Beyond the Machine

A Window Into Collaboration

Each year Juilliard’s Center for Innovation in the Arts (fondly known as the CIA) presents Beyond the Machine, a festival of innovative music and interdisciplinary art that’s created and performed by advanced students and recent alumni from all divisions. Emily Duncan spoke with two of the four students who have created work for the community-only festival performances, on March 15 and 16. There is also a public performance of original music-tech works by Juilliard students, on March 23 and 24.

First I spoke with Jack McGuire, a fourth-year bassist by day and techno music wizard by night; his project is called Rear Window.

What was your inspiration?

Jack McGuire: It started as the intro to an album I was going to make, but I was getting frustrated because I wasn’t working with a band, and it was difficult to play all the instrumental parts myself. I started using more and more electronic sounds, things I could create on my own. I also started working with faculty members Mari Kimura (DMA ’93, violin) and Ed Bilous (MM ’80, DMA ’84, composition) and was deeply influenced by the creative possibilities offered in a production studio. One night I was listening to a piece I was working on. It was raining outside. I looked out my window at a TV flashing—in another apartment. It made me think of the Hitchcock movie Rear Window, which I’ve always loved. And in that moment, the idea for the piece came together. It’s based on the idea of looking through a series of windows. The video projection design is made up of shots that look through the windows in my apartment. They let you look into people’s lives and share an intimate experience without their ever knowing. When I perform this piece, I’ll stand center stage behind a window, and I’ll be singing. I’m not a trained singer and it’ll be scary but also really exciting. In a way, the audience will be getting to look through a window into my private life.

What’s next for you?

JM: Through the CIA and summer festivals I’m involved in, I want to get footage together to make a reel for more projects. I’d love to keep working as a projection designer and as an artist/performer. It’s amazing that I can do all these things and that I’m so supported by the CIA. Had I not started working with Ed Bilous, I wouldn’t have known that all these creative opportunities were open to me.

Do you have any advice for your fellow Juilliard students?

JM: I encourage everyone here to take a class in the CIA. Not a lot of people know about the classes. The support is there for adventurous work, you just have to ask.”

Drama alum Helen Cespedes (Group 42) and I discussed Double Stars—her playwriting and directorial debut—which she wrote about the 18th-century brother-and-sister astronomers William and Caroline Herschel.

How has changing from being an actress to a writer-director making interdisciplinary work been for you, and how have you grown as an artist throughout this process?

Helen Cespedes: As an actor, I’ve had many rewarding collaborations, but I found myself hungry to tell alternate stories, particularly about women who peek out from behind famous men of history. I was also hungry to be in the seat of creative control. Through this process, I’ve been afforded a crash course in lighting, video, and projection design; interactive technology; and seminars with creative professionals in the film and immersive theater industries. This directorial boot-camp has allowed me to participate in production meetings with a solid foundation of knowledge and to speak intelligently with the top-notch professional designers working on our pieces.

What have you learned from Beyond the Machine?

HC: It’s so gratifying to communicate my vision and witness my collaborators channel it through their own artistic medium, whether visual or sonic or rhythmic, and make the story exponentially richer. I think this richness is a testament to the generosity and skill of the staff and designers involved in Beyond the Machine and also the infectious wonder and curiosity of the Herschels.

Second-year flute master’s student Emily Duncan holds the Helen P. Houle Scholarship and the Rhea Cloe and Carl Cloe Memorial Scholarship