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WHAT'S YOUR SIGN?
Aries (March 21-April 19) Today and tomorrow get
KANSAN.COM | MONDAY, NOV. 2, 2015
Today and tomorrow get fun. Creative play with friends and family suits you. Discuss passions. Financial planning with partners sets the stage (over the next three weeks) for an imagined future. Invest in home, family and property. Demand? York
Taurus (April 20-May 20)
Discussions with partners bear fruit over the next three weeks, with Mercury in Scorpio. Play with long-range plans. Listen for what they want. Choose your course.
Household issues demand attention today and tomorrow. Family comes first.
Gemini (May 21-June 20) Things are starting to make
sense. Study, write and research flow today and tomorrow. Soak up local culture. Work booms over the next three weeks, with Mercury in Scorpio. Get what you need, within budget.
Cancer (June 21-July 22) Today and tomorrow are good for making (and spending) money. For the next three weeks, with Mercury in Scorpio, it's easier to express your feelings and creativity. Get physical about a passion. Dance, run and play.
Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)
Mercury in Scorpio inspires home renovation over the next three weeks. Discuss designs and colors. You're especially confident and sensitive today and tomorrow. Fill your home with love to surround your family. This
revitalizes you.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)
Passions run wild. You may need to move fast. Seduce your audience over the next three weeks, with Mercury in Scorpio. Write, broadcast and record. Notice your dreams today and tomorrow. Look back for insight
on the road ahead.
Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
Figure out whom to ask for help. Teamwork wins today
and tomorrow. For the next three weeks income depends on strong communications, with Mercury in Scorpio. Establish your message clearly. Get expert assistance. Don't try to do
everything.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)
For about three weeks it's easier to make difficult personal decisions, with Mercury in your sign. Share your vision. You're powerful and attractive. Hold your temper. Smolder pensively.
A professional challenge requires focus today and tomorrow. Keep practical stability.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)
Relaxation and playfulness restore you today and tomorrow. Expand your perspective. Explore cultural arts and pleasures.
Retrospection and reflection occupy you over the next three weeks (with Mercury in Scorpio). Complete the old phase and prepare for what's next.
Capricom (Dec. 22-Jan.19) A creative collaboration feeds your spirit. For about three weeks, with Mercury in Scorpio, go further as a team. Plan carefully, and listen to your partner's view. Handle financial matters today and tomorrow. Take care of family.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Develop your partnership today and tomorrow. Talk things over and align on the plan. Professional opportunities arise over the next three
weeks (with Mercury in Scorpio), and communication is the key that unlocks
doors.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
Exotic adventures pull you over the next three weeks.
Research, study and learn
voraciously. Today and tomorrow get busy, so focus on providing great service, while you plan your next getaway. Resolve logistics
and make reservations.
Art in focus: Michael Krueger
MYSHA PHELPS
@KansanNews
Natural change and progression is a running theme for artist and University art professor Michael Krueger, both in his work and teaching methods.
Krueger's art is a compilation of colors, ranging from bold to pastel-like. His designs play with texture and a combination of natural and synthetic materials. In his hometown of Sioux Falls, S.D., Michael Krueger said he knew he wanted to be an artist at a very young age. He grew up around artists.
His father was an artist and an activist in the American Indian Movement who advocated for native's rights. His home was often visited by people with unique visions of art and the world around them.
"I was exposed to a community of free thinkers, radicals and friends of my dad." Krueger said.
Krueger experiments in various styles, but his classes specialize in drawing and printmaking. Employing ink, colored pencils, acrylics, gesso, lithography and a wealth of other art styles, he has a vast collection of work that has been showcased in reception rooms across the United States. His art has also been exposed and enriched during his travels throughout the world.
When he entered into the University of South Dakota, he knew he wanted to be an artist and first threw his passions into studying photography. He loved capturing images of nature and aspects of the real world around him.
"I like the adventure of going out into the world to take pictures," Krueger said. "There was this one time me and my friend took pictures of carnies at a carnival in town and they chased us down to get the camera back. They didn't want their pictures taken."
While in college, however, he found that his passion in the arts was sorely tested. During the summer of his freshman year, he decided to work in a photography studio. In the time he was
there, he grew tired of the narrow creative confines that the work imposed on him, he said.
“[Photography] suddenly became work with very little creative freedom,” he said. “They always put me in the dark room, and I often had to take pictures of people with their yachts”
The following year, he dropped all of his classes without a clue of what to do next.
CONTRIBUTED
"As I was wandering down the hallway, a grad student came up to me and said, "You need to take printmaking." Krueger said.
Michael Krueger works in his studio.
CONTRIBUTED
From that point on, he took various classes in lithography and said he fell in love with the process and the similar technical aspects it had, like photography.
After getting his undergraduate degree, he moved on to the University of Notre Dame and got his graduate degrees in printmaking, drawing and photography.
Lithography is an art process that uses a stone as a base. An artist can use ink on a greased image on a piece of lithographic limestone. The rejection of moisture can craft an image that can then be pressed on a piece of paper.
Peace Metal, archival injet & lithography, 11.5" x 9", 2007
"I was able to have success in the printmaking process and utilize technical skills that became enmeshed in my ideas," Krueger said. "It empowered me to go to other mediums and do the same thing."
Krueger has drawn inspiration from different sources throughout the years. When he first
started out, he drew from his personal experiences. He said he is greatly intrigued by topics relating to dream analysis, surrealism and the psychologist Sigmund Freud.
Today his inspirations have expanded to topics relating to American history, revisionist history, contemporary American culture, art history and personal memoir.
The artist's vast and varied collection displays scenes of nature placed in the vastness of empty space. He recreates familiar images with different colors and templates that makes the viewer take something different away from its original subject.
"The painting never changes but I change. I bring new experiences to the painting," Krueger said.
He said he's also inspired by another artist's work, "The Plough and the Song" by Arshile Gorky, which primarily resides in the Art Institute of Chicago. The work is composed of odd lines and mysterious organic forms that share a connection that carries different meanings to the viewer.
Krueger admits that he has often visited this painting at different points in his life, managing to take something new from it each time.
This theme of growth and exploration has characterized Michael Krueger's artistic career.
For Krueger, there is no real limit to what artists can produce in the artwork as long as it comes from a place of true authenticity.
“There is this idea of progression and change in the studio. I'm always pushing myself to see what I can do next,” Krueger said. “For instance, I had a recent show in Boston composed of abstract painting. When I first started out I never thought I would do abstract art. You don't know what you will do later in life so don't limit yourself.”
Krueger doesn't only apply this to his own work. He also tries to push this in his teaching. Throughout his teaching career, he has found another well of inspiration from his students. He said he's fascinated in the way they approach art and the solution they come up with, he said.
"It's interesting to see all the innovative ways [my students] have for solving problems that have no right or wrong answers," Krueger said.
Krueger's teaching methods left an impression on several of his students.
Mark Hosford, an associate professor at Vanderbilt University and former student, said Kreuger was instrumental in his creative growth. Hosford first met Krueger in his third year of undergraduate study at the University in 1995.
"I have always been impressed and transfixed with Michael's
CAROLINE FISS/KANSAN
art," Hosford said. "He continues to be an artist that I look at for inspiration and one who constantly engages me. His art has changed a lot since I first met him in 1995, which each new step breaking new ground. Throughout all of these changes, a strong authenticity is what links them all together."
Hosford said Krueger's influence had greatly impacted his artistic interests and his career path.
Hosford said Kreuger was "without a doubt" the most influential teacher he had.
"He came to KU at a critical time for me," he said. "He was the first art professor whom I felt really understood my background and the visual vocabulary I grew up with."
He also said Kreuger was the first instructor to teach him how to think critically about his art and how to use subjects more effectively.
"Instead of just banning me from working in particular styles I was interested in, which many art professors did at that time, he would instead encourage me and push me to make my ideas and techniques stronger," he said.
- Edited by Madeline Umali
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KU student will join Chicago company for a performance
Senior dance major Sarah O'Keefe rehearses Thodos Dance choreography in a dance studio in Robinson Center.
BRIANNA CHILDERS @breeanuhh3
When Sarah O'Keeffe, a senior from Boulder, Colo., and dancer with the University Dance Company, walked into auditions for Thodos Dance Chicago, she had a knot in her stomach.
"I knew that it would be a strenuous process and very selective when it came time for them to pick members of the University Dance Company," O'Keeffe said. "Their dancing is really beautiful to watch, and they have really strong, powerful dancers, but there is a subtlety about their movements
O'Keeffe knew all about the Thodos Dance Chicago company's reputation and how selective it was when it came down to choosing members from the University's dance group. Then, the news came: She made the cut.
that captures your attention."
The company was founded 23 years ago and, according to its mission statement, it strives "to promote contemporary dance as a cultural activity in the local community and throughout the United States through performance, creation of new works, and education (including audience development)."
Thodos Dance Chicago is currently on tour, but will be perform with the University Dance Company on Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. at the Lied Center.
She said she feels "very appreciative" that she was chosen to be a part of the show because it is such a big deal.
"I think their dances are really in synch with their bodies as well as each other, but they also dance really powerfully individually." O'Keeffe said.
O'Keeffe, who is the University Dance Company's president, is working to receive her bachelor's degree in dance. She said
The training for this piece was intense, she said. Once casted, Laura Gates, the Thodos rehearsal director, practiced with the selected dancers each night, Sunday through Thursday, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. for two weeks in October. These rehearsals consisted of the cast learning all of the choreography, staging it and working to perfect the movement.
she enjoys the emotional aspect of the company. O'Keeffe has been dancing since she was two years old.
cago is so well known, it will be helpful to have a prestigious company on her resume and the experience expands her professional dance connections, O'Keeffe said.
"I fell in love with the art form [but] it was a challenge for me," O'Keeffe said. "I wanted to try to perfect it even though that's not really technically possible."
"Her rehearsals were very rigorous and physically taxing; however, very well worth all of the effort," O'Keeffe said. "She was an incredible director to work with."
The performance will include "A Light in the Dark," "Subtle Passages," and "Memories." The show will close with a humorous piece titled "All You Need Is."
In "A Light in the Dark," a story about Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, the dancers on stage glide around in a circle holding hands. The dancers representing Keller and Sullivan sit on the stage while Sullivan hands a doll to Keller, her arms moving in a wide circl as she takes the doll into her arms.
The dancers move in sync with leaps and twirls that captivate the audience. Each dancer
has a moment in the spotlight, veering away from the uniform gestures that create dynamics on stage, O'Keeffe said.
This contemporary performance piece consists of seven female dancers and one male dancer. Audiences will see unified movement structures as well as individual and partnering phases, O'Keeffe said.
"There is a subtle strength to this piece in that it is extremely high intensity, yet it is done in a soft and beautiful way," O'Keefe said. "However, there is also a dynamic of sharpness as well."
"Subtle Passages" is a dance created by founder of the dance company, Melissa Thodos.
Thodos, who is from Evanston, Ill., began dancing at a young age and continued throughout high school. She attended Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where she double majored in dance and English.
That's just what Thodos is for O'Keeffe, who said she plans to start auditioning for professional companies in the spring. She said she feels dancing with Thodos at the University will give her an edge when it comes to looking for a job after college.
She started the dance company after she realized she had the background and ability to teach and choreograph at the same time. She said dance helped her grow, and she wanted to create an environment that allowed other people to grow as well.
Because Thodos Dance Chi
Thodos said she hopes the emotional layer of their performance resonates with the audience at the University.
"It's always my hope that the audience leaves feeling very much reached and touched, not only from the dancing and performing, but also from the emotion behind the dancing and performance," Thodos said.
While every company has their own style, being modern and athletic makes Thodos Dance Chicago different. Thodos said they also go into the theater realm, which allows them to stand out as well. The company currently has 12 members, and its dance style is categorized as contemporary.
Thodos said she continues to strive to make her company better by planning and thinking about the needs of the artists and the organization.
"We want our audience to feel our passion for dance and we want to share that with them," Thodos said.