In this episode of 'SEMO Spotlight', we speak with Nyghel Byrd, an instructor for the Conservatory of Theatre and Dance who specializes in voice for the Actor and Musical Theatre Voice. He previews the upcoming "Celebrate the Arts" showcase at SEMO's River Campus, May 1st at 7:30 p.m., in the Bedell Performance Hall.
"Celebrate the Arts", which is an annual showcase on River Campus, brings together student work from art and design, music, theater, dance, and mass media to create a vibrant, collaborative celebration of creativity and learning. Nyghel Byrd described the event as both a highlight of the academic year and a practical demonstration of how classroom learning translates into real-world artistic practice.
Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit international and national performance tours for Southeast students.
“Celebrate the Arts” is on Friday, May 1, at 7:30 p.m. in the Bedell Performance Hall at Southeast’s River Campus.
Byrd emphasized that the showcase is designed to display student work across departments, giving students a platform to present completed projects and experimentation across departments and art forms that reflect both coursework and evolving artistic industries.
This year’s program places special emphasis on illustrating how disparate creative disciplines can combine to produce new kinds of work. Bryd is especially excited about the presentation of animation students working with composition students to stage a play with original music, bringing visual storytelling and musical authorship into a single production.
Brick Road Productions, a student organization known for cabaret-style concerts, has partnered singers with student choreographers to present newly choreographed pieces set to evocative songs; Byrd described this as a project that began with enthusiasm from the students and became a “fun surprise” on the program. These blended projects, he explained, grow incrementally: each season the faculty and students try new pairings, learn what works on stage, and then build toward more ambitious integrations the following year.
"Celebrate the Arts" serves not only as a showcase but also as an important fundraiser supporting student study-abroad opportunities and international exchange. Byrd highlighted a longstanding partnership that sends SEMO theater students to Norway to study acting, writing, and theatrical practice.
This partnership brings exchanges that return to campus with fresh techniques, perspectives, and research opportunities, which enrich local teaching. Those international experiences, he said, create a feedback loop between global exposure and campus pedagogy, allowing students to apply what they learn abroad to classroom projects and future collaborations, and prompting new research directions and creative experiments.
Byrd discussed a philosophy used in his classroom that values both structure and inventive rule-breaking. He tells students they must “know the rules to break the rules,” a principle that connects the disciplined study of craft with the freedom to innovate.
Byrd also drew connections between the arts and fields often seen as separate, such as engineering and design, noting that functionality and aesthetics coexist in many places and that recognizing these intersections expands the potential for creative problem-solving.
He described walking around campus and imagining ways photography, design, and even engineering might inform performance and composition, demonstrating an interdisciplinary curiosity that fuels new projects.
"Celebrate the Arts" also functions as a communal moment for River Campus. Byrd invites the campus and broader community to attend in any capacity, as participants in classes and productions or simply as audience members, to any event of the River Campus; he stresses that such participation strengthens ties, sparks new ideas, and opens opportunities for collaboration.
