To mark our 100th year as a vital part of educational and cultural missions of the University and as a resource to local communities, the Spurlock Museum celebrates the people, collections, voices, and ideas that have made our century of service meaningful. The exhibit is open Museum hours: Tues. 12-5, Wed., Thurs., Fri. 9-5, Sat. 10-4, Sun. 12-4.

Popular dance has always been an important part of American culture, especially during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when there was an explosion of interest in ballroom dance. However, ballroom dancing was much more than couples responding to the rhythmic tempos and melodies of dance music. It was a complex venue where intricate social interactions related to social status, gender roles, and proper etiquette was publicly expressed. John Philip Sousa was no stranger to popular dance and frequently attended social dances as a young man, including one notable event when his girlfriend left the dance with another man a complete breach of ballroom etiquette. This exhibit includes original and published music manuscripts, an early twentieth-century dance manual, photographs and lithographic prints, and a historic top hat and dance shoes documenting Sousas profound connection to popular dance in America.

Harry Partch (1901-1974) was an American composer, theorist, instrument maker, and performer who integrated varied elements of human speech and linguistics into his music compositions. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom-built instruments that he made himself. In 1956 the University of Illinois employed Harry Partch as a composer in residence, a position he held until 1961, and his time at Illinois enabled him to premiere in 1957 his masterpiece The Bewitched at the Universitys 8th Festival of Contemporary Arts. Rotate the Body in All its Planes (1961) was created near the end of Partch's career at Illinois and featured gymnastic tumblers, womens/mens voices, string bass, piccolo, trumpet, trombone, tuba, drums, and a variety of his unique music instruments. This exhibit briefly explores the extraordinary life and music of Americas most iconoclastic composer of the twentieth century.

Salvatore Martirano (1927-1995) composed Underworld during the years 1964 and 1965, just after he joined the theory and composition faculty at the University of Illinois. The piece is scored for four actors, four percussionists, two double basses, tenor saxophone, and two-channel tape. The drama portrays through music Sigmund Freud?s theories about the unconscious mind, and the work?s name refers to a place, often believed to be underground or beyond the horizon, where people, gods, and/or their souls depart for the afterlife. While the Underworld?s performances during the 1960s and 1970s generated mixed critical reception because of the piece?s experimental and adventurous compositional style, today the work provides a fascinating glimpse into a period in American musical history when composers experimented with electronically generated sounds, dramatic art, and conventional modes of musical performance. This exhibit highlights the fascinating story associated with Underworld?s creation and performance in America and Europe.

Composer John Cage moved from New York to Champaign-Urbana in 1967 to become an Associate of the Center for Advanced Studies and Visiting Professor of Music of the University of Illinois. Cage?s appointment to the university was due in part to the efforts of Lejaren Hiller, who served as the director of the University?s Experimental Music Studio between 1958 and 1968, and the two men eventually worked together on the piece ?HPSCHD,? which premiered in 1969 at the university?s newly-built Assembly Hall. While at the University Cage organized special performance art programs that he called ?happenings.? This term became commonly used to describe loosely defined ?choreography? that encouraged spontaneous interactions between ?visitors? (i.e., the audience) and ?objects,? (e.g., performers and musical instruments). This exhibit explores through photographs, programs, posters, newspaper clippings, and artifacts several of Cage?s dynamic multimedia collaborations with faculty, students, and artists from the local community.