Arts & Entertainment
Music school
</
cuts budget““
with finesse,
director says
By Andrea Christensen
Staff Reporter
Budgets cuts usually are received
with fear, frustration and even panic.
But Rusty White, interim director
of the UNL School of Music, said the
school would handle its budget re
ductions with finesse.
“We decided to make one vertical
cut,” White said. “That was the elimi
nation of the All-State Fine Arts Pro
gram, a summer program that allows
high school students to work with
university faculty.”
Raymond Miller, All-State Fine
Arts Program director, said the pro
gram, which costs the University of
Ncbraska-Lincoln $15,(XX) annually,
has run for the last 26 years. For one
week each summer, the program
brought about 3(X) talented high school
musicians, artists, actors and dancers
to UNL for education and recruit
ment.
White said plans already were being
made to replace the All-State Fine
Arts Program with a self-supporting
program. One such program is the
Great Plains Symphonic Band Camp
scheduled for June 14-19.
“We arc working from the ground
up," White said. “We are still in the
planning stages right now, but we
hope to offer programs for orchestra
and choir musicians as well. We think
these programs will serve the same
recruitment and educational goals as
the All-State Fine Arts Program did.”
But when faculty vacancies occur,
White said, “Retiring senior faculty
will be replaced by junior faculty
who receive lower salaries.”
White said these reductions would
not reduce the quality of education
offered by the music school.
“We haven’t eliminated anything
that will adversely affect our ability
to offer courses or educate students,”
White said.
White said he hoped funding for
the School of Music would increase
when it became part of the College of
Fine Arts.
“When (UNL Chancellor Graham)
Spanier announced the plans for the
College of Fine Arts,” White said,
“he made it clear that the SI50,000
budgeted for that purpose would be
used to address programming needs,
not just to set up a new administra
tion.”
White also said he was optimistic
that being part of a fine arts college
would increase the music school’s
prestige.
“The image of the arts will be
improved generally,” he said.
See MUSIC on 10
Michelle Paulman/DN
• % , f
Artist Gerardo Meza stands before his painting “La Calavera De Mis Esvenos” (The Skeleton of My Dreams), part of his exhibit
at The Coffee House, 1324 P St.
From the roots
Local artist’s paintings celebrate his Mexican heritage
PEOPLE
By Mark Baldridge
Senior Reporter
Handsome and brooding,
Gerardo Meza looks like he should
be posing for pictures, not painting
them. But that’s what this 28-year
old Lincolnite has been doing for as
long as he can remember.
I talked with Gerardo over
steaming cups of expensive coffee,
surrounded by his paintings at The
Coffee House, 1324 P St., where his
works will be displayed through
March 7.
He was shy at first, tentatively
responding to questions about his
life and background. But once the
conversation switched to painting,
his words became animated. He
talked so quickly that I had to
struggle to write it all down.
The son of Mexican immigrants,
Gerardo’s art reflects his roots.
“I guess it all comes from that
tradition, that heritage,” he said of
the Hispanic influence that perme
ates his work.
He cites as major influences the
Mexican muralists of the early
1900s and the work of Frida Kahlo,
wife of Diego Rivera, whose
paintings explored a personal
reality.
“Mexico has finally reached a
place where artists are dealing with
their own personal themes,” he said.
Decorated with snakes, skulls
and saints, many of Gerardo’s
paintings illustrate what he called
“the Mexican tradition that death is
part of life.”
“You mourn,” he said, “but it’s
also a celebration.”
"And the snake is a symbol of
life in Aztec culture,” he added.
“It’s not a morbid thing.”
Yet Gerardo has plenty of reason
to be morbid. In 1990 he survived
the death of his father, a divorce
and the death of a friend.
Since then, he’s worked on
several paintings that try to explore
what is beyond death.
“That’s my therapy,” he said,
“It’s the only thing that brings joy
to me.”
The paintings on display at The
Coffee House were created during
1990-92, and can be read as a kind
of exploratory diary of his recovery.
“It’s just like looking in a
mirror,” he says of one painting,
titled “El Sucno De La Muertc”
(The Dream of Death). “It’s about
trying to keep the faith when you
don’t see any hope.”
It is in his portraits that Ger
ardo’s art seems most certain of
itself.
“The portraits arc trying to
express some kind of emotion —
anguish,” he said.
Two among these that stand out
arc: “Lucia,” a portrait of his 3
ycar-old daughter Carmen and “Soy
Yo” (It’s Me), a self-portrait.
In other paintings he abandons
all pretense of realism and explores
the images of dreams. These
paintings arc of uneven quality, but
show a steady growth over time,
and a sure grasp of principles.
One of the best of these is “El
Chango Rey” (The Monkey King)
which, in Gerardo’s words, “keeps
changing. You can look at it every
day and find something new.”
In some of these later paintings,
people appear with bluish skin.
Gerardo got tired of hearing
people say all his subjects were
Hispanic, “So I just invented
different minorities,” he said.
In fact, Gerardo has met resis
tance from local art galleries to his
paintings because of their ethnicity
and surreal style.
“Some people say good art is
See MEZA on 10
Releases range from
rentable to repulsive
By Anne Steyer
Staff Reporter_
The three R’s are coining home to
video this week: Retro, Rentable and
Reprehensible.
“The Rocketeer” (PG) Disney s
version of the comic-book film is
based on Dave Stevens’ 1982 hom
age to aviation all-stars and 1930s
Southern California.
Daring stunt pilot Cliff Secord (Bill
Campbell) is the hero who, by chance,
finds a strap-on rocket pack.
While Secord and his mechanic
buddy (Alan Arkin in an Einstein
inspired role) are trying to figure out
the pack, a number of other people,
including the FBI and the Nazis, are
trying to locate it.
Secord has a lot of fancy flying to
do, between keeping the pack from
enemy hands, foiling the Nazis’ newest
power scheme, and of course, saving
his actress-girlfriend (Jennifer Con
nelly).
And when he does strap on that ,
rocket pack, he goes ZOOM! looking"
like a hip bug.
“The Rocketeer” features some
See RELEASES on 10
Known jazz artists featured
in weekend music festival
Cpprprt
By George K. Stephan
Staff Reporter
This weekend’s Nebraska Jazz
Festival marks an opportunity to
hear jazz from locally and nation
ally known musicians.
The festival begins tonight with
a concert featuring internationally
known jazz musician Kahil El’
Zabar and the University of Ne
braska-Lincoln Jazz Ensemble at 8
at Kimball Recital Hall. El’ Zabar
studied in Africa and utilizes tradi
lional African instruments in mod
ern-day jazz.
On Saturday, some of Nebraska’s
top high school jazz bands will
compete in the Nebraska High
School Jazz Band Competition
beginning at 10:30 a.m.
The Kim Park Quartet, a Kan
sas City jazz group that will be
judging the band competition, will
have workshops Saturday afternoon
for students and anyone wanting to
learn more about jazz. The quartet
then will perform with the compe
tition winner at 8 p.m. Saturday at
Kimball Recital Hall.
The jazz will continue Sunday
with the performance of the Ne
braska Jazz Orchestra at 2:30 p.m.
at Westbrook Recital Hall.
The festival will climax when
the Count Basie Orchestra performs
with Dizzy Gillespie at 4 p.m. at
the Lied Center for Performing Arts.
Gillespie is a jazz institution and
one of the most influential musi
cians in jazz history.
Although the concert is sold out,
cancellations are possible. Tickets
for the concert are $24, $20 and
$16 with half-price tickets for stu
dents. „
Tickets for all Kimball Recital
Hall concerts arc available at the
door or by calling the Lied Center
Box Office.