In college he studied with the revolutionary drummer Milford Graves who inspired PJ to travel to Ghana where he lived and studied West African music and dance for 4 months.
During PJ’s senior year of college, he interned with Jim Donovan, the founding drummer of the multi-platinum Pittsburgh-based band Rusted Root, who then offered PJ a position in his new band. This was the first time PJ ever came to Pittsburgh, and it inspired him to move here in 2006 after graduating college.
Point Park has connected PJ to more opportunities than he could’ve ever imagined. He’s composed and recorded 17 music scores for dance companies and choreographers in Pittsburgh, New York, Dayton, Minneapolis, Denver, and Houston. He has accompanied for National High School Dance Festival, Jazz Dance World Congress, and American College Dance Association. He completed the Mark Morris training program in Brooklyn and has been a resident artist at The Space Upstairs since 2007. His job at Point Park enabled him to get a grant to study music and movement with his personal hero, Nik Baertch, in Switzerland. It also enabled him to receive tuition remission for a master’s degree in adult learning and teaching at Point Park University. Most importantly, PJ’s job gives him the opportunity to play drums every week and keep his tools sharp.
Aside from his work at Point Park, PJ is the drummer for Vietnamese activist band, Mai Koi and the Dissidents, as well as the studio band Watererer, and PJ’s very own trio, the Else Collective.
PJ’s also played drums for a giant outdoor puppet parade and was hired to build stilts and lead a band on them to kick off Pittsburgh’s First Night Parade. Recently PJ and his partner Renée Copeland performed Terra Bubo, a grant-funded 70-minute multimedia contemporary folk percussion performance using traditions from their island ancestry of Sicily, Ireland, and the Philippines.
You can listen to PJ’s work with his band the Else Collective on Bandcamp or check out his personal work on Soundcloud. Yo
Something everybody has, and
something everyone will struggle
with at some point in their life.
Using the lens to explore this
concept within herself and
others, is Jenny Stevens.
In 2018, Jenny completed her associate degree in graphic design. She struggled to find a job in this market and contemplated going back to school. She was inspired to apply to Point Park after attending a friend’s graduation from there. With encouragement from her biggest role model, her mom, Jenny applied and got accepted to their BFA program for graphic design. A week before starting, she heard about their photo program and decided to make the switch, putting herself on track to get a BFA in photography.
Jenny admits she’s always had a passion for photography, but it’s hard finding a good college with a photo program. Art schools in Pittsburgh such as Pittsburgh Filmmaker’s or the Art Institute of Pittsburgh that had photo programs have shut down, leaving less resources for those in the community who want to seriously pursue photography.
Point Park has provided Jenny with the resources and guidance she needed to pursue this career. She said the professors are always hands on deck and there for you, happy to help you and the other artists grow. Jenny has also had work shown in Point Park’s juried art shows.
This past year a work from her piece “Society in the Shadows” was chosen to be in the Stranger Than Known show. This work covers Charlie, a teenage girl trying to find her identity through gender. Name at birth Cheyanne, Charlie uses both she and he pronouns. Charlie prefers to wear more masculine clothes and is trying to break away from the female stereotypes society push.
Continuing to work with themes of identity, Jenny is exploring her own identity in new projects. She is taking old family photographs and on a path to recreate them to capture the memories that arose from the interactions by staging the photographs in the present.
“If you guys have a passion, just don’t stop with it. Even though sometimes life can get in the way, if you just continue pushing to get to your dreams, you can achieve it.” - Jenny Stevens
“Jazz was the moment for me that I was like, I’m going to be a dancer”
Jeneen came to Pittsburgh to pursue a career in dance. She watched her peers go off to huge state schools with Greek life, and for a minute Jeneen almost did the same. She admits she was almost a sorority girl, but ultimately her dance teachers back home in Chicago encouraged her to follow what was right for her.
“It’s tough, but sucking it up and actually like going somewhere that feeds into my purpose and what inspires me was a huge step in the right direction.”
Now Jeneen is excited for her dreams to unfold into reality now that she realizes dance is something she can genuinely pursue. As an artist, she believes there is no other option than to pursue your art form.
Jeneen’s socials are
YouTube: Jeneen Alsamsam
Instagram: @jeneenalsamsam