In an alcove of the 1st-floor gallery housing part of the EXPO 13 show, two Cornish students, Sierra Kohler and Delaney Alice, sit reading copies of a book. It’s a charming, almost nostalgic scene to discover in the electronic, data-driven era of computers that phone, phones that compute, watches that make calls, eyeglasses that take pictures, and, soon, labels that talk. But it is just because a book, stubbornly, has solidity that it is the medium of choice for graduating design senior Josh Taylor. The solidity of books imply that the ideas within are equally immutable, and Josh is out to dispel this notion. It is Napoleon who is credited with saying “History is a set of lies agreed upon.” The book is the delivery mechanism of choice for history and the target of Taylor’s book, Audacity: Products of a False History.

Any book is a design project by its very nature: it has this cover and that binding and this layout and thus-and-such a typeface. But the nature of Taylor’s design is about doing a critique of the past by doing a layout for the future.

“My book is more of a future history because I’m looking at people who have not had the opportunity to profoundly influence history yet,” says Taylor, “People who undoubtedly will because they will continue to age and they will continue to grow and they’ll continue to make choices and influence where society is headed.”

Taylor takes people that he knows and designs a way of looking at them that offers new ways to consider them in history. “I’m saying that my generation and all the generations prior are products of false history because of the abilities of the powers at large to withhold information and preventing people from really understanding the truths and injustices that are going on,” says Taylor. He focuses on his own generation to make his point.

Josh is using the medium of a book in an almost ironic way, given technological changes in information gathering and presentation. “The big shift, the big change with my generation with the millenials and with Generation Y is that in our span of life the internet became available,” says Taylor. “And all of a sudden technology has … really permeated our structure of life. This computer has the internet, my phone has the internet … so like the big thing with that is that information and knowledge all of a sudden became like infinitely available. It’s really exposed us, the millennial generation, to a lot of terrible things that have been going on for a long time that the powers at large have been able to keep under wraps. It’s really exposed a lot of falsities in American history — in all the histories — that we’ve been taught as truths. We’re coming to this place where we’re really being able to think for ourselves.”

His history is a compilation of 22 interviews with members of his generation, and he’s seeking in their stories a means to reshape the historical process. The values often enshrined in books of history are the wrong ones, Taylor feels. “It’s primarily artists and creative thinkers because part of what I’m trying to do with the book is reintroduce the creative person as a worker in society.

“Part of what I’ve included in my history book is examples of all these different artists’ processes. Because what I’ve been really frustrated with recently is — not frustrated, but noted and thought should be changed — is that in all the history courses and all the art history courses that I’ve ever taken, I’ve never been introduced to what those historical artists’ processes were.”

Without examining an artist’s process, Taylor feels something essential in understanding their place in history is lost. He demonstrates with the notebook of a noted choreographer. “This person has notes and poetry and research, they have little stick figures that they’re imagining moving around and doing all the choreography that they’ve imagined in their head so if you’re thumbing through it, it just looks like nothing, but when you finally get to the stage and finally see the performance and feel the intensity and you see the message that going on, see the beauty and the movement.”

Something of the origin of Audacity are the classes that force students to confront meaning in their work. “We’re required here at Cornish to pretty consistently have ‘process books’ that are documenting steps that we’ve had along the way or experiments that we’ve learned that like track the journey.”

EXPO 13: BFA Exhibition, May 10 – May 24, 2013, on Cornish campus.
Art May 10 – 24, Virginia/Terry Building; Design May 10 – 24, Main Campus Center. Gallery Hours Mon – Sat, 12 – 5 pm.

EXPO 13 builds upon the annual BFA Exhibition, highlighting the depth and range of our students’ creative inquiry and expression at Cornish College of the Arts. The Art and Design shows serve as the keystone to an expanded schedule of events, including dialogue, performances, and artistic interventions. EXPO 13 celebrates the achievements of Cornish’s graduating seniors by acknowledging their contributions as professional artists and designers. Cornish is proud of their determination, hard word, and appetite for experimentation, as they turn their ambitions from school towards society. Congratulations to the class of 2013.

In all the visual and performing arts, work is often talked about in terms of “telling a story.” But sometimes “telling a story” is actually telling a story. The art of writing is not a subject area in which a student can get a degree at Cornish, yet there is a great deal of support for the written word at the college. Proof of this is the recent award of three scholarship for promising student writers to study for two weeks this summer in picturesque Port Townsend at the Centrum Writers’ Conference. The students, Michele Domanowski (AR ‘16), Sarah (Ammon) Swinbank (MU ‘14) and Tim Sircoloumb (DE ‘13), study in different areas, but they’ll be coming together as writers.

“Writing, in general, is an essential means of expression and communication for artists in that it helps them present themselves and their work to the world, says Chris Kellett. “Writing, as a literary art, attempts to recreate felt experience and by doing so, brings us closer to an understanding of ourselves and the meaning we seek in our lives.” Dr. Kellett is chair of athe department of humanities and sciences, which oversees the education of Cornish students outside their chosen discipline. As such she has a great interest in the written word at the college.

The full-tuition and board awards are the result of a scholarship competition co-sponsored by the department of humanities and sciences, the office of the president and Centrum Port Townsend Writers’ Conference.  Students nominated by the humanities and sciences faculty were asked to submit writing samples for competitive review and to identify their interest in attending one of two week-long workshops in fiction, poetry or creative non-fiction. “The review committee was highly impressed by the quality of the submissions,” says Chris Kellett, “and regretted that we had only three scholarships to offer. Cornish has more than a few fine wordsmiths!”

The high quality wordsmiths came from almost every department at the college. In addition to the winners, who represent the departments of design, music and art, the review committee gave honorable mentions to students in dance and theater: Cole Bratcher (MU ‘13), Christine Dickson (DA ‘15), Jasmine Gervais (AR ‘14) and Madeline Marchal (TH ‘13).

The breadth of the interests of the winners and honorable mentions is another indication of the emphasis on interdisciplinary work at the college. “The winners selected exemplify the multi-modal talents of many Cornish students,” says Kellett. “While they may be majoring in the visual or performing arts, they bring the same level of passion to the written word.”

The writers’ conference at Centrum has been going strong for coming on 40 years. “Centrum’s literary programming is a rigorous, craft-focused community for writers, editors, translators, and readers working in a variety of styles,” writes Centrum. The Port Townsend Writers’ Conference, it goes on to say, “has been since 1974 at the heart of the thriving Pacific Northwest literary scene. With a focus on community and rigorous attention to craft, the Conference offers morning workshops, afternoon workshops, residencies, guided freewrites, and a vibrant readings and lectures series presented by vital, contemporary writers.”

“Writing is often a solitary and lonely pursuit,” says Chris Kellett. “Centrum provides the opportunity to engage with other writers in order to inspire, motivate and sustain the creative process.”

The Centrum Port Townsend Writers’ Conference runs July 7-21.

Fritz Rodriguez (AR ‘16) is one of the many talented young artists who is directly affected by your gift during the GiveBig campaign. Fritz’s video self-portrait, I Am Fritz, was created as a class assignment earlier this year and serves as an apt introduction to this particular young artist, embodying the search for authentic creative expression and discovery that all students come here to develop. For this reason, Fritz was asked to represent the type of work that he and his fellow students are doing in this year’s GiveBig campaign. Nothing conveys the vitality of what happens here at Cornish better than the students whose collective sense of curiosity and adventure illuminates our community.

I am Fritz from Cornish College of the Arts on Vimeo.

Associate Director of Admissions, Eric Swangstu, saw promise in Fritz from the start:

“What struck me about Fritz, when I first met him, was his sincerity and openness with his work and with his words. He was living in Idaho and had taken a gap year between high school and college in order to gain perspective and find direction.” Eric continued, “It was easy to see that he was an interesting thinker, eager to learn, and meaningful with his activities.  Since he was as equally involved with music as he was with visual art, I knew that he would thrive in the Cornish community.” Interdisciplinary work is an important hallmark of the Cornish approach to art.

As Eric intuited, these characteristics have helped Fritz to thrive at Cornish. One particularly impressive work that he completed this year, Dry Drowning,  is a piece that grew from his experience of seeing a woman drown on the Payette River. As with many projects, Dry Drowning grew out of earlier, smaller works, coming together fully this spring in the Cornish Collaboratory, a gallery space dedicated to interdisciplinary art. Fritz and Emily Lazear (MU ‘16), a first-year music student, submitted their proposal and were awarded a mini-grant to further develop and install Dry Drowning in the Collaboratory. The result was a moving, beautiful visual representation of this event in Fritz’s life accompanied by Emily’s evocative sound collage.

Cable Griffith, Gallery & Exhibitions Curator, had this to say:

“Fritz is surprisingly mature and ambitious for an artist, for a freshman. There’s a maturity in his relentless pursuit of excellence and in the ability to keep the bar high for himself. It’s kind of remarkable to see that. He’s seems to just jump in and have this really clear vision. He’ll do something that seems impossible and he’ll just do it, and then realize, ‘wow, this might be impossible,’ right in the middle of it. But he knows that it has to be done and just does it.” Cable noted that in this short first year, he’s still figuring out who Fritz is, but that “he’s someone I can’t stop wanting to watch. I’m still just really curious about Fritz, I barely know him, but I’m blown away by his passion for what he does.”

Passion and ambition drive students like Fritz to create, innovate and bring immeasurable value to all our lives. This is what you support when you make a gift during GiveBig.

Visit fritzrodriguezart.com to see further examples of Fritz’s work and to keep up with his future projects.

The spacious, light lobby of the Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center provided the perfect setting for the 2013 portfolio review of the graduating seniors of the Performance Production department on May 3. Their books were spread out on a long table, and theater and dance professionals looking for designers reviewed them. Students’ books included their work in scenic design, costume design, sound design, lighting design, stage management and technical direction.

Ron Erickson and attendees paid tribute to retiring faculty member Karen Gjelsteen. The event culminated with a fashion show of student costume designs.

GiveBig today to sustain Cornish’s legacy of excellent faculty like Julian Priester.

Professor Emeritus Julian Priester has been teaching trombone and jazz composition at Cornish since 1979. But Priester’s influence has been felt not only at the college, but throughout the Seattle community. On April 30, at Seattle jazz hotspot Tula’s, he received the warm thanks of the area’s jazz lovers with a “Jazz Hero” award. Jim Wilke, the nationally syndicated host of the radio program Jazz After Hours, presented the award on behalf of the Jazz Journalists Association. Cornish department head Kent Devereaux spoke in tribute, as did members of the jazz faculty, Professor Chuck Deardorf, piano instructor Dawn Clement and jazz history instructor and Seattle Times journalist Paul de Barros.

“Julian has contributed to the local jazz community in so many ways,” says Devereaux of Julian Priester, “as a performer, composer, teacher, and mentor. He’s also been a tremendous colleague who’s made an incalculable impact on the lives of scores of Cornish students over the past thirty-plus years.”   

The annual awards go to an elite group of 25 across the nation who have forwarded the art. “JJA ‘Jazz Heroes’ are activists, advocates, altruists, aiders and abettors of jazz who have had significant impact in their local communities,” writes the organization. “The ‘Jazz Hero’ awards, made on the basis of nominations from community members, are presented in conjunction with the Jazz Journalists Association’s annual Jazz Awards honoring significant achievements in jazz music and journalism.”

In his long and distinguished career in music, Priester played with many of the greats, beginning with stints in his teens playing with blues and R&B legends Muddy Waters, Dinah Washington, and Bo Diddley in his native Chicago. He went on to play with Sun Ra’s big band, Lionel Hampton, Max Roach, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Blue Mitchell, Art Blakey, Joe Henderson, John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Charles Mingus, Johnny Griffin, and Sam Rivers. Once settled in Seattle, Priester continued to perform as both a bandleader and sideman including tours with Sun Ra, Gary Peacock, the Dave Holland Quintet, Lester Bowie’s New York Organ Ensemble, and Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra. His compositions have been recorded by Sun Ra, Ray Charles, Herbie Hancock, Philly Jo Jones, Lee Morgan, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Clifford Jordan, and Dave Holland. His own music can be heard on the Riverside, ECM, and Conduit record labels.

For more on Julian Priester, read Earshot’s profile: Julian Priester: Spirit Child.

Donors show their appreciation of faculty members through their giving; Cornish students show theirs by bestowing the Teaching Excellence Award. Professors Kate Myre, Tina Aufiero, Bonnie Biggs and Roberta Russell are this year’s recipients. Coming close on the heels of the award presentations, GiveBig shines a bright light on supporting faculty excellence.

Since the 1980s, Cornish has sought to recognize outstanding faculty members such as these with the Teaching Excellence Award. An invaluable aspect of the Cornish experience is the talent and depth of its faculty. These women and men are more than college professors, they are practicing artists, valued by Cornish for visionary teaching and their work to build lifelong mentoring relationships with its students. It is the students who nominate and vote for a recipient for their various departments. At its heart the award is a reflection of Cornish students’ appreciation and respect for these individuals who pour so much into their education.

Departments are in rotation for the award on an annual basis. This year, the award recipients are from art, performance production and theater. Each department has its own distinct process for making these selections. According to Adrienne Bolyard, dean of academic services, the recipients are always “people who have a real effect on the students.” The students selected Tina Aufiero and Bonnie Biggs from art (tied in the vote), Roberta Russell from performance production, and Kate Myre was the top vote getter from theater.

Kate Myre is representative of this outstanding group. Kate says she is “humbled and a little gobsmacked,” that she received the award this year and is “very, very pleased that it was a decision made by my students” because “they had felt that I had contributed to their education.”

Myre knows, however, that she is part of a team. “I have awesome colleagues that have taught me a lot about being a good teacher. I don’t think I would be nearly as successful without them, and they’ve been incredible, generous, and a great resource, an informative group of people. I can’t imagine what it would be like to teach somewhere that I didn’t have colleagues like I have here.”

Myre, an associate professor of theater, holds a master’s degree in acting from Brandeis and a bachelor’s degree from Willamette University. She has been working in Seattle theater for nearly 20 years in a wide variety of companies including Seattle Public Theater, Seattle Shakespeare Company, Theater Scheater, Seattle Children’s Theatre, ACT and The Village Theater. Around the country, she has worked with The Immediate Theatre, The Borealis Theater, The Boston Repertory Theatre, Boston’s Publick Theatre, Chiswick Park Theatre Company and StageWest in Massachusetts. Additionally, Kate appeared at New York’s Signature Theatre Company under the direction of Joseph Chaikin in Arthur Miller’s The Last Yankee, having been hand-picked for her role by the playwright. At Cornish, Kate has directed The Cripple of Inishmaan, Fen, and Stop Kiss.

There is an individual investment and closeness between the faculty and their students at Cornish that lends even greater potency to its already intimate class sizes, and Kate Myre personifies this. When asked why she thought the students had selected her, she quipped back, “I have bought them a lot of doughnuts,” she says, laughing. “I don’t think that’s why – I think I am playful and purposeful, I think I am invested in them and they know that. I think I’m, in some cases, a little bit like the mom that they can talk to about stuff they can’t always talk to their moms about, I mean their artistic lives. I can help them in the ways that they need help as artists – from a mom perspective.”

Kate notes the high level of give-and-take between herself and the students and how remarkable that is. “I don’t think I gave that much when I was a student,” she quips, adding more seriously, “I learn a lot from them, and it’s really satisfying to be in the classroom with people who are igniting, who are really on the cusp of something remarkable.” This sort of reciprocity is crucial to the issues that Kate’s students wrestle with in her classes. Along with the intense periods of bonding and the emotional transience inherent in theater, through which they strive to practice mindfulness, Kate points to her Voiceover class as a place where students must challenge themselves by looking inwards and examining the ethics of acting. “This is the first time most of them have had any exposure to the commercial side of being an actor” she says, “and it can be really disquieting, honestly.”

The theater students’ experience climaxes their senior year, when Kate works hard to help transition students from life at Cornish. In Senior Seminar, a class Kate group teaches with other faculty, “students get a chance to work on material that they can use to get out of here, so audition material.” Kate tells her students to focus on the intentionality of how they promote their careers, especially as they move through the turbulent and disorienting first 18 months after college. She asks them “What do you want your life to look like five years from now? How can you take steps to make that happen?” Kate assists them in this transition, the students “meet with agents, they meet with casting directors, they have headshot photographers come in, they learn how to write cover letters. It’s really like a straddling of two worlds.”

The mentorship between faculty and students is the often unseen value that faculty like Kate bring to the Cornish experience, it might be through a connection made or some good advice you given, but our faculty are tireless in equipping our students with the right tools and lending them a hand up. As Kate expressed, “my web of people becomes their web of people” and, as a student, when you put your “best effort into being a developing artist, while you’ve been here, of course, I’ll help you.”

It’s this sort of faculty dedication that is supported by GiveBig. Your gift on May 15 equips Cornish’s faculty with the resources they need for their classrooms and continue with innovative academic programs like Integrated Studies. Your generosity also provides much needed financial aid support for Cornish’s students.

Anyone who finds Miles Toland’s installation at EXPO 13 is in for an in-depth experience. It’s not enough for Toland (AR ’13) to exhibit three beautifully crafted paintings, he is creating for his viewers an experience that also incorporates sound and light, suggesting the art work is not confined to a canvas, but moves freely in space and in time. He is creating the opportunity for everyone who visits to enter a meditative state.

Miles has built several wooden platforms designed as furniture from which to view the paintings. As a viewer sits down to take a canvas in, he or she will become entwined with the work. “Each is going to have an accompanying video that will be projected from pedestals I’m currently creating,” says Toland. “The whole space will be dim and the videos will be projected on top. It creates this interesting conversation between the static paintings and the assembled video.”

Then there is the audio. When someone reaches the final work, a mandala, the final immersive element will become apparent. “There will be low frequencies that are actually rattling inside the pedestal and headphones you can plug in for the higher frequency sounds,” says Toland. “And you’re in somewhat of a meditative, contemplative sitting pose in front of the mandala. … it actually communicates the lower frequencies of sound into the core of the viewer, creating more of this synesthetic experience.”

“And then the projector will be behind you casting your shadow,” finishes Toland, “so you’re physically in the piece. You see yourself in the piece.”

Toland has painted these works as mandalas. Intended for contemplation, mandalas are — in the early stages of practice — intricate circular patterns intended to aid the initiate with putting aside thought and giving over to the serenity of meditation. The geometry and repetition focuses the mind ‘til it loses awareness of itself and drifts away to a total awareness of “the moment.” “There are definitely geometric motifs through all this and some plays on fractals. With the pinecones, particularly, with the Fibonacci sequence embedded in the design of it.”

The pinecone figures heavily in Toland’s iconography. “The pinecone is a symbol that I’ve fallen in love with and become a bit infatuated with,” says Toland. “It represents the pineal gland, also known as the third eye. It’s this teeny little gland that’s shaped like a pinecone about the size of a grain of rice in the center of our heads. It secretes DMT, dimethyltriptamine, which is the chemical that’s released in mass quantities when we’re born or we have near-death experiences or when we die.”

Toland was introduced to Eastern philosophy in high school through a mentorship program. At the Monte del Sol charter school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his mentor got him into “meditation and mindfulness and redirecting energy for better awareness.”

Miles credits inspiration both sacred and profane. “I was definitely inspired by Shiva and also by authors like William Kentridge showing progressions, such as the unfolding of time.”

EXPO 13: BFA Exhibition, May 10 – May 25, 2013, 5:00 pm on Cornish campus, Visual Arts Center.

EXPO 13 builds upon the annual BFA Exhibition, highlighting the depth and range of our students’ creative inquiry and expression at Cornish College of the Arts. The Art and Design shows serve as the keystone to an expanded schedule of events, including dialogue, performances, and artistic interventions. EXPO 13 celebrates the achievements of Cornish’s graduating seniors by acknowledging their contributions as professional artists and designers. Cornish is proud of their determination, hard word, and appetite for experimentation, as they turn their ambitions from school towards society. Congratulations to the class of 2013.

The Vaudevillians with Jinkx Monsoon: The Big Seattle Sendoff Show!
- Sunday June 2, 7:30 and 9:30 pm
- Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center, 201 Mercer St.
- Tickets: $10, general admission and $25, VIP seating (first five rows of the theater)
- Purchase online, http://www.TheVaudevillians.brownpapertickets.com
- Or call Brown Paper Tickets, 800.838.3006
- A portion of the net proceeds benefit the Cornish College of the Arts Scholarship Fund

Throughout the 1920s, Kitty Witless and Dr.Dan Von Dandy toured speakeasies and burlesque theaters through the United States as THE VAUDEVILLIANS, wowing audiences with their edgy, original music. Unfortunately, one day, tragedy struck. While touring through Antarctica, they were victims of a devastating avalanche and were buried under two tons of sleet and snow - instantly freezing them alive. But thanks to global warming, they recently thawed out only to discover, that pop artists of various decades had stolen their music and passed it off as their own. Much to their shock and chagrin, songs including “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (which was originally about the woman’s Suffragette movement), and “Drop it Like it’s Hot” (which was originally about the invention of the electric iron) had become hits for lesser artists. Now, at long last, they are taking to the stage to reclaim their original music, performing it as originally composed.

Jinkx Monsoon is the alter ego of Jerick Hoffer, who graduated in 2010 with a degree in theatrical performance from Cornish College in Seattle. With 10 years experience on stage, Hoffer is a seasoned Portland-born entertainer who has captured the attention of his native Northwest region. As early as 2006, Hoffer appeared as the lead dancer in the world’s largest drag queen chorus line, which made the Guinness Book of World Records. By 2012, he had advanced to roles in Seattle theaters, playing Moritz in Spring Awakening (produced by Balagan Theatre) and Angel in Rent (produced by The 5th Avenue Theatre). Earlier this year, Hoffer played Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (produced by Balagan Theatre and Seattle Theatre Group).

Major Scales is the evil twin of Richard Andriessen. He is a writer/composer/performer from Seattle, WA who graduated with a B.F.A. in Theater from Cornish College of the Arts in 2010. He has contributed original music to venues throughout Washington, from the Intiman Theater to Hump, Seattle’s premier amateur porn festival. He recently composed music for and starred in Washington Ensemble Theater’s original musical The Callers, and performs regularly in DeLouRue Presents Homo For the Holidays and Freedom Fantasia.

The Neddy at Cornish Presents
Make Out Tree
Jun. 3 – Aug. 16
Opening Reception: Mon., Jun. 3, 5 – 7 pm. Free and open to the public.
Cornish Alumni Gallery, 1000 Lenora St, 3rd floor
http://www.cornish.edu/events

Stacey Rozich creates a dialogue in her paintings to illustrate how cultural folktales affect and manifest themselves in contemporary society. Stacey studied illustration at California College of the Arts as well as design at Seattle Central Creative Academy and has shown in galleries in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Milwaukee and Berlin.

Seattle-based photographer and mixed-media artist Eirik Johnson addresses the intersections of environmental, social and economic issues, which reflect connections between communities and the surrounding natural world. Johnson has exhibited his work at spaces including the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Aperture Foundation in New York. He has received numerous awards including the 2012 Neddy at Cornish Award in Open Medium, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant in 2009, the Santa Fe Prize in 2005, and a William J. Fulbright Grant to Peru in 2000.
More information about the 2012 recipients can be found on their websites:
blog.staceyrozich.com
www.eirikjohnson.com

About Ned Behnke and the Neddy
Ned Behnke was a beloved member of the Behnke Family and a renowned and talented painter. Ned had a passion for the arts that extended beyond his own work. He appreciated the myriad forms that art takes and the way in which art can foster a conscious, vital and more livable world.

After Ned’s untimely death, Shari D. Behnke founded the Neddy in 1996 as a way to honor both his legacy as a visual artist and his deep connection to the Seattle art community. Under the auspices of the Behnke Foundation, the Neddy has become one of the most important art awards in Seattle. The artists who have been recognized have a unique vision and a strong passion for their art as well as for the transformative potential of art to enliven and enrich the world in which they live and practice.

In 2011, the Behnke Foundation transferred the program to Cornish College of the Arts to house and administer the Neddy at Cornish artist award program. Building on the history Ned shared with the College and on the shared commitment of the Foundation and the College to invigorate and sustain communities through art, the Neddy at Cornish program will continue to make two substantial and unrestricted awards to Seattle artists each year. To assist the College, an advisory board of regional arts professionals will offer their external perspective and expertise.

The 2013 Neddy at Cornish awards will be announced in late August or early September.

For additional information regarding the Neddy at Cornish program, contact Ellen Ito, Neddy at Cornish Program Assistant at 206.726.5116 or email at eito@cornish.edu.

Get your tickets now at Brown Paper Tickets.

Congratulations to Jinkx Monsoon, aka Jerick Hoffer (TH ‘10) for a stunning victory on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 5.

If you didn’t follow the series, check out the episodes online.

Jinkx Monsoon is the alter ego of Jerick Hoffer, who graduated in 2010 with a degree in theatrical performance from Cornish College in Seattle. With 10 years experience on stage, Hoffer is a seasoned Portland-born entertainer who has captured the attention of his native Northwest region. As early as 2006, Hoffer appeared as the lead dancer in the world’s largest drag queen chorus line, which made the Guinness Book of World Records. By 2012, he had advanced to roles in Seattle theaters, playing Moritz in Spring Awakening (produced by Balagan Theatre) and Angel in Rent (produced by The 5th Avenue Theatre). Earlier this year, Hoffer played Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (produced by Balagan Theatre and Seattle Theatre Group).

Learn more about Jinkx on her website.