Tag Archives: Michigan

Interlochen Center for the Arts – Not So Secret Obsession

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Camp starts today.  The last time I was at Interlochen, I walked to the dance building and looked out on the lake.  Even though no one was there, I took off my shoes and left them at the front door.  I remembered the scared, lost, dumb kid that first stepped onto the sandy ground.  I thought about the friends I made each year I was there and how they grew in numbers and strength.  I remembered Erik.  Like so many people before and after me, Interlochen changed my life and saved my life.

My advice to everyone there right now is to jump in with both feet, let the air rush beneath them, trust.  It will change your life if you are open to it.  And you will have friends for life if you want.

Interlochen Center for the Arts is a privately owned, 1,200 acre (5 km²) arts education institution in Interlochen, Michigan, roughly 15 miles (24 km) southwest of Traverse City. Interlochen draws young people from around the world to participate in intensive academics with additional study of music, theater, dance, visual art, creative writing, motion picture arts, and a brand new program of comparative arts. Interlochen Center for the Arts is the umbrella organization for Interlochen Arts Camp (formerly the National Music Camp, founded 1928), Interlochen Arts Academy high school (founded 1962), Interlochen Public Radio (founded 1963), Interlochen College of Creative Arts (founded 2004), and the “Interlochen Presents” performing arts series.

Interlochen Arts Camp (formerly the National Music Camp) is an annual summer camp for approximately 2,500 students ages 8 to 18. It was founded in 1928 by the late Dr. Joseph E. Maddy as the National High School Orchestra Camp. Today, students participate in music, theatre, dance, visual arts, creative writing, or motion picture arts. Camp admission is competitive, and auditions are required in most cases. Programs range in length from one to six weeks, and participants are divided into three divisions: Junior (grades 3-6), Intermediate (grades 6-9), and High School (grades 9-12). As another alternative, students may apply to one-week advanced institute programs that take place the week prior to the typical summer camp season; within the past few years, there have been institutes for oboe, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, and percussion. The Interlochen All-State program, which formerly consisted of two-week band, orchestra, and choir programs for Michigan high school students, was dropped in 2009.

Interlochen Theme

The Interlochen Theme, an excerpt from Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2, is played at the conclusion of every Interlochen Arts Camp concert. It is conducted by the concertmaster for orchestra performances and by the first chair oboe player for band concerts. In recent years it has been accepted for any member of the band to conduct the theme during the summer camp. At the end of the Interlochen Theme, audience members are requested not to applaud and to depart in quiet reflection.

The Interlochen Arts Academy was founded in 1962 as an independent boarding school dedicated to the arts. As of 2007, it has 300 faculty and staff, and roughly 475 students. While more than half the students major in music performance, IAA also offers majors in comparative arts, creative writing, dance, theatre (performance; design and production), motion picture arts, and visual arts. Beginning with the 2005 school year, IAA (along with Interlochen Arts Camp) established a major in motion picture arts, and beginning in 2011 began offering comparative arts. The vast majority of students at Interlochen Arts Academy are boarding students, including many international students; some day students who live in the vicinity also attend. Interlochen Arts Academy has also been noted for its academic rigor, as IAA expects students to excel in the classroom as well as artistically. Upon graduation, most IAA graduates continue to universities or conservatories for further study in the arts or academics. Conservatories that often admit Interlochen students include Juilliard, Eastman, Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM), School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Curtis, New England Conservatory, Oberlin, Manhattan School of Music, Boston Conservatory, Peabody, and CalArts.

Interlochen Presents

Interlochen Presents has a summer festival running from June through August (schedule announced in April) and a performing arts series from September through May coinciding with the Academy school year (schedule announced in August). It features concerts, plays, art exhibits, readings, film screenings and dance productions presented by students, faculty, and staff, as well as both well-known and obscure guest artists. Interlochen Presents events are held in numerous venues around campus. The list of recent guest artists includes Steely Dan, Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson, Joshua Bell, Jason Mraz, Bonnie Raitt, Olga Kern, Sara Bareilles, Dierks Bentley, Norah Jones, Martha Graham Dance Company, Ra Ra Riot, Bob Dylan, Jewel, Carol Jantsch, Josh Groban, Tiempo Libre, Paula Poundstone, Nathan Gunn, Chris Thile, and Bela Fleck. Interlochen Presents and Interlochen Public Radio serve as the primary channels by which Interlochen Center for the Arts connects with the northern Michigan region.

See current concerts and events at http://presents.interlochen.org

Alumni

There are nearly 70,000 alumni of Interlochen Arts Camp and Interlochen Arts Academy living all over the world. Many of them have achieved fame for their artistic abilities or because of other achievements; some of their names are listed below.

Rachel Carns
Chip Davis
Josh Groban
Christie Hefner
Felicity Huffman
Tom Hulce
Linda Hunt
Norah Jones
Jewel Kilcher
Dermot Mulroney
Jessye Norman
Rain Pryor
Mike Wallace
Rufus Wainwright
Rumer Willis
Peter Yarrow
Sean Young

See more at http://www.interlochen.org/alumni/highperforming_alumni

Here are some of the photos that I have found on my computer from Interlochen:

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Drink Whiskey and Go Dancing.

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“My mother always said the best cure for a cold is to drink whiskey and go dancing,” a friend once said to me at one of the first times we met at Interlochen. She was a bit earthy, a bit free-wheeling, but weren’t we all in college in the late 80′s? I am pretty sure she was a visual art major, for the life of me, I cannot remember her name anymore, but we spent a few summers together amongst the pines in upstate Michigan, just totally geeking out on creativity and almost zero ‘real life’. One weekend, her mother visited, she was magnificent. Think mid-fifties, single, jewelry artist living in Sedona and you pretty much have the picture. Lots of chunky necklaces, lots of scarves and flowing everything. I have crossed paths with several of this Earth Mother type and have always found great pleasure in their presence. Their as-long-as-you’re-not-hurting-anybody-I-don’t-give-a-fuck-what-you-do attitude is just so refreshing when your normal day-to-day life is clogged up withbusy-body Judgey McJudgersons. (The Earth Mother we met on the Galapagos was particularly intriguing. I think she ended up sleeping with the tour director, but I digress.) My friend’s mother talked us into breaking the beach curfew and swimming in our underwear (for those of you in the Interlochen-know, that would be from the dock in front of the boat cave under Kresge). We jumped in and swam out a bit, she then summoned us back in and produced a flask from her jacket and had us line up for a quick shot. The whiskey hit our throat and spread through our bodies like lightening bolts, warming, energizing, enlivening.

To this day, I still think about drinking whiskey and going dancing whenever I feel a cold coming on or taking a flask with me for a midnight swim. It is one of my many fond memories of Interlochen.

And then…

I am sure this will cause Christopher Lowell to drop his glue gun and suck all the air out of his craft room with one huge gay gasp, but please do not have mannequins in your house. Art installations are one thing, but staged in corners or sitting on chairs is another. It is not that I find mannequins creepy or even that interesting, I see them every day, I sometimes value my interactions with them at work more so than my actual coworkers. I find it creepy that you have one in your home, that you live with one basically. My mind races with scenarios of your evenings, I blame a lot of it on Ryan Reynolds.

I think I have been rather vocal about my dislike for book shelves in the public parts of a person’s home. They seem to cause too much weight in an area, they throw the decor off, and plus, they basically brag to your visitors about how smart you are. I look them over, find college text books or other books I know for a fact have never had their spines cracked, and just dislike the pretension that book shelves convey.

Still, all that said, I would rather have a room full of cinder block and particle board book shelves than one mannequin sitting on the sofa.

Haven’t you gone over to someone’s house for the first time and found out they collect something you could have never imagined? Dolls. Mackenzie-Childs tableware. Knives. Your whole impression of them shitfs and you secretly nickname them “The Doll Guy” or “Alice in Wonderland Guy” or “Psycho Steve.” Well you will be “Mannequin Guy.” So, you have that going for you.

Michigan GOP Pass Bullying Bill Giving ‘License To Bully’

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I love Michigan, I was actually there a few months back.  I met some amazing people there and in all actuality, I met myself there.  It is the place where I first started to be the person who I am today, to ‘come into my own’.  But Michigan is not a good place, there are ‘bubbles’ and ‘islands’ of it that I am sure are still great and safe for everyone, but if you are a school kid that is perceived as different in any way, the state just gave the bullies a loophole.  Read the article and watch the videos below.

Here’s the deal:  I was bullied for years and years through junior high and high school.  I know what it is like, I know how it makes you feel.  If you are told you are garbage for long enough, you start to believe you are garbage and start to think you deserve to be treated like garbage.  It easily leads to you deciding that since you are garbage, no one will miss you if you are gone and at least then you won’t be treated like garbage any more.  It is a cancer that, if gone untreated, will devastate every aspect of the recipient’s life from grades in school to relationships with friends and family to the very understanding of their self worth.

So now, it is legal to bully someone if the bully feels they have a moral or religious reason for doing it?  I am not sure how any of that is proven or disproven, it’s sort of like back pain:  if you say you have it, you must have it.

There are people in Michigan that do not believe their state should sanction bigotry and violence against high school ‘weird kids’  and they need to use their voices, email accounts, and ballots to change who makes decisions in their state.  Post and repost.

 

Michigan GOP Pass Bullying Bill Giving ‘License To Bully’ | The New Civil Rights Movement.

by DAVID BADASH on NOVEMBER 3, 2011
Michigan Senate Republicans have passed a bullying bill — not an anti-​bullying bill — that actually gives license to bully. In an Orwellian twist, the bill, which passed 26 – 11, with zero Democratic votes, allows kids to be bullied by anyone: teachers, fellow students, school employees, volunteers and parents, if they can provide a so-​called religious or moral reason for their actions, giving the phrase, “the devil made me do it” sufficient validity.
The bill itself amounts to a white collar hate crime against all victims of anti-​gay bullying motivated suicide, as it’s named for a Michigan teen who died by suicide as a result of anti-​gay bullying. As one lawmaker, Michigan State Senator Gretchen Whitmer said in an impassioned speech (video below), “the saddest and sickest irony of this whole thing is that it’s called ‘Matt’s Safe School Law’. And after the way that you’ve gutted it, it wouldn’t have done a damn thing to save Matt!”

The bill is named for Matt Epling (photo.)

The Michigan Messenger reports:

In a floor speech Minority Leader in the Senate Gretchen Whitmer (D-​East Lansing) slammed the Republicans over the amended language.

“Here today you claim to be protecting kids and you’re actually putting them in more danger,” Whitmer said. “But bullying is not OK. We should be protecting public policy that protects kids — all kids, from bullies — all bullies. But instead you have set us back further by creating a blueprint for bullying.”

“Shockingly, Senate Bill 137 will do more harm than good. Senate Republicans left our students behind in favor of partisan politics and passed a bill that actually allows more bullying. Students and parents expect lawmakers to lead the charge against bullying, but instead Republicans made ideology more important than school safety,” said Emily Dievendorf, policy director of Equality Michigan. “Research clearly shows that only states with enumerated bills see a reduction in bullying. We need a bill that mentions the most affected populations and requires statewide reporting of bullying and harassment. SB 137 simply does nothing to reduce bullying in our schools.”

“To the families of the ten reported suicides that were directly linked to bullying and the countless others that have gone unreported, this bill adds insult to injury,” said Senator Glenn Anderson (D-​Westland). “I have been working for years to pass legislation to provide a safe school environment for all of our students. This bill goes in the exact opposite direction and in fact provides a license to bully.”

The legislation passed 26 – 11. It now moves to the Republican-​controlled House.

“I am ashamed that this could be Michigan’s bill on anti-​bullying, when in fact it is a ‘bullying is OK in MI’ law,” said Kevin Epling, an East Lansing parent whose son committed suicide as a result of bullying. His comment was posted on his Facebook page.

In an interview he had more to say.

“For years the line has been ‘no protected classes,’ and the first thing they throw in — very secretly — was a very protected class, and limited them from repercussions of their own actions. This line has no purpose within this piece of legislation except to incite ‘religious bigotry’ within our schools. Schools are trying to build more tolerant students and future leaders, not automatons blindly following misguided adult leaders who seek a return to a 1950′s America,” Epling said. “This will only cause unrest in schools and give schools one more thing to deal with rather than trying to solve a problem. Also it is not a very well thought out ploy, as in some areas of the state the tables might be turned on the ‘anointed ones’ they seek to keep from being punished. This is just very wrong and the way it was done was wrong as well. It was bullying at its best.”

The Detroit Free Press notes:

Kevin Epling, whose son Matt Epling killed himself in 2002 after being bullied, said that the added language will allow anyone to bully a student and cite their religious beliefs. He has worked with lawmakers for years to developed anti-​bullying legislation.

“This is just unconscionable. This is government-​sanctioned bigotry,” said Epling of East Lansing, who said he is “ashamed” that lawmakers added the language at the last minute.

The DFP also notes that the bill addresses cyber-​bullying but only when school district owned devices are the tools of the bullying.

Watch Sen. Whitmer’s speech:

Watch a message from Matt’s dad:

And a tribute to Matt from Massachusetts teens:

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