Nikhil Dasgupta '16

Portrait of an artist: Tyrelle Johnson '15

“Just like a late-night conversation that you would have with friends—you know, when you have those life talks. Let’s just model that on stage,” said Tyrelle Johnson ’15.
Thus began the task of writing and directing “Perspectives,” a play performed during Orientation that portrays the diversity of experiences and backgrounds in the first year class. The show is based on short essays first years write before entering Bowdoin, describing their life experiences through challenges.
Taking on “Perspectives,” a Bowdoin Orientation tradition, was a new endeavor for Johnson. He has not been heavily involved in theater groups since high school and the job was one of many that Johnson applied for on campus this summer. Luckily, he said, the experience was a positive one.
Johnson said that condensing the life experiences of 505 individual students into one play with only six actors was not an easy task. It was a balancing act of representing everyone and avoiding repetition of similar stories.
“They were pretty much similar in that they asked the same questions to all the students. I had to be really creative to figure out ways to not make it so monotonous.”
Johnson wanted to highlight not only the similarities between students but also the differences.
“I was very serious about having it about class issues. The only way to do that is to pull out things that would signify what social-economic status people come from,” said Johnson. “I would look for things about trips that people who are poor couldn’t afford—things of that nature.”
These anecdotes were harder for Johnson to find than stories from the other end of the spectrum.
“It was much easier to find stories based on poverty than those of privilege,” he said. “Nobody who has a lot of money is going to sit there and talk about how much money they have, especially in a college essay.”
Choosing quotes was a process of digging below the surface.
“I had to really examine what these people were talking about and if that took money, and what resources it took to do that,” he said. “I had to really question certain stories.”
Johnson said he was more nervous presenting his own writing than he was performing.
“I had such a huge stake in it. I didn’t want anyone to feel like their story was represented in the wrong way. I hoped that people would laugh at the parts that I meant to be funny—which wound up happening. It worked.”
The goal of the production was to give an accurate overview of all the backgrounds that make up a typical class at Bowdoin. Johnson hopes the show made first years more aware of the other students they will be spending the next four years with.
“The show is really about developing a foundation—sort of a commonality among people—so they can actually discuss issues,” he said. “I hope that the show impacted them enough so that they might actually want to learn about their peers and figure out things that they may not have thought of. I want people to be connected.”
Outside of this project, Johnson’s main artistic outlet is singing in the Meddiebempsters and his band, The Jboard. But it was performing in theater productions in high school that gave Johnson the confidence on stage he has now.
“Over time I just developed natural ways of being on stage. It just works for me. I just try to use my natural self-taught methods in this process—which has actually worked out because singing on stage is not that different from acting on stage.”
Johnson feels that his main contribution to the Meddiebempsters is bringing character to the performances.
“When I get on stage, I just know how to interact with people. I just get really goofy,” he said.
Like many students, Johnson’s artistic pursuits have been a part of his education, but ultimately Johnson would like to use his Government and Legal Studies major to become a judge. For now, singing is just a hobby.
“It just makes life around here a little nicer,” he said. “That’s all.”

Portrait of an artist: Stevie Lane '15

It’s hard to believe that simple loops of metal wire can be transformed into complex forms like hands and feet, but Stevie Lane ’15 makes it possible. She is exploring the twists and turns of wire sculpture through an independent study with Sculptor-in-Residence John Bisbee.
Lane is using this semester to make a self-portrait out of black annealed rebar wire, playing off a similar project that she enjoyed in Sculpture II.
“Bowdoin doesn’t have [a sculpture course] after Sculpture II, so I spoke with Bisbee and asked if I could do an independent study with him in wire, since that was something I really loved when I did it in Sculpture II,” said Lane.
“Bisbee was really encouraging in terms of what I made [for that assignment], so that was really my kind of reason for wanting to continue to explore my ability to articulate shapes with wire and work with realism instead of the abstract,” she said.
The personal power of a self-portrait interested Lane.
“Self-portraits are so much a part of the tradition of drawing...I can’t draw well, but I see this as my own interpretation of the self-portrait assignment—just that it’s three dimensional and my “graphite” is the wire itself!” she added in an email to the Orient.
Lane hopes that this self-portrait—set in heroic scale, which is about one and a half times the size of her own body—will ultimately be free-standing. However, making a large structures like a full-body self-portrait and having it support itself will be a challenging task.
Since she doesn’t weld or solder the wire, “There’s potential for [the sculpture] to be a lot weaker,” said Lane. “You also have to come up with creative ways to attach things.”
Therefore, her final project, which will go on display in the beginning of December, may not end up being a fully-formed figure but instead a series of body parts like hands. To Lane, the final product is not her only goal for the independent study.
“You really get to learn...about your material,” she said. “By narrowing your focus, you have to push yourself to dig deeper...and [to see] what comes out of that.”
Lane is more familiar with the “hot” connections created by glue or soldering than the type of work she is currently pushing herself to explore.
“Ever since I was really young…[my mom and I] used to put down newspaper and get hardware like nuts and bolts and s-hooks…I used to make these little animals by hot gluing hardware together,” she said.
Lane is a Government and Legal Studies major with an English minor and hasn’t taken any visual arts courses outside of sculpture. However, she said Bisbee is one of her favorite professors.
“This independent study is just an excuse to get to work closely with him,” she said.“He, I think, is somehow able to get everybody to produce the best work that they possibly could and I don’t even know how he does it,” said Lane.
While she has at times considered a career in art, it seems that sculpting and metal-working will remain a serious hobby.
“I don’t really know how far I could pursue art. I don’t even know how I’d begin, but it’s definitely something that I’m always going to do on the side, something I do do all the time when I’m at home,” she said.
Lane’s involvement on campus extends beyond her sculpture. She also hosts a radio show, co-leads the volunteer program Book Buddies where students work with ESL students at local schools, contributes to the literary magazine The Quill, and pole vaulted on the varsity track team up until this year. Next semester, she will be pursuing an independent study in creative writing, her other artistic interest.

Portrait of an artist

September 26, 2014

« »

There’s more to Nikhil Dasgupta ’16 than blazers, khaki pants and barber shop tunes. A member of Bowdoin’s oldest a cappella group, the Meddiebempsters, Dasgupta has recently released an extended play (EP) recording.
“It might be a little precocious to call it that,” said Dasgupta.
Instead, he called the recording “more [of] just a collection of thoughts over the past years, so it’s not like anything specific. It’s more like what’s been going on in my head.”
This summer Dasgupta and his roommate Zach Albert ’16 decided to get into the studio together and record an alternative folk EP, which they plan to share with people who are interested in their music. Albert played the drums and Dasgupta played all the other instruments for the recordings.
The Circus, Dasgupta’s band at Bowdoin, mostly covers other bands, but also writes and performs some of its own original songs. The band consists of Dasgupta and Albert, as well as juniors Harry Rube, Chris MacDonald, Simon Moushabeck, and Shan Nagar.
It all started two years ago with a group of friends who lived in same first-year dorm.
“We got together and started playing,” said Dasgupta.
The band likes “doing [its] own interpretation of songs…like old rock [and] songs that are upbeat and would work at a party,” said Dasgupta.
Dasgupta has lived in many different places and went to high school at the American Embassy School in New Delhi, India, but now calls Dover, Mass. his home.
Currently a mathematics major, he plays guitar and has played piano since age eight.
He decided to continue his musical journey all the way into college, and auditioned for the Meddiebempsters as a first year.
Dasgupta said he likes the different approach the Meddiebempsters take to collegiate a cappella, which tends to be very pop-oriented. The Meddiebempsters instead incorporate old-fashioned barbershop arrangements, and Dasgupta said he enjoys getting to take a break from the music he hears elsewhere every day.
His participation in the Meddiebempsters has defined his Bowdoin experience. All of his closest friends are from the Meddies, and Dasgupta finds it “musically very fulfilling as well.”
In the future, Dasgupta hopes to continue with music by working as a sound engineer or by working for a record label.
“I always wanted to go somewhere with it, [but] that probably doesn’t mean playing in a band on stage,” he said.
Dasgupta said he loves the feeling he gets when performing on stage with his band.
“It’s easy to feed off the audience getting really excited,” he said.
“Some of the most fun I’ve had at Bowdoin has been on stage.”
Dasgupta says that performing with the Meddiebempsters is different because of the dynamic of the large group.
“We are all sort of supporting each other in a sense,” he said.
“It’s like we are just hanging out and making jokes with ourselves and singing.”
Although Dasgupta’s schedule can be hectic—with mathematics and computer science courses taking up much of his time—he enjoys keeping busy.
“It’s dangerous for me to not have something to do,” he said.

Comments are permanently closed.