The Bipolar Ensemble, a group of first-year students in the Writing 5 course "Manic-Depression and the Creative Process," will perform at 7 p.m. in a coffeehouse concert this Thursday in Collis Commonground. Entitled "Composers of Moods and Madness," the event will feature student performances of music and poetry by composers and poets afflicted with manic-depression and depression.
"The idea started off as a joke," said Justin Rudelson, a visiting lecturer in the Asian and Middle Eastern Languages Department and professor for the course.
While meeting with students at the beginning of the term to discuss their backgrounds and writing experience, Rudelson noticed that 12 of his 18 students were experienced musicians.
Recognizing what he thought to be a unique situation, Rudelson proposed the class create an orchestra.
"I was hoping to showcase the talent in this class," Rudelson said. "Having so many high-level talented musicians in the class is remarkable."
Although his idea was initially met with some hesitation because of concerns about practice time and commitment, the entire class finally agreed to be part of the performance.
"A lot of students really back the idea, but some students are just ambivalent or nervous about the performance," said Laura Richardson '09, who will sing Charlie Parker's "Lover Man" in Thursday's performance.
In conjunction with the course's curriculum, the students will perform musical pieces and poems by artists who suffered from mental illnesses. Before each performance, students will give a brief background of that particular artist's mental illness and how it affected his or her work.
The performance will feature about a dozen musical pieces by composers such as Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Chopin, as well as six to eight poems including works by Poe, Dickinson and Hugo.
Rudelson hopes the performance will help educate students about depression and manic-depression as well as their prevalence in the artistic community. According to Rudelson, between 30 and 50 percent of accomplished musicians and poets suffer from at least one form of depression.
"It's a very important topic and a very popular topic in the sense that it's getting a lot of press today," Rudelson said. "One of my hopes is that in educating students about this illness they might be able to help friends, loved ones or maybe themselves when they come across manic-depression."
Dana Day '09, who will perform pieces by Paul Siebert and Edward Elgar on the bagpipes and flute, said that the performance has helped to strengthen the material learned in class.
"It'll be a great opportunity to shed some light on the prevalence of manic-depression in the arts and share what we've learned with students who aren't in the class, too," Day said.
Rudelson said he hopes that the Bipolar Ensemble continues beyond this performance, and that it could possibly even travel to other schools and venues to perform in the future.
Some students, however, were skeptical that the group would continue.
"I think it would be difficult to continue the group with only its original members because of the nature of Dartmouth off terms, but I'm hoping that some form of it will live on," Day said. "It's a really unique idea that brings attention to a frequently overlooked area of illness, and it would be disappointing to see it disappear from Dartmouth altogether."
