When asked what he could do to help the university, Nick Yeck-Stauffer said he wanted to throw a party.
Not that kind of party though.
Yeck-Stauffer, an alumnus with a filmmaking degree, was asked this question while working for SIUC University Communications and decided to create an event that would unite community artists. “All Together Now,” which has been running since Wednesday, will continue at 6 p.m. on today in Ballroom D of the SIUC Student Center.
Yeck-Stauffer said his goal was to bring different art forms together to help people realize they can create something new.
“You have your photography students and your film students who both do a lot of the same things, but very rarely do they collaborate,” Yeck-Stauffer said. “I knew a lot of these people, so I figured I could just have an excuse to get my friends together.”
Of the numerous projects going on, Yeck-Stauffer said there would be open gallery time for anyone to show off their art, projection time for student films, an open microphone for performances and various art workshops.
Meagan Oestry, a senior from Carbondale studying speech communication, helped Yeck-Stauffer plan the event. She said the event welcomes every kind of art, from painting a picture to playing the violin.
“There are no boundaries. You can do whatever you want to do,” Oestry said. “We basically said come do it. Come see other people and maybe see if you can collaborate with someone to create something big and awesome.”
The event kicked off Wednesday with a performance by Dave Armstrong, also known as DaveX on the radio station WDBX. Armstrong said his performance is a re-creation 1971 composition by John Cage and Lejaren Hiller called “KNOBS.” Armstrong said the original performance consisted of 208 computer-generate tapes, a circular screen 340 feet tall and over 100 projectors displaying various movies and slides. The performance lasted over five hours.
“I was surprised to find out nobody had presented it since the original John Cage performance,” Armstrong said. “I jumped at the opportunity.”
In addition to the epic performance, Oestry said other musical and theatrical presentations will take place in the Student Center Auditorium, including a performance by the local band The Cloud Cuckoo Band. She said there will also be art workshops, including stencil and circuit bending workshops.
Yeck-Stauffer said people were hesitant to get involved because of the project’s ambitious goals and layout. However, he said the projects have come together really nicely and people have gotten excited and jumped on board.
Oestry said she and Yeck-Stauffer have been planning the event since the summer. She said they sent out e-mails to various RSO’s and relied on the student network and local artists to stimulate support for the event. She said the lack of communication among various art groups in the community makes the event important.
“We had all of these art groups on campus that were all doing really wonderful things, but they were all doing them within their own disciplines and in their own areas,” Oestry said. “They weren’t really reaching out and making art together.”
Yeck-Stauffer said one of the most pleasant things about planning the event was the simplicity of booking the Student Center.
“You just have to have an idea, communicate with RSO’s about what it is you want to do, get some people on board and the president of the student organization can reserve the ballroom or the auditorium for free,” Yeck Stauffer said. “It is free and easy to do. It just requires some motivation.”
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