The Ohio Arts Council has made Individual Artist Fellowship awards to three Oberlin College faculty members: assistant professor of dance Ann Cooper Albright, professor of electronic and computer music Gary Lee Nelson, and associate professor of dance Elesa Rosasco. Oberlin resident June Goodwin (whose husband is professor of politics Benjamin Schiff) also received a grant. The council makes awards not for specific projects but in recognition of ongoing accomplishments.
Albright received a $5,000 award for dance criticism. In October at an Ohio State University graduate dance colloquium she gave an invited lecture, "Choreography Difference." Instead of traveling to the American Studies Association conference in Atlanta she sent a video to make a presentation titled "Dance and Issues of Disability,"--"an apt subject," she says, "as I was then temporarily disabled--hence the need to do it via video."
In November at the Congress on Research in Dance conference in Texas Albright gave a talk, "Techno Bodies, or Muscling with Gender in Contemporary Dance," and a workshop, "Many Words: An Integrated Approach to Writing and Dancing." In December she taught a master class in contact improvisation at Case Western Reserve University. In March her essay titled "Incalculable Choreographies" was published in an anthology, Bodies of the Text, published by Rutgers University Press.
Nelson received a $5,000 award for musical composition. With his application he submitted two recent works, "Goss" and "Refractions," both for MIDI horn, computer, and digital synthesizers (Observer 27 April 1995, 10 November 1994). Nelson will use most of the grant to upgrade equipment in his studio.
Rosasco's grant for up to $10,000 is for choreography. With her application she submitted a piece titled "When She Finally Opened Her Mouth to Speak." She choreographed it for the Oberlin Dance Company, which presented it November 1993 in the Fall Forward concert in Warner Center. Later it was performed in Finney and at Kendal at Oberlin. Rosasco plans to use part of the grant for equipment, such as a CD player. "All I have in the way of technology is a telephone," she says.
