Gayle Seymour has spearheaded many projects in her 31-year-career as a professor and administrator at the University of Central Arkansas. Those projects highlight what she believes is the importance of the arts in the community. However, none may have been as all-encompassing as her current project, Imagine If Buildings Could Talk: Mapping the
History of Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.
Seymour, professor of art history and associate dean of the UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication, said the project spotlights the history of Little Rock Central High School. It celebrates the 90th anniversary of its opening in 1927 and commemorates the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of the school in 1957 by what has become known as “The Little Rock Nine.”
“My vision, and that of my colleague, [UCA grant writer] Jennifer Deering, is to use the arts as entry points into the history of Little Rock Central High School and the tumultuous events surrounding school desegregation in 1957,” Seymour said. “Through video, visual art, music, dance, spoken word and architecture, we hope to bring this history to light in new ways that might engage young audiences in conversations about equity, inclusion and healing — conversations that are often difficult but somehow mitigated by the transformative power of the arts.”
Seymour, who took a sabbatical this summer to work on the project, said the idea for the project began several years ago and has evolved to what it is today — a multiday schedule of public events coordinated by the UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication, set mostly in Little Rock, with some activities at UCA. Events will begin Sept. 4 and continue through Sept. 25.
“I’m just this crazy person who likes to do stuff,” Seymour said, laughing, when asked how she became involved in this project. “We are a university. … If universities don’t do these kinds of projects, who will?”
The centerpiece of Imagine If Buildings Could Talk is a nine-minute, 3-D
projection-mapped, animated video titled “A Light in the Darkness,” produced by Scott Meador, UCA associate professor of digital filmmaking, and accompanying musical score composed and performed by Blake Tyson, UCA professor of percussion.
This video projection will be presented from 7:30-9:30 p.m. Sept. 23 and 24 at Little Rock Central High School, 1500 S. Park St. in Little Rock.
Meador, who took a sabbatical during the spring semester to work on the project, said the video will loop continuously on the front facade of Central High School and will feature visual effects created using extrusions, inclusions, shadowing, lighting passes and contrasts.
Meador said there are four parts of the video — construction of the building, school life, desegregation and the future.
Meador said he has searched through hundreds of photos from many sources, including the school’s newspapers and yearbooks, to depict school life, as well as historic military footage to depict the 1957 crisis. These images will be shown on the front of the building, which features the iconic architectural figures representing ambition, personality, opportunity and preparation.
Tyson has created “The Surface of the Sky,” an original score for keyboard percussion, featuring marimba, vibraphone and glockenspiel.
Many ensembles across the country will perform “The Surface of the Sky” this fall, including, in Arkansas, the Ouachita Baptist State University Percussion Ensemble, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville Percussion Ensemble, the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith Percussion Ensemble and the UCA Percussion Ensemble.
Tyson said he hopes his music “will inspire the students who perform it and the audiences who hear it to learn more about the achievements of the Little Rock Nine and to discover more about the sacrifices made by all those who have fought against racism and injustice across our country.
“I wanted this music to focus on how the Little Rock Nine changed the world.”
Tyson will present “The Surface of the Sky” at a free concert from 6-8 p.m. Sept. 8 at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, 100 S. Rock St. in Little Rock.
UCA will host a kickoff reception for Imagine If Buildings Could Talk at 3 p.m. Sept. 18 in the Mirror Room of McAlister Hall at UCA. The reception is free and open to the public.
Seymour said the idea for a project to focus on Little Rock Central High School and its desegregation began several years ago when Rollin Potter was dean of the UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication.
In 2014, the UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication commissioned an opera, The Little Rock Nine, and received funding for it from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Fred Darragh Foundation, the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, the Multi-Arts Production Fund, the Dorothy Morris Foundation and the UCA Office of Sponsored Programs.
“Work is progressing on the opera,” Seymour said. “We have a composer and a librettist.”
Tania Leon, composer, conductor and professor of music at Brooklyn College, has been commissioned as the composer of The Little Rock Nine. Thulani Davis, professor of Afro-
American studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is the librettist. Henry Louis Gates Jr., who is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University, as well as director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research, is the historian and consultant for the opera.
UCA will host An Evening With Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Tania Leon: Turning History into Art at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 25 in the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall at UCA. This event is a lecture with a preview performance of one scene from the Little Rock Nine opera, featuring performances by former UCA students in roles of some of the Little Rock Nine students.
Performers will include the following:
• Ronald W. Jensen-McDaniel, a 2010 UCA graduate with a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance and a 2013 graduate of the University of Limerick with a master’s degree in community music, will sing Jefferson Thomas’ aria.
• Candice Harris, a 2014 UCA graduate with a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance, will sing Minnijean Brown’s aria.
• Nisheedah Devre Golden, a 2008 UCA graduate with a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance, will sing Elizabeth Eckford’s aria.
• Kendra Thomas, a 2015 graduate of UCA with a bachelor’s degree in music education and performance, will sing Melba Pattillo’s aria.
This performance is the only paid event on the schedule. Tickets are $15 for the general public, and $5 for students, children and the UCA community. Tickets are available at uca.edu/tickets.
Another event requires “timed tickets.” Central High School architectural history bus tours are planned from noon to 5:30 p.m. Sept. 23 and 24 and will leave from the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site Visitor Center parking lot, which is across the street from the school at 2120 W. Daisy L. Gatson Bates Drive in Little Rock. These tours are sponsored by the UCA Department of History and the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. Free timed tickets are available at tinyurl.com/yaufz877 or by calling (501) 450-3451.
Major funding for Imagine If Buildings Could Talk: Mapping the History of Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site is provided in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service Imagine Your Parks grant. Additional funding comes from grants from the Mid-American Arts Alliance and the state arts agencies of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and
Texas, and from the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage and the National Endowment for the Arts.
For more information on the upcoming events, visit the website uca.edu/cfac/central60.