Homepage

Katherine Ozment began her interfaith lecture on grace by harkening back to a time when that word wasn’t part of her vocabulary.

She was watching a Greek Orthodox ritual in the church across the street from where she and her family lived, when her son asked, “Why don’t we do that?”

“I said, ‘Because we’re not Greek Orthodox,’ ” said Ozment, a journalist and author of Grace Without God: The Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging in a Secular Age. “My son asked, ‘Well what are we?’ And I blurted out without thinking: ‘We’re nothing.’ ”

At 2 p.m. Thursday, August 8 in the Hall of Philosophy, Ozment discussed “Grace without God,” part of Week Seven’s interfaith lecture series, “Grace: A Celebration of Extraordinary Gifts.”

Ozment, who was raised Presbyterian, said she and her husband assumed they’d find the answers to life’s questions outside of organized religion.

“(But) when I said that, I felt like I’d really failed my son,” she said. “Not just because I hadn’t given him a clear sense of identity and belonging, but also as a writer, because I didn’t have the words for what we were doing and how we were living, and the values we were trying to impart. I felt like I had really shirked my responsibility.”

After that realization, Ozment said she went to her editor at Boston Magazine and pitched an idea for a story about how Boston families were raising children in the absence of religion.

“(My editor) had two young children, so he said, ‘Please write that story,’ ” she said. “ ‘Because I need to know, everyone I know needs to know. There are so many of us doing this right now.’ ”

While researching the story, Ozment said she encountered statistics from Pew Research Center that showed a dramatic increase in the amount of “nones” — people who check “none of the above” in surveys about religion affiliation — in the United States.

“When Pew came out with their new numbers in 2012, they’d lept from 5% to 20% (of ‘nones’),” she said. “Since then, the number has grown to 25%. In addition, millennials are driving this movement. At that time, 2012, 33% of millennials said they were religiously unaffiliated. Now, that number is up to 39% or 40%.”

After Ozment wrote her article, she went to give a talk to a group of atheists in Boston who had become her friends.

“One guy I’ll never forget raised his hand at the end of the talk and said, ‘I know why I left the church, and I know why my wife left the church,’ ” she said. “ ‘We don’t really want to go back; it doesn’t really feel like home to us anymore. But I don’t know where to go instead. I don’t know where to find a place for my two young children where we can escape the commercial forces in society.’ ”

Ozment realized she didn’t have an answer for him.

“I had presented the issue, but I realized I had to focus my energy on going out and finding out the answer to the question, ‘What do we do now?’ ” she said. “Because to walk away from something that has provided so much for so long, without asking ‘What are we going to do instead?,’ I think, is a shirking of responsibility. I think generations to come deserve more thought than that.”

So Ozment began her three-year journey around the country, researching the answers to the questions she’d uncovered.

“I traveled around to meet people either in houses of worship, in families’ homes, in gatherings of Humanists and atheists and secular Buddhists, trying to find examples of what I termed ‘grace without God,’ ” she said. “The things that religion once gave us — how do we find it in a secular way?”

During her journey, Ozment said she encountered many people who were burned out by the rituals common in many faiths, despite their possible benefits.

“I discovered a professor at Harvard named Michael Pewitt who studies ancient Chinese philosophy,” she said. “In a talk I attended, he talked about how what rituals really do for us is allow us to create an ‘as-if world.’ We walk into a ritual space, we enact a ritual that allows us to act as if we are living in harmony with one another, as if we are in harmony in ourselves, and we are rising to the occasion.”

By way of example, Pewitt described how after a monarch died in ancient China, there was a need to bring in a new leader.

“There might be rivalries or potential violence,” Ozment said. “And there was a ritual in which the leaders would stand in the formation of the celestial bodies during this handover of power. That reminded people, in a ritualistic way, the importance of harmony and of keeping everything together. That here, we act as if we live in harmony. Here, we act as if this is a smooth transition.”

In a ritual, Ozment said it’s possible to find “an elevation, an increase of yourself in the direction that you want.”

At the end of her quest for answers, Ozment published Grace Without God, and included in the epilogue a letter to her children concerning the things that she’d learned.

“For years you’ve been asking me the big questions, like miniature Greek philosophers, Catholic theologians or Buddhist monks,” she read. “You walk up to me as I wash dishes, or unpack groceries, or pay bills, and say, ‘What happens when we die?’ ‘Why are we here?’ ‘Who is God?’ ”

Ozment said, while she fears she knows very little, she wanted to dedicate the letter in her epilogue to the answers to those questions.

“No. 1: Your life is a privilege; live it well, and seek to help others live well, too,” she said. “No. 2: Find your people. Find friends that share your values, but not necessarily your beliefs. No. 3: Learn the religious stories. They are part of your heritage and your history, whether you like it or not. Study, too, the rich history of non-belief. Learn about the doubters and atheists and secular Humanists, who have likewise shaped our world.”

For her fourth point, Ozment said she encouraged her kids to “mark time with ritual.”

“Rituals help us feel connected through time to those of us who came before, and those who will come after,” she said. “Create new holidays, solstice parties, harvest festivals, baby namings, that speak to where you’ve come from, who you are and who you want to be.

And for Ozment’s fifth point, she reminded her children to “open yourself to awe and wonder.”

“Visit art museums, climb mountains and read poetry,” she said. “Pay attention, too, to the mundane. Notice the cracks in the sidewalk, the green of the leaves. Marvel at the full harvest moon, low in the autumn sky. The two-week-old baby in her mother’s arms. Don’t get so busy that you forget that we are all living in a mystery.”

After a game that kept fans on their feet, a new champion was crowned in the Chautauqua men’s slow-pitch softball league.

On Wednesday, Team Boggs took on the reigning champions, the Mayville Pounders, in the last game of the 2019 season. After a fast-paced and exciting game, Team Boggs was able to pull off the win, by the skin of their teeth, to steal the championship title from the Pounders, with a 10-9 final score.

Team Boggs had the upper hand throughout the game, consistently gaining runs from the second inning on and making important plays efficiently.

The Pounders were not as lucky starting out, with three outs on three batters, one being a tipped foul caught by the catcher.   

Boggs’ left center Will Kurtz started the third inning with a major play to increase the team’s momentum. At bat, after letting three pitches pass, Kurtz wound up and sent the ball for a home run.

The Pounders’ first batter Jaron Polino sent a strong hit back into left field, only to be chased down and caught by Elliot Alexander, a star player of the game with four of the biggest catches needed.

Boggs team captain and second baseman Jon Russell said he was proud of Alexander’s performance after moving him to left field.

“Elliot played great,” Russell said. “He normally pitches for us, but our left fielder was gone for the year. He really stepped up for us. He sometimes plays right field, but he came out and helped us a lot.” 

Russell was also happy to win, as it was his last year at Chautauqua playing softball with friends.

“It’s my last year to play and to win; this is such a great experience,” Russell said. “Will Kurtz and some other players were huge assets to our team, we lost a few guys last week for the summer, but we played hard.”

But the game nearly went the other way, with the Pounders almost making a surprise comeback in the sixth inning. 

Not making any runs until they were at bat in the bottom of the sixth inning, the Pounders went on to score three runs through the sixth, seventh and eighth innings, pushing one run ahead of Team Boggs. 

In an inning with almost divine intervention, Boggs right fielder Nate Hurner walked to first, and was sent home by a triple hit by Russell. Boggs interim pitcher A.J. Smith hit a huge single to send the captain home and push Boggs just one run ahead.

By the bottom of the ninth inning, three hits and three outs by Team Boggs sent them home with the championship.

Krista Tippett began her week on grace with three elemental questions to pursue: “What does it mean to be human? How do we want to live? Who will we be to each other?”

With Tippett ending the week on the other side of the conversation, Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill, had the opportunity to ask a question of his own: “After a week dedicated to grace, do you know any of the answers?”

Hill interviewed Tippett, journalist, author and host of “On Being with Krista Tippett,” at 10:45 a.m. Friday in the Amphitheater, closing Week Seven’s morning lecture series, “Grace: A Celebration of Extraordinary Gifts — A Week in Partnership with Krista Tippett and ‘On Being.’ ”

Tippett is a journalist and a diplomat with a degree in theology. According to her, the subjects of religion and spirituality are not merely subjects, they’re part of the human enterprise.

“It’s a part of life, this religious, spiritual, moral, ethical part of us,” Tippett said. “We didn’t know how to talk about that in journalism, which meant, in large part, we didn’t know how to talk about it in public.”

In post-9/11 America, Tippett saw a need for religious conversation, which is why her public radio show was originally titled “Speaking of Faith.” The evolution to “On Being” reflected the reality that much of the show’s material did not center on conventional understandings of faith, but rather the broader concept of humanity.

“What I started to realize was that what we were following were the animating questions behind this part of life, which have been pursued for thousands of years, most intentionally by our religious traditions,” she said. “These are repositories for sophisticated thinking and questioning in conversation across generations, and they are universal human questions.”

Out of her three elemental questions, Tippett said “Who will we be to each other?” is inextricable from the others.

“Who we will be to each other is really going to determine whether we rise up to the best of our humanity, or fail to do so and get back into survival mode,” she said.

The decision to rise up or revert to a rudimentary approach to life is a “hard call,” Hill said. And according to Tippett, those calls can be influenced by modern-day issues, but even in the absence of politics and social concerns, people are undoubtedly reshaping the world and contributing to seismic shifts in society.

“We are the generation redefining elemental human things like marriage, family and gender,” Tippett said. “Do you know how huge that is?”

At the root of the redefinition are the technologies “unsettling the ground beneath our feet,” the same unsettling many human generations have experienced before. However, Tippett said this generation’s technology is unique in how personal it is to users.

“They, the railroads, fire, electricity; they didn’t do this,” Tippett said. “Our technologies are implicating themselves in the human condition. They are redefining and reworking the way we do things like learning, creating community and falling in love.”

Partly due to technology and partly to the globalization of economies and cultures, Tippett said people are now living in an unprecedented proximity to difference.

“It’s stressful whether you welcome it or resist it,” Tippett said. “Physiologically, in our brains, we are having to rewire ourselves.”

So why is it harder now than ever before to be good to one another? Tippett said it is because humanity is living in a “complicated moment.”

“If we could just get really self-aware about that and get a little bit kinder to ourselves, then I think we would get kinder to others and just let that be true,” she said.

While staring at screens, Tippett said people have lost sight of their intelligence and conscience. At the dawn of the hand-held device age, adults held their devices as “little, baby, tyrant inventions” — people were in control of the technology. But now, Tippett said, people are no longer the adults in the room.

“One of the things we are so fascinated by, and so creative in our fantasies, is about what happens when our technology becomes intelligent and conscious,” she said. “We’re not fascinated enough that we are already intelligent, and we’ve been conscious a long, long time. We have the capacity to become wise, which I think is the capacity we need to grow into, to grow up our technologies.”

Aptly titled, Becoming Wise, Tippett’s 2016 book explores what it means to live. According to her, wisdom is a characteristic separate from knowledge and accomplishment.

“The measure of a wise life is the imprint it makes on the lives around it,” she said.

At the beginning of her radio career, colleagues told Tippett that audiences would not tune in to long-form pieces. Luckily, she knew enough to know they were wrong.

“There was this wisdom by the experts who knew better than I did, they thought that people just don’t have long attention spans anymore,” she said. “They just didn’t believe it; they underestimated us.”

Tippett said the generation of young listeners has grown over time, but her audience has remained intergenerational, which the experts also underestimated. Tippett said there was a “condescending notion” that young people wouldn’t listen to long shows with big words and older guests.

“It’s just not true, and it’s bad for us to act that way,” Tippett said.

Hill said he experiences the same stereotypes about young people at the Institution. People often recommend the lecture platforms become more like TED Talks, to which Hill responds: “Never.”

“It’s not that young people don’t want to deeply engage, it’s that they engage in community differently, and how do we decode that?” Hill said. “I truly believe this deep inquiry is what feeds the soul of the younger generation.”

The younger generation also has an understanding of the deep need for wisdom from their elders, Tippett said.

“They want to be (in their elders’ company), and we owe them that,” she said.

Tippett doesn’t focus on age when she picks her guests. Instead, she searches for wisdom and voices “not shouting to be heard.”

“We really are very intentional about looking just below the radar,” she said. “The easiest thing in the world, and also the way to get a big hit, is to interview celebrities. We all know, in our own lives, that in our communities, in our fields of knowledge and work or passion, there are these heroic figures who form generations; who are rock stars in their world and no one has ever heard of them outside of it.”

To find those stories, Tippett said people need to stop getting distracted by what’s big and loud and value where wisdom, knowledge and a “graceful creation of realities” is occurring.

“We’re very caught up in seeing the challenge defined the way it is defined in media and politics, which is, ‘Here is this extreme,’ and, ‘Here is that extreme,’ and the only way we are going to frame this issue and work around it is to duke it out — it’s not working,” Tippett said. “It’s not how change happens, it’s not how we live our lives.”

People tend to think that if their work can’t convince people to reconsider a certain position, then there is no point in trying — a dangerous idea, according to Tippett.

“We think, in our imaginations, that whatever that worst example of what you think you’re up against, you think that if you don’t have them in a room, or if what you create couldn’t convince them, what’s the point of trying, and that’s a lie,” she said. “We have to start, we get to start, having the conversations we want to be hearing where we live, with people who are touching lives in the places we live in.”

To introduce Tippett’s Civil Conversations Project, Hill read an excerpt from Becoming Wise: “The crack in the middle, where people on both sides absolutely refuse to see the other as evil, this is where I want to live and I want to widen.”

The Civil Conversations Project, as described on Tippett’s website, is an “evolving adventure in audio, events, resources, and initiatives for planting relationship and conversation around the subjects we fight about intensely — and those we’ve barely begun to discuss.” One of the biggest barriers to increased social understanding and progress, Tippett said, is the enduring “American can-do spirit” of wanting immediate results.

“We’re not actually going to have answers that we can all live with, peacefully, for a long time,” she said. “We have to live with the questions until we can live our way to the answers. The point is to create a space of humanization and relationship, so that what is dividing us no longer defines what is possible between us.”

According to Hill, Tippett got him in “deep trouble” his first year as Chautauqua’s president. In preparation for a speech, Hill read Tippett’s Becoming Wise, in which she wrote: “I always rush to add qualifiers when I use the word civility; words like ‘muscular,’ or ‘adventurous,’ because it can otherwise sound too nice, too polite and too tame.”

Hill said he gleefully grabbed the concept of muscular civil dialogue, and got “chased around” all summer because it was “too masculine, too much.”

Tippett said civility has become a controversial word and an obstacle in the way of change, considering “language is really all we have.” According to her, words like justice, peace and kindness have been ruined by too many bumper stickers and Hallmark cards.

“With all of the things we want to talk about that matter, we actually have to constantly be mustering an ecosystem of language and lived behavior to say what we are saying,” she said. “Whatever the connotations are in my mind, I cannot assume that any of those are the connotations in your mind.”

Tolerance has now been claimed as a civic virtue — only a baby step in the right direction, Tippett said.   

“Tolerance is about the limits of thriving in an unfavorable environment,” she said. “Tolerance is separate but equal.” 

American society has encouraged a collective mentality that requires people to check their “identity bags” at the door; so the challenge now is to “live in wholeness.”

“How do we let all of our deep, deep differences in, and craft a shared life?” Tippett said. “What civility is going to mean with that robust question, it’s exciting.”

As the week’s theme explored grace in life, death, love and loss, Tippett said every discussion exceeded her expectations for the week.

“There is some kind of creative synergy that happened between you choosing that topic and us saying ‘yes,’ ” she said. “I think when we got the deep theology, it meant so much more. One outcome of the week, for me, is that the word ‘grace’ has been planted in me and in the project; and when we produce these shows in the months to come, it will be with our audience, which is all over the world.”

Review by Melissa Kuntz:

The 19th century artistic Realism movement, with a capital “R,” reacted to the lofty themes in Romanticism and history painting by, instead, truthfully depicting common laborers and ordinary people in everyday surroundings engaged in common activities. Ever since, we often assume any realistic art is the representation of objects in a way that is accurate, true to life, unedited and naturalistic. And, we habitually make misguided assumptions that realistic artworks are authentic, credible and faithful to “reality.”

Curated by Judy Barie, the Susan and John Turben Director of VACI Galleries, “Getting Real” features paintings and sculptural works that are rooted in realistic representation of objects and landscapes. Barie’s goal for this exhibition was to balance abstraction and realism without pushing the imagery to one side or the other. So, where does this “abstraction” manifest itself in a gallery filled with clearly recognizable objects like toy cars, flowers, animals and buildings? And how do the artists obfuscate the “reality” presented in their works?

The human brain is wired so that when it sees something incomplete, it attempts to create a “whole.” The Gestalt principles of perception state that the brain will perceive things as more than simply the sum of sensory inputs, and it will do so in predictable ways. Especially relevant to the work of William Steiger is the Gestalt concept of “closure,” which states that we organize our perceptions into complete objects, rather than a series of parts. For example, given segments of a circle, we will perceive it as a whole circle, not what it “really” is — just a series of lines.

Steiger plays with this concept in his meticulous and precise paintings and collages of buildings set within voided landscapes. “Wheat Pool #12” is the perfect example of the Gestalt phenomenon at work. This oil-on-linen painting, at about 30 inches wide, shows two grain elevators in strong contrast against a white background with only a hint of the horizon behind. Naturally, we assume these are complete, truthful depictions of the structures. Yet, very careful examination reveals that the white, highlighted sides of the buildings do not have boundaries. There are no marks to distinguish where the building ends and the sky begins. Yet, we are amiss to see Steiger’s landscape for what is it — essentially an abstraction of shapes and lines — and our well-trained brains invent a completed scene. Similarly, in “Tank Capacity 2400 bbls,” the assumption that the girders supporting the tank are arranged in a logical order is contradicted when closer inspection reveals that they are largely random, abstracted and impossibly arranged.

Using abstraction as a means to realism materializes in Stanley Bielen’s flower paintings. Peonies are portrayed with the thick, random and layered brushstrokes most often associated with Abstract Expressionism. Yet, their small-ish scale, about 20 inches high, and floral subject matter are the antithesis of the machismo and epic scale of Abstract Expressionist works.

Shelley Reed uses Northern European art from the mid-17th through 18th centuries as the inspiration for her work. At this time, there was a developing interest in science, nature and the animal world. Animals were anthropomorphized and works were epic in scale. Reed’s paintings are monochromatic, often with a flat black background. Using grayscale, with luscious paint application, she is able to render the details of the flowers and animals with striking precision. Yet, we must remember that a grayscale is simply a convention that we have come to understand as representing dark and light; reality is never actually so precise. Each individual petal, feather or bit of fur rendered by Reed is a small value scale — all of these small abstractions coming together in convincingly hyperreal objects.

Elizabeth Fortunato casts from glass common objects that carry a sense of nostalgia such as spools of thread, keys, pin cushions and skeleton key-hole covers. The glass is delicately colored, but retains its translucency, giving the objects a ghostly presence. Taken out of context, some of these objects become abstractions. The stunning installation, “3rd From the Left & 2nd From the Left,” is a series of 24 key hole covers, the kind found in historic homes and often made of brass or cast iron. Fortunato has cast them in subtle colors of greens, blues, grays and sepia and arranged them in an oval shape hung on the wall. From a distance, the piece is a series of abstracted shapes, but up close, the details emerge and lead the viewer to imagine the homes from where these came. Fortunato mentions her love of casting as it is a multi-step process; she spends hours with each object and becomes familiar with the form, their significance and imagines the people who used them.

Wendy Chidester paints obsolete machines, lost through time and advancing technology. The objects, although their usefulness has passed, are beautiful in form and craftsmanship. An antique cash register, toy cars and a bubble gum machine are depicted in her oil-on-canvas works. Chidester captures the surface textures of the objects with a deft hand. She does this by scratching into the surface, flicking paint and applying multiple glazes; up close, sections of the canvases appear as painterly abstractions.

Finally, Sarah Williams and Leslie Lewis Sigler develop painterly surfaces with lush, virtuoso brush marks. Williams paints predominantly mid-century buildings artificially lit at night. The buildings are de-contextualized, with no other structures, people or cars within the scene. This gives them a sense of timelessness; they could have been painted from photos taken this year or 50 years ago. “North Glenstone Ave” is an oil-on-canvas, approximately 36 inches wide; Williams’ paintings are not epic in scale, rather they are intimate and personal, like portraits of the structures. The neon light in this painting casts an unearthly pink and orange glow onto the painted lines of the parking lot and the fluorescent light from inside forms halos around the windows. The colors are so well studied — the cement of the parking lot is rendered in purple and the building is a pink-to-yellow gradient. The scene in the window is simply a series of abstracted gray and mauve marks that coalesce into recognizable forms.

Lewis Sigler works in a similar fashion, creating incredibly well-observed still lives of silver platters and utensils. Each object is alone in the canvas against taupe or gray backgrounds. All the images are life-sized, making them relatable, as we might remember someone having a similar spoon or plate. Lewis Sigler’s paintings are, up close, tiny abstractions. They are reminiscent of the work of Janet Fish because the realism is a result of seemingly random and expressionistic brush marks. Reflected in the silver objects painted by Lewis Sigler are colors from the surroundings and a figure — perhaps the artist herself — abstracted in the center of a silver platter. This sense of nostalgia, which appears in the works of Lewis Sigler, Williams, Chidester and Fortunato, presents another theme which ties together the work of the artists in the show.

This exhibition presents the viewer with gorgeously rendered and sculpted art works that replicate familiar imagery, but within each artist’s work are more complex themes, techniques and concepts. Each artist utilizes tropes of abstraction in their interpretations of realism and the works are much more than initially meets the eye.

Pittsburgh-based Melissa Kuntz is a professor in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Clarion University of Pennsylvania. She holds an MFA and an MA from SUNY Purchase. She has been writing art and book reviews since 2002, for publications such as the Pittsburgh City Paper, Canadian Art Magazine, The Chautauquan Daily and Art in America Magazine.

Chautauquans of all ages turned out to throw the Institution a party in honor of its 145th birthday, all throughout the day on Tuesday — from family-friendly activities on Bestor Plaza to the traditional reflections of Old First Night in the Amphitheater. Old First Night is a time to celebrate and give back, and thanks to the collective birthday gift of the community, over $24,000 was raised Tuesday in support of the 2019 Chautauqua Fund, and every gift makes a difference. Lin Winters Jones, of White River Junction, Vermont, won the drawing for an electronics package — including a Kindle Fire HD 10 Tablet with charging doc and an Echo Show 5 — offered as the Old First Night giveaway.

In 2012, Eliza Evans took a drawing class at her local community college and began her journey as an artist.

“I am not a frustrated lifelong artist,” she said. For Evans, an economic sociologist by training, “art is a venue to explore the world.”

Evans is a student and emerging artist in Chautauqua Institution’s School of Art for the summer. Last Sunday, she shared her work with the community at Art in the Park in Miller Park. The “Time Machine” she has created offers an experiential touch-point to the widening discourse on climate change, simulating what Evans speculates the world could feel like in the year 2300. Her work attracted curious 4-year-olds and learned retirees, all wanting to understand where the “Time Machine” will take them.

Inside the installation, the palpable heat and humidity made people’s clothes stick to their bodies and appreciate the comparable coolness of the weather outside. Before sharing her art with Chautauquans, Evans spent a sunny day inside the “Time Machine,” which is made of plastic.

“I am using my body as a sensing instrument,” she said.

Evans hopes to take the “Time Machine” back to her hometown in rural Tennessee, and to street corners of New York City, to inspire conversations in communities with different social, political and economic realities, and document her findings along the way.

“I think conversation is the only way anything real gets done,” Evans said.

Bright and early last Saturday morning at Sports Club, Chautauquans gathered for one of the Institution’s most cherished traditions: The Old First Night Run/Walk.

Since the event’s inception in 1977, hundreds of participants have flooded in from every corner of the United States to join in the fun. Now in its 43rd year, the OFN Run/Walk continues to grow, this year drawing 624 racers.

Participants were organized along the road before the start, and at the sound of a horn, Chautauquans sprinted, jogged and walked through the course. Some participated as solo runners and some brought partners, children, babies or even dogs along with them.

Finishing the 2.75-mile run in first place with a 15-minute and 4-second time was Adam Cook, and following in second was Alex Spiro, who are both Allegheny College cross country runners. After finishing and taking some time to hydrate and recuperate, Cook said this run wasn’t too much of a challenge for them.

“We’re high mileage runners, we’re used to 50-70-mile (weekly running), so this isn’t too bad,” Cook said. “This is shorter than our usual competitions, but I knew the hill was going to be hard, so I started off slow and climbed the hill to maintain my pace.”

Spiro said they anticipated the steep hill on the south end of the grounds, due to the training regimen they chose; to run the course on a loop before last Saturday’s race.

“In general, we knew all the surprises that were coming up,” Spiro said. “We knew where the highest elevation was and were able to plan accordingly, but coming back down the hill isn’t as easy. You need to let loose and open your stride more coming down the hill to keep from injuring yourself, and it’s just enough to give us some energy coming down to finish.”

Cook also said he is familiar with the course, since he has been coming to Chautauqua with his parents and grandparents for years.

This is something Deb Lyons, director of Sports Club said makes the OFN Run/Walk so popular year after year.

“This is a tradition, this race,” Lyons said. “You’ll find out this race has inspired people in so many different ways. Not only do some huge families have 20 people sign up every year, but generations of families do it. People have juggled this course last year, juggling it and running it. People keep coming because it is a tradition for them.”

Taking the prize for the oldest participant was Bud Horne at 94 years old, and a few boys and girls, only a few months old, tied for the youngest Chautauquans to finish the race. But no matter the time they received or their age, these Chautauquans continued the tradition of care and support during the OFN Run/Walk.

Last Saturday morning, after the Old First Night Run/Walk, families and friends gathered at the Youth Activities Center for a fun-filled morning of games and activities.

The NOW Generation and advisory council volunteers hosted the sixth annual Summerfest, where Chautauquans were invited to bring their children or grandchildren and participate in family-friendly activities. After the Old First Night Run/Walk, people gathered inside of the YAC, where they could choose from pancakes, sausage, fruit and much more for breakfast. Kids were doing crafts and playing games and could be seen outside throwing frisbees and blowing bubbles.

“We try to capitalize on the Old First Night buzz and when everyone’s in town gathering after the race,” said Mhoire Murphy, NOW Generation advisory council member. “It’s fun to get everyone together.”

Murphy said the event is like a multigenerational reunion, where members are able to see their old counselors from Boys’ and Girls’ Club and old friends.

“(Summerfest) is our biggest family event, so even though we’re the NOW Gen, many of our events are open to everyone, which a lot of people don’t realize,” said Russell Bermel, advisory council chair of NOW Generation.

Throughout the season, NOW Generation volunteers host multiple family-friendly events, such as weekly volunteer-led playdates Tuesdays at Timothy’s and Wednesdays at the Water. For adults, there are weekly Pub Chats at 4 p.m. on Tuesdays in the Athenaeum Hotel Lobby Lounge.

“I think that those events are great because they give people a place to land in Chautauqua and connect with other people in NOW Generation,” said Carrie Zachry Oliver, NOW Generation council member. “For planning purposes, we offer to let people self-nominate to host things, which is cool, because it’s allowed for a variety of hosts this summer and it’s made each event a little bit different based on who’s hosting.”

Wes Delancey, 37, has been coming to Chautauqua for his entire life. He said that 22 of his family members came to the grounds this year, and Summerfest is one of his favorite events.

“I love Summerfest,” Delancey said. “After the race, it’s a good way to come over and see friends that you’ve grown up with. It’s a good way to keep everything going on a Saturday.”

Delancey worked at the YAC when he was younger, so he has many longtime friends and connections at Chautauqua. He said being able to come back and reunite with them is one of the best parts of the event.

“It’s a special place, there’s no question about it,” Delancey said. “You literally don’t see people for 365 days, then you come back and you feel like you saw them yesterday. That’s one of the nice things about the NOW Generation.”

For more information about the NOW Generation or to learn about ways to volunteer or get involved, visit the Facebook page (facebook.com/NOWGenCHQ) or contact Megan Sorenson, staff liaison, at 716-357-6243 or msorenson@chq.org to sign up for the e-newsletter.

Review by Jane Vranish:

No longer just an impeccably designed, mostly Victorian community by the lake, Chautauqua Institution has taken on a series of performing arts projects, like the jazz giant Wynton Marsalis partnership, that will make it an even more important and vital destination.

Dance, up until now, has been operating in its own little bubble, with locally nurtured performances or regional companies, something that can be rewarding in itself.

No longer.

Due to the vision of Deborah Sunya Moore, vice president of performing and visual arts, the internationally renowned Paul Taylor Dance Company is permeating every nook and cranny in Chautauqua. This deep dive into the work of one of America’s greatest choreographers — mini-performances, classes, talks — has yielded more than anyone could have expected.

Could this be a Chautauquan nod toward the legendary Black Mountain College of the 1950s, which gave birth— through the likes of artist Josef Albers, choreographer Merce Cunningham, composer John Cage, artist Robert Rauschenberg and, yes, Taylor — American modernism?

Those results have been obvious, with Wednesday’s performance the proverbial cherry on top (although there is more to come through tonight’s performance). As a dance reviewer in Pittsburgh, I have seen the company many times over in the past 40 years. After all, we like to claim him — he was born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, just outside the city. Yet judging by the breathtaking performance in the Amphitheater, I have never truly seen them.

You might say this was the perfect evening of Taylor dance, with a beautiful arrangement of arguably his greatest hits. (After all, there are over 140 from which to choose). This program satisfied on so many levels. First, it was performed with the physicality inherent in American dance, but with a dynamic ease that remarkably illustrated the Week Seven theme, “Grace: A Celebration of Extraordinary Gifts.”

Then there was the program itself, beginning at the end with Esplanade. If there was a single work that might represent Taylor as an artist and human being, this is it. Seemingly simple, but laced with complex layers that beg repeated viewings, he created it in 1974. This was Taylor’s first work after he retired from performing. So he tossed aside conventional dance techniques to formulate his own style, but without losing the kinetic energy that audiences love. In the years since, Esplanade has become a choreographic mirror for the viewer, with everyday steps and themes that reflect our individual lives.

Audiences could get a clue from the start with John Rawlings’ costumes — simple dresses, pants and tops in numerous shades of orange and peach, tan and gold — the hidden nuances to come. Beginning with casual walks amid a sense of camaraderie, Taylor suddenly turned the tables toward grief, where one dancer sobbed and others crawled into a pulsating, comforting cluster around her.

So much followed. Intimacy. Fast-paced skitter steps. Most significantly, the men cradled the women in their arms and later tenderly passed them from one to the other.

Then the ending of all endings, Esplanade exploded in a series of baseball slides to the Johann Sebastian Bach score. The pace picked up even further with sitting spins, a windmill of a male solo and more. It was all about dancing on the edge. No; as former member Connie Dinapoli explained in an adult class earlier this week, it was all about falling. Think about it, to make a dance about falling …

That would hardly leave room for anything else. Yet there was a series of cradles, this time where the women darted across the stage and flew into the men’s arms. Inexplicably, Taylor reined it in after they all ran offstage. One woman was left, looking about her, confused at first. Then she turned to the audience to present herself, ostensibly to the world.

In a program of delicious contrasts, Esplanade was like a palate-cleansing sorbet, preceded, as it was, by the intense sensuality of Piazzolla Caldera, a tango-esque work with a flamenco attitude. Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla (the primary musical inspiration along with Jerzy Peterburshsky) is a favorite among choreographers, but never so richly decadent as here, dripping with atmosphere and a daring cast of characters.

Sometimes it was a battle of the sexes, sometimes not. For the most part, it was a constantly changing mélange of bodies and partners. Still, there were dramatic threads, like the woman who resembled Tennessee Williams’ Blanche DuBois, aging and rejected, but here able to pursue her passion to the end.

Occasionally, it resembled a mobile Henry Moore sculpture, thick and undulating, particularly when two men engaged in a drunken duet.

Full of tango’s smoldering underbelly and flamenco snap, the cast was undeniably on fire.

The two works amounted to a double finale, a rarity in dance and a tribute to the company’s strength. But there were preludes to that upcoming choreographic storm, a delightful pair of Taylor’s early works. Aureole (1962), an angelic, almost balletic creation, featured three women in floating white dresses with a single ruffle around the neck. They billowed around two men who displayed a masculine weight, a counterbalance. But their lava-like flow was coupled with turns that stopped softly on a dime and lighter-than-air frog leaps, thus providing a welcome match to George Frideric Handel’s music.

That left 3 Epitaphs (1956), the earliest and most comical dance of the evening, although humor and wit often run rampant through Taylor’s world just when you least expect it. 3 Epitaphs is known for Rauschenberg’s iconic costumes, where the dancers are completely covered in dark gray and dotted with circular mirrors.

Slumping and slurping, hipping and hopping to early New Orleans funeral music, the creatures delighted as they immersed us in their buffoonery.

Maybe this program was historic, where all the works were created in the last century. But with the generosity and talents of the dancers, whose predecessors Taylor once fittingly called the “bee’s knees,” they made it timeless.

Jane Vranish is a former dance critic for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and continues there as a contributing writer. Her stories can also be read on the dance blog “Dance Currents” at
dancecurrents.com. She is an assistant professor of dance at Point Park University.

When Brian Regan does stand-up, he thinks it’s important to feel “natural” and “as in-the-moment as possible.” NPR described him as having an almost “Chaplinesque flair” — he’s animated, using facial gestures like furrowing his eyebrows during routines, and putting “his entire body into his act.”

And he’s talented at his craft. Comedian Bill Burr once noted, “(Regan) basically goes out and, for 90 straight minutes, it sounds like a jet is landing, how hard this guy kills.”

Chautauquans can expect Regan to “kill it” at 8:15 p.m. tonight, August 9, in the Amphitheater, along with Steven Rogers as his opening act. Based in New York City, Rogers made his national television debut earlier this year on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” and has performed at the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival in Jamestown.

Regan is a diligent comedian, known in his early career for showing up to performances with twice the amount of content necessary for a single show. He appeared on “The Late Show with David Letterman” 27 times, “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and was called “your favorite comedian’s comedian” by Entertainment Weekly in 2015.

Regan applies his expressive style to comedy bits based on daily situations.

“I’m not the funny guy at the party,” Regan told Rodney Ho for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I observe things, things I can talk about later.”

He often ventures back to childhood experiences — in “Stupid in School” for example, he jokes about waking up and realizing he never completed a science project, one he was supposed to be working on for nine months. We’ve all been there, haven’t we?

“I just tend to talk about things that we all relate to in a broad way,” Regan told Ho. “I never rode in on a big white horse and see myself as a nobler version of the craft. I like to talk about doughnuts. I like to talk about buying a refrigerator. I enjoy seeing what mileage I can get out of that.”

But perhaps the most infamous aspect of his quotidian material is its “cleanliness.” He refrains from the heavy use of profanity common in acts by Lewis Black, Kevin Hart and other contemporaries, a comedic trait that’s hard to come by in the present day, according to Deborah Sunya Moore, vice president of performing and visual arts.

“So many popular comedians now tend to be rated R or at least PG-13,” Moore said. “And we’ve been wanting to have Brian Regan for quite a while, because he’s family-friendly, he’s very funny and we felt that he was just a gracious comedian.”

Moore described Regan as intergenerational, and noted the level of skill it requires to be a clean comic.

“It’s pretty easy to try and shock people when you’re a comedian, either with your language or content,” Moore said. “And I just really appreciate that Brian Regan has been able to stay current and relevant, but also fun, and (someone) many generations can enjoy.”

For Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill, grace is an extraordinary gift given uniquely to everyone. He said this notion of grace is something journalist Krista Tippett embodies in her stories.

“I think what Krista embodies is a deep curiosity to unearth stories that need to be told,” Hill said. “And many times, the stories that she lifts up are about humanity and grace.” 

When Hill first saw Tippett conduct an interview, he said he saw her draw out an inspiring story underlining moments of grace in society.

“I first saw her live, interviewing a former white supremacist and a Jewish gentleman who met in college,” he said. “She has this knack of finding moments of humanity that elevate our better angels, which is why we are excited to have her moderating the week.”

Throughout the week, Tippett has drawn out the stories of prominent speakers like the Rev. Jennifer Bailey and author Imani Perry. However, at 10:45 a.m. today, August 9, in the Amphitheater, Hill will interview Tippett and draw out her story behind her success. This conversation will close out Week Seven, “Grace: A Celebration of Extraordinary Gifts — A Week in Partnership with Krista Tippett and ‘On Being.’ ” 

Hill said throughout her career, Tippett has told many stories that “need to be told.” 

“(The lecture) will be a look at her career and her reflections on the theme of the week,” Hill said. “It will be about how she organizes her show around uplifting and inspirational topics.”

Hill said Tippett and her pursuit to uncover atypical stories made her an obvious choice for a week on grace.

“We first knew that we wanted to do a week on grace,” Hill said. “And because our definition of that was beyond just a religious notion, there was a belief that we needed someone who has a track record for elevating those stories.”

In 1983, Tippett graduated from Brown University with a degree in history and earned her Master of Divinity from Yale University in 1994. Tippett has written for The New York Times, Newsweek, BBC, International Herald Tribune Magazine and Die Zeit, a German weekly newspaper.

In 1986, she became a diplomat in West Berlin, and a year later became chief aide to the U.S. ambassador to West Germany.

She pitched her radio show to Minnesota Public Radio, and it became a weekly series distributed by American Public Media. In 2013, she co-founded Krista Tippett Productions, a nonprofit production company where she produced her show “Speaking of Faith.”

Currently, Tippett is the host of “On Being” (originally “Speaking of Faith”), an hour-long public radio show and podcast. She said the show is centered on questions that resonate through history, encompassing her passions of both religion and history.

“Our mission is pursuing deep thinking and moral imagination, social courage and joy to renew inner life and outer life and life together,” Tippett said. “It takes up the big questions of meaning and how they are being reframed in the 21st century.”

She said there’s an intersection between the core values of her show and Chautauqua Institution.

“I absolutely see that Chautauqua has, much longer than ‘On Being’ has been around, valued deep thinking,” Tippett said. “It’s not something that is just for the university level but for all kinds of people in the middle of life, in the middle of summer.”

Tippett said this is an opportunity to learn and make the world a better place, something she hopes Chautauquans will ponder after today’s lecture.

“There’s something about that act (of writing),” Tippett said. “Where you can actually give voice to things you didn’t know you knew, or didn’t know you thought, and the same thing happens in meaningful conversation.”

Staff writer Eleanor Bishop contributed to this report.

According to Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, everyone encounters evil at some point in their lives — it’s only a question of when.

“In a way, all human beings are afflicted by the three poisons: greed, hostility and delusion,” said Kjolhede, a Zen Buddhist priest and abbot of Rochester Zen Center. “That’s something that we all have to struggle with at some time or another. But that’s half the truth. The other half is that, in our true nature, we’re free of all that.”

Kjolhede believes that “the mind determines our experience of life.”

“Yes, there are circumstances and conditions that are important, but largely our experience of life is determined by the mind,” Kjolhede said in a 2013 TEDx Talk. “This is supported by many hundreds or thousands of true stories of people who transcended extraordinarily difficult circumstances, in prison camps, prisons and other things.”

At 2 p.m. today, August 9, in the Hall of Philosophy, Kjolhede will deliver Chautauqua’s seventh Interfaith Friday lecture of the season on the subject of evil and its relationship to humanity. Kjolhede will be joined in conversation by the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Chautauqua’s vice president of religion and senior pastor.

When Kjolhede was 22, according to a 2016 interview with Daily alum Georgie Silvarole for the Democrat and Chronicle, he was arrested for possession of hallucinogens.

“I was raised with no religion and had no use for it until I found myself in a holding cell in the Detroit jail,” Kjolhede told Silvarole. “That night I thought was the worst part of my life, but it was actually the best.”

After his record was expunged by a judge in return for a year of probation, Kjolhede looked for spirituality and peace, finding both in Rochester Zen Center.

Roshi Philip Kapleau, one of the founding fathers of American Zen, began the center in 1966 after studying in Japan and publishing his book, The Three Pillars of Zen.

Kjolhede was eventually established as Kapleau’s dharma-successor and the abbot of the center.

“We have this tremendous ability to change our experience of the world,” Kjolhede said in his TEDx Talk. “There are two ways of understanding this. One is as a matter of perception: What we think of as reality is really our interpretation of it. Our minds are like filters that filter out what we don’t want to experience, and give us what we do want to experience. This is enormously important.”

The second way of understanding change in our experience of the world, according to Kjolhede, is “a matter of function.”

“We learn through meditation how to direct our attention, and that we have a choice as to where we direct our attention,” he said in his talk. “The image I like best is a flashlight; we can use the mind like a flashlight.”

Kjolhede said this simile works because we can flick the beam of a flashlight in any direction, an act which has “enormous consequences.”

In terms of evil and its influence in the world, Kjolhede said “we see evil as one side of the equation.”

The job of a practitioner of Zen Buddhism, according to Kjolhede, is to “liberate and actualize that true nature in our lives.”

“I hope that (attendees of my lecture) will take up either Zen meditation or some other kind of meditation,” he said. “Zen is very practical. In order to change ourselves, in order to bring out our true nature, we have to retrain the mind. We see mediation as the best way of doing that.”

Written by John Warren-

It would surprise no one to hear the Disciples of Christ inner circle invoke the word “miracles” to characterize the events that led to the opening of their new denominational house.

At 4:30 p.m. on June 21, the afternoon before the 2019 Chautauqua season opened, the Disciples got their occupancy permit. In less than eight months, a century-old building had been razed, and a four-story building 50% larger rose in its place on Janes Avenue.

At many points, the project felt doomed. Due to asbestos issues, it was Oct. 30, 2018, before the Disciples got the “all clear” to begin demolition of the old Graybiel building. There were 29 change orders issued during construction, for lights added, windows deleted, etc. Most significantly, there was a panicked episode when the foundation had to be reimagined.

The old Graybiel House was built on a creek bed, on an original Chautauqua Assembly tent platform that had been reinforced through the years. When a portion of the basement was excavated, the architect, Bill Laubscher, realized the shifting soil could claim a neighboring house.

“I climbed down, and the soil was actually moving,” said Laubscher, who worked pro bono on the project, as he has with other denominational house projects, including at the Mayflower and Ecumenical Community of Chautauqua. “I yelled, ‘Fill it back in!’ ”

Piers were set in drilled holes 20 feet deep in the ground, with vertical steel pipes and horizontal wood beams reinforcing the perimeter. It added two months to the project, and $200,000 to the cost.

Disciples administrator Tom Brownfield said he woke many mornings at 5 a.m., crafting in his head the apology letters he would mail to the dozens of people who had reserved rooms for the nine-week season.

“Writing off a whole season? Financially, it would have been a fundamental disaster,” said Brownfield, an engineer by trade who served as volunteer clerk of the works for the project. “I don’t see how we could have survived that.”

Eventually, he prayed: “Here we are, Lord. Take care of it. Because I can’t.”

Brownfield credits the architect, Laubscher, with making the deadline. Laubscher, in turn, credits builder Chris Keefe with devising creative, time-saving maneuvers, such as building the Graybiel’s walls off-site.

“That saved a month,” Laubscher said. “A week before the season, I stood back and said, ‘I can’t believe we got this done.’ It was, absolutely, a miracle.”

The old Graybiel House at 28 Janes dated to 1874. It was a cafeteria and boarding house when the Disciples bought the building in 1945, for $2,500, furniture included. It was then named “The Brotherhood House,” and was a summer home for Disciples ministers and missionaries.

In the early 2000s, it was named for the Graybiel family, who established a Disciples gathering spot at the dawn of the Chautauqua Assembly in the 19th century, in a tent on the shores of Chautauqua Lake, near Miller Bell Tower. When the Disciples outgrew the tent, there were a couple temporary homes — including by the Presbyterian House, adjacent to the Amphitheater. In 1904, the Disciples — led by the Graybiels, who included mother Sara and daughters Adelaide, Katherine and Mary — raised $2,800 to buy what became the Disciples Headquarters House, on 32 Clark, where it meets Janes.

The Graybiels and other Disciples founders were involved in mission work in India, China and Africa — among Christianity’s frontiers in the early 1900s. Old newspaper clippings attest to mission travels, as do scattered artifacts at the Disciples’ houses.

There’s nostalgia for the old place, to be sure, which is not the same as saying anyone misses it. The chipmunks, maybe. The old place was … porous.

“Chipmunks pretty much ruled the house,” said Cathy Brownfield, Tom’s wife and hostess for the Disciples’ two houses.

The loosey-goosey foundation meant nothing in the building was plumb. One could pick up momentum walking from one side of a room to the other. Windows wouldn’t open. Doors wouldn’t shut. There was a top-story toilet that notoriously listed to port.

“I called it ‘Shim City,’ ” said David Lollis, who was the Disciples host for 17 years with his wife, Betty. “We were constantly jamming little slats of wood under dressers and beds to level them.”

Talk about the new project began 10 years ago, when it was realized it would be more expensive to rehabilitate the building than to raze it and start over. A fundraising campaign followed, during which $1 million was raised.

The new building has 17 rooms compared to 12 at the old house, and can accommodate up to 37 people, in place of 25. The square footage is about 6,000 compared to about 4,000. And, it has central air conditioning — far from a given at many of Chautauqua’s seasonal properties. It has a well-appointed, spacious, space-engineered kitchen meant to accommodate several families preparing meals and washing dishes simultaneously. The Disciples aim for year-round occupancy and are recruiting groups for the off-season.

The problem now is supply and demand. Denominational houses represent the best housing deal on the grounds. And with rooms as low as $200 a week, the old Graybiel House was at the ground-floor pricing tier.

But the need to offset $1.9 million (and counting) in construction and the popularity of the new, air-conditioned space has created a new paradigm. Room rates at the Graybiel and Headquarters buildings start around $325, but most certainly will climb in coming seasons.

“There is a much greater market than we are able to address,” Tom Brownfield said. The Disciples reservation list has tripled in size. Asked if Disciples could fill another house today, Brownfield responded: “Definitely.”

The off-season holds a laundry list of to-dos, from painting stairwells, to installing trim board, to finishing off the basement, which will effectively provide a fifth level. 

One nagging vestige of the old Graybiel remains. Like the resilient gopher of “Caddyshack,” the chipmunks wouldn’t be daunted, not even by a bulldozer. Though they now prefer the Headquarters building.

“Don’t leave a door open,” said Betty Lollis. “If you do, they fly right in.”

John Warren is director of news and information at University of California, Riverside and a former columnist, writer and editor at The Virginian-Pilot and The Roanoke Times. A longtime Chautauquan, he has served for several years as a writing coach at the Daily.

The School of Music’s season is entering its final days, but the remaining students are finishing strong with a few more performances.

The last two open recitals for School of Music students will be held at 2 p.m. Friday, August 9 and 4 p.m. Sunday, August 11 both in McKnight Hall. Since the Piano and Voice Programs have now both concluded, both recitals will feature students exclusively from the Instrumental Program.

The first of these recitals has eight students on the program: percussionist Alvin Macasero, violist Cristina Micci-Barreca, cellist Nathaniel Blowers, violinist Chihiro Kakishima, clarinetist Asher Harris, violinist Abigail Tsai, cellist David Myers and cellist Michael Puryear.

The final recital will feature five students: cellist Michael Frontz, French horn player Rebecca Salo, violinist William Gibb, violinist Rebecca Moy and violist Cameren Williams.

Since the students get to choose the pieces they will play, there is a wide variety of pieces on both programs, including works by such well-known greats as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Dmitri Shostakovich, Claude Debussy, and more. The music ranges from German to French to Russian to Spanish and beyond, and from classical to contemporary.

For example, Salo will be playing the first movement of Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 2 in E-flat major, K. 417. It is a staple of the horn repertoire, and Salo finds it to be a particularly interesting piece because the horn Mozart wrote the piece for was different than the modern incarnation of the same instrument. Horns today tend to have a louder, grander sound; in Mozart’s day, they had a lightness and delicateness, which presents a stylistic challenge for players to replicate on modern horns.

“If you can play Mozart, that’s a good measure of how good of a musician you are,” Salo said.

For another example, Williams will be playing the second movement of Henri Vieuxtemps’ Viola Sonata in B-flat major, Op. 36. This movement is andante con moto, or “slowly, but with motion.” It is a nostalgic and bittersweet piece that seems to be meditating on distant memories.

“Whenever I play it, I try to think of something that I miss a lot,” Williams said. “Being here, I might think about my family — my brother, my sister, my mom and my dad. But there are some parts in this movement where … I feel like (it’s) remembering a lot of the happy times, … and then you go back to this really dark place and remember, oh, I’m not there.”

These recitals are the last opportunity instrumental students have to play as soloists. Besides the final Music School Festival Orchestra concert on Monday, they are the final performances of the School of Music season. Playing individually gives students a chance to put more personality into their interpretations of the music — a chance they don’t usually get when trying to blend with the full orchestra.

“You have that opportunity to show who you are as a musician,” Salo said. “You get to say something that is meaningful to you.”

As students approach the end of their time at Chautauqua — at least for this year — Salo and Williams are reflective and appreciative of what they’ve accomplished this season. From private classes to chamber music performances to collaborations as an orchestra with the dance, voice and Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra programs, they have gotten a taste of everything.

“I think it’s nice that they have us have those experiences, because I think it’s important as a musician to be able to be versatile in whatever playing you’re doing, and even in the subcategories of orchestral playing,” Williams said.

Who: Titus VanHook, CTC conservatory actor.

Like other members of the conservatory, VanHook has had a busy summer. From the beginning, he took on two roles at once, playing a variety of characters created by local elementary school students in the Young Playwrights Project, while donning the personas of Duke Theseus and Fairy King Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He currently takes the stage as Garreth and a police officer in CTC’s mainstage production of One Man, Two Guvnors.

Although he has worn many hats this season, VanHook said his time working on A Midsummer Night’s Dream is his standout experience of the summer.

“It was a fast, furious process,” VanHook said. “But I’m proud of how well it all came together. It was a really fun play, too, because it was outdoors, and each show was slightly different and still fresh.”

As the show traveled from venue to venue, VanHook remembers some locations being more dynamic than others. At Children’s School, actors had to climb in and out of windows to make their entrances and exits, all while sprinting through the pouring rain.

“The energy was kind of electric that day,” VanHook said. “It was hectic, but so much fun. Those changes kept us on our toes.” 

Where he’s from: VanHook hails from Oakland, California, where he lived before heading off to college.

He spent time in southern California while getting his degree in Africana studies with a focus on history from Pomona College, and now resides in New York City, where he is pursuing his MFA in theater at Columbia University.

Despite the fact that he’s now fully committed to theater as a career path, VanHook didn’t even begin to consider acting until his final year at Pomona.

“Basically, I needed an art requirement to graduate,” VanHook said. “I thought, ‘Sure, acting should be easy.’ So I took the class, had a great teacher and just fell in love with the stuff.”

VanHook said acting gave him the opportunity to experience and experiment with concepts and feelings that he wouldn’t be able to explore in daily life.

“I get to be as open, as vulnerable, as big, as small, as scared, as in love as I wanted to be,” VanHook said. “It was a freedom that I found that I think people don’t normally get to have.”

Favorite theater memory: Although the experience was a harrowing one, the chance to produce a play on his own stands out as one of his proudest moments.

VanHook pulled together and staged a performance of Topdog/Underdog, by Suzan-Lori Parks, with minimal outside assistance. He recruited a director and stage manager, booked the venues for the show, gathered the props for the play, worked on getting publicity and acted in the performance himself.

“It was so much work,” VanHook said. “I was incredibly nervous too. It felt like I was about to jump out of a plane. But at the end of it, I was so proud of myself. It was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had doing theater.”

Favorite food: Pound cake. But not just any pound cake.

“It has to be my grandmother’s pound cake,” VanHook said.

According to VanHook, the recipe is fairly simple, but when he’s tried to recreate the dish, it just hasn’t been the same.

“There has to be some kind of extra, special ingredient she puts in,” VanHook said. “I’m sure it’s love. Maybe when I get to be her age, I’ll be able to figure out how to make it all work just right.”

What he’s reading/watching: To prepare for his showcase at Columbia, he’s going through a lot of older, black comedies for inspiration. “Key & Peele,” “In Living Color,” “A Different World” and “Martin” are all on his radar.

“Comedy works really well for showcases because people are always willing to come in and have a laugh,” VanHook said.

Favorite part of Chautauqua: The sheer creativity that surrounds and permeates Chautauqua’s grounds.

Being around so many talented artists and creators, VanHook said, has been an inspirational and enthralling experience. Whether it was living with his fellow actors and getting to see their processes, or visiting the other students on the grounds and witnessing other visual and performing arts, VanHook said his time here has never ceased to be exciting.

What’s next: In his immediate future, VanHook will return to Columbia to prepare for his final year, as well as his showcase.

Looking further down the line, VanHook said he hopes to break into the film and television world in New York over the next few years before potentially moving somewhere like Los Angeles or Atlanta to continue working on the big screen.