Interview With Benji Joffe

I was running late. It was a little after three, so I rushed over to the apartment building. Lets see... Joffe, Joffe... ah, there it is. Buzz. I walked up the stairs to his place, gave a knock at the door, and was greeted by a warm hello from Benji Joffe.

The interview was set for three o'clock, so we kept the schmoozing short and got started almost right away. He took the couch and I pulled up the La-Z-Boy. The tape recorder went on.

Benji Joffe, a student at YU, is the head of Spires magazine. Sometimes on the second floor of the library, you'll see it lying there. Or, you'll se an announcement about it on one of the bulletin boards, if bored dorm members with an "appetite for destruction" haven't already torn it down.

Spires is a magazine presenting different types of artwork from students at a handful of colleges. It has also has readings of poetry and short stories. It's a good magazine to check out if you get the chance. But my interview was not about Spires.

I had come to see Joffe because of the upcoming arts festival. In February, YU will be hosting its third annual Arts Festival. With Joffe as its head, the festival has been organized predominantly by students as opposed to being a function of the Deans' office. "The administrative staff this year who comes to meetings consists of, I think, nine or ten students with less faculty [than in earlier years]", he said. "All the appropriate people who are already doing art things through YU at clubs, activities and functions [are running the festival.] Its sort of like saying, 'You guys are the people who know about arts on campus, you know about the areas you work with. We want you to be a part of deciding what goes into the arts festival.' "

What will the festival consist of? "[It will be] two weeks of activities. A big part of it will be the opening concert. It is different than the classical music and jazz ensemble, which we will have again," Benji said.

Besides the music, the festival will display paintings and drawings, readings of stories and poetry will be held, and a play will be performed. (Separate from the YU dramatics society.) Basically, four areas are being showcased: visual arts, music, literature, and performing arts.

Bothered by the fact that he had not been able to publish everything submitted to him for Spires because of limited space and his very busy schedule, Joffe wanted to make up for it in part through the Arts Festival. As a kind of restitution to all the talented artists out there, and to up and coming artists, Benji and his staff worked very hard to make this fair about participation, not just observation. Joffe said, "The biggest thing about the arts festival is involvement. We're giving everyone a chance to say,' I do art too.' " He went on to say, "We'll have an audition. People can come in with their guitar, with their voice[ and try to earn a performing role in the fair]. There are so many people on campus who do their own thing, but don't have a venue. We want to give them a venue."

When asked what other roles the Festival plays, he answered, "The purpose of the Arts Festival is to promote arts on campus. It should be demonstrating over the course of the two weeks that arts…, they do go on in this school in a lot of different places. There are a ton of people working on arts functions throughout campus, both campuses, and the Arts Festivals purpose is to show that off. [It's] one big advertisement for what's going on." He continued, "it's almost an arts directory on campus."

Benji told me of another concern of his that the Arts Festival addresses. He said, " it annoys me when the faculty says, 'The kids can't do this.' The word 'kids'; at Stern they hate being called 'girls' and they're right about that. To be called kids is ridiculous. We're legal, we can vote. It promotes this idea that we can't run the Festival ourselves…We are adults, younger adults than the faculty, but we are adults." He concluded by saying, "It's a student pride thing…everyone's happy, [they can say], 'look at what we did.' "