A glance at the shows advertised on the Hopkins Center marquee and campus bulletin boards reveals that the College's many artistic students seem to always be on stage.
With its funding, facilities and supportive faculty, the College provides an environment which encourages students to try out for existing groups, create new ensembles and plan performances.
Dartmouth students have been directing their own plays, arranging a cappella music, choreographing dance and entertaining the community since the early 1800s.
Hop Performing Ensembles
The Hopkins Center sponsors nine student performing groups: the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble, the Chamber Singers, the Glee Club, the Handel Society, the Gospel Choir, the Symphony Orchestra, the Marching Band, the Wind Symphony and the World Music Percussion Ensemble.
All of the ensembles are formed through auditions held mainly in the Fall term.
Because the ensemble groups are sponsored and funded by the Hopkins Center, student direction in the group varies widely from the mostly student-run Marching Band to those run "more like professional" groups with the director or conductor picking the repertoire.
The Barbary Coast specializes in music of the American jazz tradition and performs once each term with a selected guest jazz artist who stays at the College for a week.
The Barbary Coast is moderately sized with about 20 members and is directed by Music Professor Don Glasgo. It was founded around 1924, according to Hopkins Center Director Lewis Crickard.
The Chamber Singers, one of the more recent additions to the ensemble groups, perform a range of classical vocal music from madrigals to choral-orchestral and contemporary music. Their group performs in a fall concert with a chamber orchestra and also produces the "Feast of Song" each January.
The "Feast of Song" is produced, directed and staged by the members and incorporates a unique mixture of song, dance, costumes and drama. The group is directed by Music Professor Charles Houmard.
The Glee Club, an ensemble of 45 to 50 singers, is a more contemporary singing group. The group performs a diverse selection that includes major choral-orchestral works and smaller a cappella pieces. The Glee Club, which is conducted by Louis Burkot, is over 125 years old.
The Handel Society, which was founded in 1807, is the oldest of the ensemble groups, Handel Society Conductor Melinda O'Neal said.
But the Handel Society was not always as it is today -- it has been an orchestral and singing organization. Today it performs the "canon of the oral choral repertoire" which includes Bach, Handel and Brahms, O'Neal said.
The Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra, the Hopkins Center's resident orchestra, is composed of Dartmouth students as well as some members of the community and graduate students. The 100-member group performs a symphonic repertoire and is conducted by Music Lecturer Anthony Princiotti.
The Marching Band is very prominent among the Hopkins Center Ensembles. Their scatter-band plays music and student-written half-time scripts at Dartmouth home football games and several away games, such as the Dartmouth-Harvard game. It is directed by Max Culpepper and a student directorate.
Culpepper also conducts the Wind Symphony, which performs once each term, playing pieces from all historical periods.
The World Music Percussion Ensemble, directed by Music Professor Hafiz Shabazz, brings diverse and unique forms of music to the College. The group plays a variety of musical styles, including that of the Caribbean Islands and Brazil as well as African-American hip-hop.
All nine performance groups are funded through the Hopkins Center and share concerns about the availability of space.
Kevin Findlan '99, DSO manager, said funding for the orchestra "isn't very big, but then again it doesn't need to be," because most of the members own their instruments so there are no repair costs.
The Marching Band, however, uses the community's instruments and thus often has maintenance expenses.
Princiotti said picking music for the DSO is sometimes limited by costs.
O'Neal said musical selection and performance material for the Handel Society are very motivated by cost considerations.
"Because we hire orchestras and guest soloists, sometimes [money] is a little tight," she said. "The Hopkins Center [would be] generous in its funding if we were doing two concerts a year, but three is a little close."
Both groups bring in revenues for the Hopkins Center by virtue of their performances.
"We rake in a lot of money by ticket sales and are very well supported by the community," Findlan said.
But one issue that is becoming more contentious is the current space crunch for the arts.
"What's happened in the past 20 to 25 ... years is there's been a real explosion in student ensembles at Dartmouth," Princiotti said.
He added the increase in the student population with coeducation has also had an impact on student involvement in the arts.
But the facilities have not adapted or changed to meet this increase.
On some nights, it is possible to find multiple groups fighting over the tiny basement rehearsal space in the Hopkins Center, Princiotti said.
"In a funny way, the DSO gets a great advantage because we rehearse more often in Spaulding" than other ensembles because of the size of the DSO, Princiotti said.
But for the Handel society, space is an even bigger issue. The group currently rehearses in Cook Auditorium, a lecture hall in the Thayer School of Engineering.
"It would be better to have a real rehearsal hall instead of a lecture hall," O'Neal said. "Sometimes we get kicked out because of a guest lecturer."
Dartmouth Drama
Student actors, actresses, costume designers and directors alike find their niche at the College.
Drama Department Chair Paul Gaffney said his department is one of the largest artistic outlets at the College.
He said hundreds of students perform or work backstage in productions each year.
The drama department produces four main stage productions a year and sponsors nine to 12 student-directed productions a year.
Each of the main-stage productions is directed by a drama professor and occasionally includes guest actors. Working with faculty directors and drama guests is a good mix for students, Gaffney said.
The productions are planned almost a year in advance by the faculty because of their intense nature, Gaffney said.
The drama department tries a "wide range of material" in every genre, Gaffney said.
"It's teaching by example," he said. "Ninety-nine percent of the work is done by students with faculty leadership."
Each term, students can submit proposals sponsored by a faculty advisor. Gaffney said the department gives each proposal careful consideration.
"We don't let the students just pick things out of thin air," he said. "Every now and then we have to say a proposal is unrealistic."
Student shows are directed by students with the only official input in the form of advice from the faculty advisor.
"The faculty role in that is to supervise and mentor the students," Gaffney said.
The Drama Department gets funding for their own productions and the student productions from three sources: the College, the Student Activities Office and ticket sales from the Hopkins Center box office.
"From those three sources we make our budgets and we have to come out in the black because there's nobody to bail us out if we don't," Gaffney said.
Every year, the College gives the department an amount from which it funds its productions. The Student Activities fee charged to each student helps fund reduced ticket prices for students.
"We negotiate with [the] Student Activities [Office] based on how many students came [to productions] last year," Gaffney said.
The department must also make estimates of the potential audience size.
Student productions and the department's main production share the Moore and Bentley Theaters.
COSO Groups
Twelve performance groups are recognized by the College through the Committee on Student Organizations: three male a cappella groups -- the Aires, the Cords and Final Cut, two female a cappella groups -- the Decibelles and the Rockapellas, the coed a cappella Dodecaphonics, the Christian gospel a cappella group X.ado, the rhythm and blues a cappella group Femme Fatale, the theatrical troupe Harlequins and three dancing groups -- Fusion, Sheba and Steppin' Out.
Sheba is a hip-hop dance group, while Fusion presents traditional modern and hip-hop dance, but also has a dance repertoire of jazz, ballet, tap and step. Steppin' Out is a tap-dancing group.
Groups recognized through COSO are self-supporting but handle expenses and finances through COSO.
The advantages of being recognized by the College include the right to use Dartmouth's name and to receive College assistance with finances.
Dodecs member Matt Wrobel '99 said the College was "decently supportive" through COSO.
Handling finances through COSO means all groups must produce receipts for all expenses to keep their accounts properly managed. Wrobel said this was a "hassle at times," because "it can get tedious when we need to ask them for money for whatever we do," he said.
But getting paid is much easier when the College handles finances, he added.
Wrobel said a cappella groups use money for road trips, tours and especially when they create albums.
A main advantage of COSO recognition is the free use of College programming space such as the Collis Common Ground.
But such space is now being downsized with the recent renovation of Webster Hall. "The construction at Webster really ruined a mid-sized programming space," Wrobel said. "You could do anything there."
