Feet to the Fire

Feet to the Fire is a major undertaking on Wesleyan’s campus to examine critical environmental issues through multiple lenses, from science to art.  This program is dedicated to the proposition that a multidisciplinary examination that includes art will provide a more comprehensive and deeper understanding of these global issues. The Feet to the Fire (F2F) program includes lectures, performances, co-taught teaching modules, and courses by the faculty, visiting artists and lecturers, student run fora, community eco-arts festivals, afterschool programs for children, and the First Year Matters program. Each year, the campus adopts an environmental theme for its First Year Matters program, such as water, global climate change or hunger.  During orientation, first-year students engage in multidisciplinary discussions about the theme as well as participate in a Common Moment in which the arts are used to catalyze and embody our understanding.

Feet to the Fire was originally launched in 2008 with a leadership grant from Arts Presenters Creative Campus Innovations Program, a component of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Doris Duke renewed their support of the project with an additional grant to extend over 2010 and 2011.

In 2011-2012 the campus will be focused on the energy theme F2F: Fueling the Future. Programs associated with this theme include:

Trading Futures by Asphalt Orchestra

Part of the First Year Matters program for new students, the Center for the Arts commissioned the performing group Asphalt Orchestra to create a new work based on the energy theme. It was performed by over 650 new students at the Common Moment.

Film Screening of Gasland

Sponsored by Usdan University Center

Learn more about this environmental documentary at its website.

Moving Planet Day

Community event to recognize 350.org's international day to reduce fossil fuel use. This event was accomplished in collaboration with Middletown Community Members and Middlesex Community College.

One World House

A full-sized, eight-foot-square wood and sheet metal model of a typical house in many rural communities in underdeveloped countries. Accompanied by panels relating problems these countries are experiencing because of climate change.

In partnership with Wesleyan University's College of the Environment as well as the student organizations Wesleyan University's Environmental Organizer's Network and WILDWes.

Recycling Pain

Ron Jenkins, Professor Theater, was commissioned by the Center for the Arts to create a new play based on Jenkins work with incarcerated men and women in Italy, Indonesia and the United States who were inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy and serves as a reminder of the importance of conserving and recylcing the human resources is as important as conserving and recylcing the natural resources of our planet. On September 28 he read from this commissioned work with the assistance of three formerly incarcerated women, followed by a panel discussion and question and answer session.

Water is Rising: Music and Dance from the Pacific Atolls of Kiribati, Tokelau and Tuvalu

In their first-ever United States tour, 36 dancers and musicians express their deep connection to nature and their ancestral past through milti-part harmonies, poetry and gracious movement. Located close to sea level, these islands are already experiencing rising sea levels as a result of global warming and climate change.

A project of the UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance in collaboration with the Foundation for World Arts and the EarthWays Foundation. Co-Sponsored by the New England Foundation for the Arts and the Wesleyan University College of the Environment.

SPILL

Commissioned by the Center for the Arts, Leigh Fondakowski developed wrote a new play based on her research in Louisiana on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Fondakowski will preview this work for the first time at Wesleyan.

work divided by time

This new sound installation by Assistant Professor of Music Paula Matthusen examines the historical and cultural concepts of energy. It will feature a series of handmade, wooden instruments that emit recorded whispers from the power of burning candles - a transformation of energy from its literal manifestations to its mysterious and cultural incarnations. Commissioned by the Center for the Arts.

Also associated with this theme is a co-taught course, the Deeptwater Horizon Tragedy: A Scientific and Artistic Inquiry, that was led by Professor Barry Chernoff and Playwright Leigh Fondakowski. During the summer semester the students learned the science behind the Gulf Coast oil spill and applied it to their final performances that were inspired by their experiences during a 10-day trip to the New Orleans region.