‘Rites of Spring’ performance showcases student talent

The latest addition to Carolina Performing Arts’ “The Rite of Spring at 100” season is being presented by students — instead of world-renowned artists.

“Rites of Spring: Performing Modernism” is the final project and performance for Joseph Megel’s literature in performance class and Kathy Perkins’ lighting design class.

It also features a performance in the second act by Ashley Lucas, a UNC drama professor. She will perform excerpts from her solo show about the experience of having a family member in prison.

Megel directs Lucas’ show as well as his students’ readings of modern works from authors like William Faulkner, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.

Megel said that for his class, the performance is an opportunity for real-life application of course concepts.

“You must understand it to perform it,” Megel said.

“It’s a deep understanding of what literature is doing than when you read and write a paper. A way of analyzing, of criticizing, of deeply engaging in literary performance is one of the strongest ways to do it.”

Megel said his students are interpreting the works in a contemporary setting.

“I didn’t want them to perform as written,” he said.

“It’s not an adaptation. When we’re seeing a young, Southern UNC college man saying the words of Joyce, those words are reimagined by that embodying of them.”

Students in Perkins’ drama class focused on lighting the production.

Perkins said particular scenes of the production dictated how the students should light them.

“For Lucas’ scene in a waiting room, we wanted a very cold, stark feeling,” she said.

“For scenes that take place in a club, students used reds and blues to make it look colorful and seedy.”

This production marks the end of Lucas’ time in the dramatic art department. She is leaving UNC in December.

Lucas’ show — “Doin’ Time: Through the Visiting Glass” — is a collection of 13 monologues taken from interviews she conducted with family members of prisoners — a subject that hits close to home for her.

“My father is incarcerated in Texas,” Lucas said.

“I was looking to interview other people like me. I ended up doing quite a bit of research and finding a lot of people.”

Lucas said she has performed her show in prisons and describes it as a moving experience.

“People in prison have very little chances to experience art, so it’s very meaningful to them to know that someone came to spend time with them and offer something artistic,” she said.

The classes’ performance features Igor Stravinsky’s score for “The Rite of Spring.”

“I thought that teaching a performance of literature class that focused on modernist literature would investigate ‘The Rite of Spring’ in a different way,” he said.

“It will be interesting to see the connection of this piece of music and what it means to art with the expression of literature and what it means to be performed.”

Contact the desk editor at arts@dailytarheel.com.