The University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of the Arts (presenter – and formerly the Arts Institute) and the Wisconsin School of Business Bolz Center for Arts Administration welcome playwright, producer and social entrepreneur Stuart Flack as the fall 2018 Interdisciplinary Artist in Residence. Flack’s award-winning work includes productions at many of the leading theaters in the United States. Flack is currently a Senior Fellow at the Environmental Law & Policy Center where he is leading The Community-Based Environmental Monitoring and Public Health Advocacy Project. He is also developing a performance piece with the Invisible Institute, a Chicago-based community action group which monitors and disseminates data on police misconduct.
As a producer, he ran the Chicago Humanities Festival, the largest festival of arts and ideas in the United States from 2007 through 2012. From 1990–2007, he was a partner at the global consulting firm of McKinsey & Company. Flack’s longer biography and photo is further below.
The UW–Madison Division of the Art’s Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program brings innovative artists to campus to teach semester-long, interdepartmental courses and to publicly present their work for campus and community audiences. Faculty and staff from the Bolz Center for Arts Administration along with Associate Professor Kevin Ponto of the Design Studies Department will support Flack’s residency. Angela Richardson, Aesthetics and Business Project Coordinator at the Bolz Center for Arts Administration, serves as residency lead.
During his residency at UW–Madison, Flack will teach “Performing Information; Exploring Data through Live Performance” where students will engage in analysis of data and information techniques along with workshops to apply and test their thinking. Guest artists Adrian Danzig, Founder and Creative Director of the Chicago-based 500 Clown, and Marcia Miquelon and Jacob Mills, co-founders of the Wild Rumpus Circus in Mazomanie, Wisconsin, will lead workshops in physical theater and performance as part of the residency course.
Public Events | go.wisc.edu/flack
All the events are free and take place in Madison, Wisconsin unless noted otherwise. Events are subject to change. Visit website for more details.
Thursday, Sept. 13 | noon-1 p.m.
Bolz Center Lunch & Learn: The Serious Business of Clowning Around: Work and the Creative Process
Wisconsin School of Business, Room 3190 Grainger Hall
975 University Ave.
Informal lunch hour talk with Stuart Flack and guest artist Adrian Danzig about 500 Clown, a Chicago-based physical theater company, and Danzig’s career as a performer.
Thursday-Saturday, Sept. 27-29 | 8 p.m.
The Seldoms perform “RockCitizen”
Wisconsin Union Theater, Play Circle
800 Langdon St.
Tickets: $7-22
The Wisconsin Union Theater welcomes The Seldoms, a Chicago-based dance and theater company, as they perform “RockCitizen” –an immersive sonic, visual and kinetic environment that recalls counter cultural spaces of the 1960s and connects them to a larger history of people pursuing breakthroughs and transformations in their lives and worlds. Flack was one of the contributing collaborators and will be at the post-performance talkback sessions.
Friday, Oct. 5 | 3:30 p.m.
Dance Department Friday Forum with Marcia Miquelon and Jacob Mills
Margaret H’Doubler Performance Space, Lathrop Hall
1050 University Ave.
Guest artists Marcia Miquelon and Jacob Mills speak about their lives as performers, educators and founders of the Wild Rumpus Circus.
Thursday-Sunday, Oct. 11–14 | TBA
“What Color is ______?” – Hands-on activities and window installation
Discovery Building
330 N. Orchard St.
“What Color is ______?” takes place during the 2018 Wisconsin Science Festival. Children, teens and adults from across the state, as well as visitors to the Town Center at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, “answer” a 25-question survey using 2”x4” LEGO® blocks of various colors from a standard LEGO set that will become an installation. The questions run the gamut from mundane to poetic.
Sunday, Oct. 14 | 11 a.m.
“What Color is ______?” Talk
Discovery Building
330 N. Orchard St.
Presentation about the LEGO-based project by Stuart Flack and Associate Professor Kevin Ponto, School of Human Ecology, Design Studies and faculty in the Virtual Environments Group at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.
Saturday, Dec. 8 | 2 p.m.
“Data Vaudevilles: Bits and Bytes”
H.F. DeLuca Forum, Discovery Building
330 N Orchard St.
The final event of Flack’s residency is a series of short performances by students in his “Performing Information: Exploring Data through Live Performance” course.
Biographies
Stuart Flack | go.wisc.edu/flack
Stuart Flack is playwright, producer, social entrepreneur and policy researcher based in Chicago. His award-winning work includes productions at many of the leading theaters in the United States. Flack’s award-winning work as a playwright includes productions at many of the leading theaters in the United States, including Southcoast Repertory (Costa Mesa, California), Culture Project (New York City), InterAct Theatre Company (Philadelphia), Victory Gardens Theater (Chicago), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Texas Performing Arts (Austin). His plays include: “99% Walden,” “Black Like Me” (adaptation, commissioned by Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago), “Bikila,” “Floaters,” “Sidney Bechet Killed a Man,” “Homeland Security,” “Jonathan Wild,” “American Life & Casualty” and “For Eddy.”
Since 2014, he has been working with The Seldoms, a Chicago-based dance and theater company, on two full-length works which use movement, text, archival material, music, sculpture and video to examine power, politics and social action in the United States from the 1950s to the present. “Power Goes” was commissioned by and premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in spring 2015 and has been touring nationwide including through 2018. “RockCitizen” premiered in spring 2016 in Chicago and will be staged at the Wisconsin Union Theater in Madison, Wisconsin from September 27-29, 2018.
Flack is currently a Senior Fellow at the Environmental Law & Policy Center where he is leading The Community-Based Environmental Monitoring and Public Health Advocacy Project. He is also developing a performance piece with the Invisible Institute, a Chicago-based community action group which monitors and disseminates data on police misconduct.
As a producer, he ran the Chicago Humanities Festival, the largest festival of arts and ideas in the United States from 2007 through 2012. From 1990–2007, he was a partner at the global consulting firm of McKinsey & Company.
Adrian Danzig
Adrian Danzig is the Founder and Creative Director of 500 Clown, a Chicago-based physical theater company. He has led workshops in physical theater all around the country and internationally. His credits include “Comedy of Errors” at California Shakespeare Festival, “The Feast: an intimate Tempest” at Chicago Shakespeare, and “The Better Half” with Lucky Plush Productions. He has performed in shows at The Goodman, The Second City, Steppenwolf Studio, Berkeley Rep, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Court Theatre and Lookingglass. Danzig was an early Neo-futurist and a founding member of Redmoon Theater and Hubinspoke Theater. He received his BA in government from Oberlin College and his MFA in performance from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago. He has studied clown with Ctibor Turba, Philippe Gaulier, Ronlin Foreman, Dominique Jando, Els Comediants, David Shiner and Avner the Eccentric, and was a clown with Big Apple Circus Clown Care. He is writing a book on physical theater with support from the Raven Foundation.
Jacob Mills
Jacob Mills is a professional actor, physical comedian and educator. He has been performing and teaching since 1974. He is a past artist-in-residence for Chicago, and his performances have been featured in a wide array of venues in the United States and Europe, including schools, theaters, festivals and cruise ships. Mills has performed with Cycropia Aerial Dance, Cherry Pop Burlesque and Chicago’s Zyngara New World Circus. He has been a featured instructor at the Rhinelander School of the Arts. From 1981-2009, he toured and performed with the juggling and comedy duo, Cheney and Mills. In 2002, he co-founded the Wild Rumpus Circus with Marcia Miquelon and teaches mime, mask movement forms, acting, improvisation and a variety of circus skills. Jacob studied theater at Cabrillo College in California, the Goodman School of Drama and graduated from Hayes-Marshall School of Theatre Arts in Portland, Oregon.
Marcia Miquelon
Marcia Miquelon is a dancer, improviser, aerialist, stilt walker movement teacher and project manager whose background includes ballet, modern dance, improvisation, African and Latin dance. She joined Cycropia Aerial Dance in 1994, and performed, taught, choreographed and directed projects with this unique artists’ collective for over 20 years. In 2002, she opened the Mazo Movement Arts Center and co-founded the Wild Rumpus Circus. She has produced many workshops, festivals and events featuring internationally known teaching artists, particularly in contact improvisation and aerial dance, and she has worked as a teacher and performer in locales including Andara, Namibia; Boeblingen, Germany; and Doha, Qatar. She holds a BA in modern studies from the University of Virginia, a 200-hour yoga teacher certification and an adjunct certification in the Skinner Releasing Technique (dance/movement).