The hidden arts
Despite discouragement, JMU performing arts students continue to pursue their dreams
By Meghan Amoroso, contributing writer
Posted on April 24, 2006

“After I snapped my pinky toe and broke it, I had no choice but to keep rehearsing every day with the Rep concert only a month away,” senior dance major Taryn Bazinet said. “I took Arnica like it’s my job. I bled, my skin ripped off, and my joints inflamed to the point where I couldn’t walk. It was worth it.”

Bazinet’s dedication is common among the 600 JMU student performing artists pursuing degrees in dance, theater, musical theater or music. This dedication is often misunderstood and discouraged by family, friends and society, who do not understand the need to pursue a performing arts career. “Society views dance as entertainment and not something that should be a paying job,” Bazinet said. “The way society feels about the dance world is reflected in how much money they lend to the arts.”

Senior Anthony Mardakis said, “It’s no secret that the art department doesn’t generate as much money as the sports programs.” While Bridgeforth Stadium was updated last year, the new arts center along South Main Street will not be complete until about 2009. Theatre II, a current art venue, was once a chicken hatchery. “Theatre II is dirty, unstable and too small,” says Bazinet. “In Godwin, we have to deal with the window falling out of its niche, birds swooping onto the stage or mice.”

Finding available rehearsal rooms is a lingering problem for music majors. “I just gave up and started rehearsing in the middle of the night,” said Jennene Estes (’89), 38. Current music graduate student Katie Davis says the new Arts Center will provide the music department with adequate practice space. 

The Arts Center moves the arts to a single location, stretching two blocks long and two stories high. The arts will be in the open instead of tucked away in Godwin Hall, Duke Hall and Theater II, said dance professor of dance Shane O’Hara.

Performing arts are not only hidden by location, but the participation in these activities is not prominent in the GenEd program. Before fall of 1997, the program required activity courses such as dance. Today, the wellness requirement replaces those classes, focusing on health and life-long fitness. According to Herb Amato, Cluster Five coordinator, the current requirements focus on all components of wellness, not only the physical dimension.

However, the limited physical participation is what concerns O’Hara. “America substitutes fitness for art,” he said. “Most people see the performing arts as entertainment, not an art form.” This school program change also occurs in elementary, middle and high schools. O’Hara recalls that Virginia schools once took field trips to museums or concerts, but today they prepare for the Standards of Learning tests. With this change, students in college are less likely to appreciate and be good consumers of art.

The intricacies of being a theater major are often overlooked, said senior Cindy Leal, director of the spring 2005 play “Nocturne.” She attests to the rigorous rehearsal schedule and building sets late into the night. “Sleeping is not always an option,” she said.

Making creative work often results in 14-hour days on campus, junior Meghan Ballard said. “We have classes like everyone else, but after class come the rehearsals.” Bazinet says dancers have to be “in top shape to perform the way we do, and if we have a bad dancing day, it may just affect our grade.”
Tests and performances prepare students for the real world of art-making, which is less than a month away for graduating seniors. “If I have to sleep on a yoga mat my first year after college, so be it,” said senior Amanda Thomas.

Parental concerns about majors and careers are a challenge, O’Hara said.  However, he says that the graduating business major faces the same unemployment dilemma that artists dealt with for years. “There is an increase in majors and a decrease in jobs,” he said. “Business majors now have to be innovative and create their own opportunities. Artists always had to do that.”
 
Estes made her own opportunities directly out of college. After graduation, she opened a private studio and started a live sound reinforcement company, while managing a real estate office full-time. “To be a musician, you have to love the lifestyle,” she said.  “It’s part of the music, the perceived ‘chaos’ is part of the creative process.” Today, Estes and her husband work fulltime as musicians, performing and teaching more than 185 students a week in Loudoun County, Va. “A house, two cars, a motorcycle and two dogs — We’re living the dream!”