CHAPEL HILL - Lots of tiny red and green words are circled on a drawing board and connected by arrows. It looks like the diagram of a basketball play or a frenetic road map to faraway treasures.

Both interpretations are apt, because the board in Emil Kang's office illustrates how the executive director for the arts at UNC-Chapel Hill is in nonstop pursuit of the day when culture is as big as sports on campus.

"Our board chairman says athletics and arts are the front porch to the university," Kang said, referring to the Carolina Performing Arts national advisory board. "We need more room on our front porch."

Kang is rearranging furniture as fast as he can, and the drawing board helps him do it. "That's my mind map," he said. "It shows the connections we have everywhere."

The mind map intertwines ideas spawned from Kang's global travels in search of new performers, his obligation to faculty and student artists and how it all fits into the university's academic and community initiatives.

Kang, 39, was Chancellor James Moeser's choice to be the first "arts czar" at UNC. He was hired in 2005 to marshal the university's diffuse performing arts programs into a single entity with a higher profile than they had individually. Moeser himself came to the university with a passion for the arts, having been a concert organist with undergraduate music degrees.

Soon after Kang's arrival, Moeser imagined out loud what it would be like if students camped out for seats in Memorial Hall as they do for basketball tickets at UNC-CH and Duke. If they did, he said only half-jokingly, it could be called "Kangville" -- Carolina's version of the Blue Devils' "Krzyzewski-ville."

Kang says he still isn't as recognized on campus as a basketball coach. But he excitedly shows off e-mail he has received from students who said they didn't care about music, dance or theater until they met some of the artists who have performed on campus.

"This is why I do what I do," he said. "People think the arts can't change lives. It's a job I take very seriously."

Hot tickets

Kang is reaching somebody because early in his third season, the programs at Memorial Hall are among the hottest tickets in the Triangle; 11 concerts are likely to be sold out.

"Sellouts this year have been insane," Kang said. "We didn't expect it."

But Kang said sellouts aren't the measure that matters most. What it's really all about, he says, is exposing audiences to new performances.

"Our larger goal is to convince our community it's not all about familiarity," he said. "That's what separates us from commercial venues."

Occasionally, the worlds of commerce and the arts meet, and esoteric performances can fill the 1,400-seat hall. That happened twice in October, and it was a surprise.

"Classical Cambodian dance brought in 90 percent of capacity," he said. "How did we do that? French contemporary circus was a sellout. We expected [cellist] Yo-Yo Ma and [violinist] Joshua Bell to sell out. But this?"

Aaron Greenwald, who is Kang's interim counterpart at Duke University, says Carolina Performing Arts has done a good job marketing itself and has spent a lot of money on blockbuster acts. Greenwald compliments Kang's willingness to program noncommercial acts, although he says he thinks Duke's programs have a more "thematically driven, uncompromised" approach.

"I admire his forward-thinking stuff and his ability to raise money," he said. "They've undertaken some incredibly ambitious series."

No topic taboo

Kang is also proud of the campus' current yearlong artistic exploration of the death penalty, financed by a competitive national grant. He hopes to tackle a new topic in that way every year.

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