate of arts events online, through the CEA YouTube channel.

This meant that dance performances meant for a stage now had to be choreographed and prepared for fewer people or for an outside venue. Copyrights apply differently for recording and streaming vs. live performances, so Blasko had to work with living composers to ensure the performance would be copyright approved, he said.

This challenge led to a positive outcome when Emmy award-winning composer Bruce Broughton agreed to write three pieces for the Lipscomb Wind Ensemble and conducted Zoom calls with the students prior to the recorded performance, Blasko said.

Matt Huesmann, adjunct film professor and cinematic arts equipment manager, was called on to not only research and implement a safe check-in and check-out process for hundreds of pieces of film equipment, but to oversee about 20 graduate film students in recording theater and dance live performances, a task that is more akin to a TV production or a music video than to the narrative film work the students were used to, he said.

The CEA live recordings required purchasing new types of video technology and students’ learning how to navigate the use of multiple cameras all in one take, he said. New considerations such as weather concerns and time limitations added new dimensions to what students had to manage, he said.

“It forced students to realize all the skills they really need to have for a well-rounded career,” Huesmann said.

By the end of the school year, the CEA’s YouTube channel was filled with two theatre productions, eight dance performances, musical performances by the Wind Ensemble, Jazz Combo and several commercial music ensembles, animated shorts, lectures on the visual arts and fashion design and the annual 5 Minute Film Festival. In addition, the student string musicians and vocal artists performed in a music video for Tommee Proffitt’s song “He Is Born.”

While 2020-21 was certainly not a normal year of research for the CEA faculty, it was one that taught Lipscomb students “resiliency as a foundational quality of their theatre work,” said Baker. “They have learned more than ever to be flexible, courageous and tenacious. We will continue to teach these things, and we will also continue to operate with some of the adaptations, like understudies, as common practice.”

“I think for the foreseeable future this pivot allowed us to explore alternate ways to connect with communities,” said Blasko. “It would be challenging to maintain the accommodations we created, but I think we need to consider a blend of the two, allowing us to interact with a wider audience base.”