on the record – The Oberlin Review

Frank Dawson, “Agents of Change” Director

November 22, 2019

Frank Dawson is the current dean of the Center for Media and Design at Santa Monica College. He’s had a long career in entertainment, working as an associate programming executive at CBS and a production executive at Universal’s Television Division. Dawson earned his Bachelor’s in Sociology from Cornell University and his Master of Science degree in Television and Radio from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School. During his time at Cornell, Dawson and other student activists made national ne...

Ana Cara, Professor of Hispanic Studies, Amanda Dargan, Steve Zeitlin, “In the Moment” Co-directors

November 15, 2019

Steve Zeitlin and Amanda Dargan directed In the Moment: Poetry Duels and Improvisations from Around the World, a documentary film that screened on campus last Tuesday. Professor of Hispanic Studies Ana Cara sponsored the screening. The film, spanning a 20-year body of work, explores different histories and traditions of poetic improvisation around the world. All three have Ph.D.s in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania. Zeitlin and Dargan are the respective Founding Director and Education P...

Chris Morocco, OC ’03, Bon Appétit Food Editor

October 11, 2019

Chris Morocco, OC ’03, is a Deputy Food Editor at the lauded Bon Appétit magazine. While at Oberlin, Morocco majored in French and took great interest in photography. Now he is Deputy Food Editor at Bon Appétit, where he develops recipes and appears frequently in their popular cooking videos on YouTube. Morocco spoke with the Review about his time at Oberlin, his experience cooking in a co-op, his career explorations after college, and Bon Appétit’s transition from a print publication to a ...

Danny Prikazsky, OC ’14, “Are You the One?” Cast Member

September 27, 2019

Danny Prikazsky, OC ’14, was a cast member on the most recent season of Are You the One?, a reality dating show in which 16 cast members attempt to find their “perfect match.” In Prikazsky’s season, which was filmed in Hawaii, the show broke tradition by featuring 16 sexually-fluid cast members and matching many of them with same-sex partners. Since the show’s conclusion, Prikazsky has started a YouTube channel, and he has a platform on the gaming network Twitch. This interview has be...

Maxwell Addae and Barnaby Woods, Obertones

September 13, 2019

Double-degree fourth-year Maxwell Addae and College third-year Barnaby Woods are the respective music director and president of the Obertones, Oberlin’s premier a cappella group for people who identify with the experience of manhood. This summer, the group released their first single, “Dream On,” which Addae arranged during his first year at Oberlin. They discussed the single, last year’s iteration of their annual spring tour, their legacy as a group on campus, and their goals within the Ob...

Talise Campbell, Director of Dance Show “Tracing Our Roots”

May 3, 2019

Visiting Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Dance Talise Campbell is the director of this weekend’s Oberlin Dance Company show, Tracing Our Roots: A Look Into the Past As We Move Into the Future. The show, which will also includes work from her two other classes this semester, features the Djapo Cultural Arts Institute, a Cleveland-based organization where Campbell is the artistic director and founder. Djapo is a Wolof word meaning “come together.” Campbell has had an impressive career as...

Kat Burdine, Visual Artist

March 1, 2019

Artist Kat Burdine uses objects and prints to negotiate ideas about physicality and the body. A graduate of the Cranbrook Academy of Art and currently based in Cleveland, she is the founder of Wondershop Studio and teaches at both the Cleveland Institute of Art and Cuyahoga Community College. She has collaborated with many artists on a variety of projects, including Talking Dolls in Detroit. Her recent lecture at Oberlin, “A Matter of Hapticstance — One Queer’s Feeling on Feeling(s),” di...

On the Record: Heather Marlowe, Playwright

May 5, 2017

Editor’s note: This article discusses sexual assault. Playwright, actor and activist Heather Marlowe graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2009 with a degree in art history before moving to San Francisco, where she dedicated much of her time to theater classes. Motivated by her own experiences with the criminal justice system after being raped, Marlowe has worked with the survivor-advocacy organization People for the Enforcement of Rape Laws and produced a solo show, The...

On the Record with Curator Andrea Gyorody

April 21, 2017

Andrea Gyorody was recently hired as the new Ellen Johnson ’33 assistant curator of modern and contemporary art at the Allen Memorial Art Museum. She graduated from Amherst College in 2007 and went on to receive a master’s degree in Art History from Williams College. Currently a Ph.D. candidate in art history at University of California, Los Angeles and a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and a German Academic Exchange Service Fellowship, Gyorody spent two years in Germany studying post-wa...

On the Record with Pianist Vijay Iyer

April 14, 2017

Vijay Iyer is a world-renowned jazz pianist and composer who has also written music for various classical and electronic ensembles. Iyer visited Oberlin last weekend to attend a workshop performance of his new violin concerto, titled Trouble, by Oberlin Sinfonietta ahead of its worldwide premiere at Ojai Music Festival June 8. The piece featured violin soloist Jennifer Koh, OC ’97. Iyer and Koh also held a residency that included several master classes and discussions. Iyer graduated from Yale Universit...

On the Record with Ed Helms, OC ’96, and Daniel Radosh, OC ’91

April 7, 2017

Ed Helms, OC ’96, and Daniel Radosh, OC ’91, hosted this academic year’s final convocation Sunday night, “What’s the Point of Comedy? (And other pointless questions).” Helms, whose most iconic roles include an outlandish Andy Bernard on The Office and an equally obnoxious but fun-loving Stu in The Hangover trilogy, is an actor, comedian, producer, writer and musician. After graduating from Oberlin, Helms’ multifaceted skillset led him to a job as a correspondent for several years on The Daily...

On the Record with Ethnomusicologist Aaron Fox

March 31, 2017

Aaron Fox is an associate professor of music and ethnomusicology and the director of the Center for Ethnomusicology at Columbia University. His educational background demonstrates the intersection of fields in which he works; he holds a bachelor’s degree in Music from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin. Fox collaborates with Oberlin Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Chie Sakakibara on repatriating recorded Native music and has wr...