Center for the Arts

Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts summer series to feature United States premiere of dance work, Grammy Award-nominated jazz group

Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts summer events include
United States premiere of RUBBERBANDance Group's "Vic’s Mix;"
Grammy Award-nominated jazz saxophonist Jimmy Greene Quartet;
world premieres by pianist and composer Neely Bruce;
free outdoor concert by Nation Beat;
free noontime talks by Aaron Jafferis, Ani Cordero, Mohamad Hafez, Faye Driscoll.
Tickets on sale Monday, June 20, 2016 at Noon.



Middletown, Conn.— Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts summer series includes the United States premiere of RUBBERBANDance Group's "Vic’s Mix" (July 21); Grammy Award-nominated jazz saxophonist Jimmy Greene Quartet (July 7); world premieres by pianist and composer Neely Bruce, John Spencer Camp Professor of Music (July 10); a free outdoor concert by Nation Beat (June 30); and free noontime talks by Aaron Jafferis (June 28), Ani Cordero (July 6), Mohamad Hafez (July 12), and Faye Driscoll (July 19). Please see full event listings below.

Tickets for the Jimmy Greene Quartet and RUBBERBANDance Group will go on sale on Monday, June 20, 2016 at Noon online at http://www.wesleyan.edu/boxoffice, by phone at (860) 685-3355, or in person at the Wesleyan University Box Office, located in the Usdan University Center, 45 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown. The box office will be open Monday to Friday from Noon to 4pm. Tickets may also be purchased at each event beginning one hour prior to the performance, subject to availability. The Center for the Arts accepts cash, checks written to “Wesleyan University,” and all major credit cards. Groups of ten or more may receive a discount on tickets–please call (860) 685-3355 starting on Monday, June 20, 2016 for details. No refunds, cancellations, or exchanges.

All programs, artists, and dates are subject to change. All Center for the Arts facilities are air-conditioned. "Summer at the CFA" is co-sponsored by the Capital Regional Education Council’s Center for Creative Youth and is presented in association with Wesleyan University’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance.

Summer at the Center for the Arts (June 28 - July  21, 2016)

Tuesday, June 28, 2016 at 12:10pm
Aaron Jafferis: Preaching from the Choir—Can Hip Hop Theater Change Us?
Ring Family Performing Arts Hall (former CFA Hall), 287 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut
FREE!

Aaron Jafferis writes hip hop musicals about race, class, and other topics. Should socially conscious theater incite introspection or action? Should it make a sharp point about an issue, or open a conversation? Does “art for social change” really change anyone? If you keep interrupting a hip hop play with interactive audience dialogues, will the audience leave? Mr. Jafferis grapples with these and other existential questions as he performs excerpts of works in progress.
 
Aaron Jafferis previously discussed his work and demonstrated his approach to hip hop theater as part of the "Summer at the CFA" Series in World Music Hall in July 2014.

Thursday, June 30, 2016 at 7pm
Nation Beat
CFA Courtyard, 283 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut
Rain Location: Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown, Connecticut
FREE!

“You’ll be hard-pressed to sit still during their show”
—Festival International de Louisianne

Dance to Brooklyn-based collective Nation Beat, whose music melds northeast Brazilian rhythms—maracatu, coco, and forro—with New Orleans second-line funk, rock, jazz, Appalachian music, and country-blues. The band features Artistic Director and founder Scott Kettner on drums, Brazilian vocalist Fabiana Masili, and guitarist Mark Marshall.
 
Nation Beat previously performed as part of the "Summer at the CFA" Series in July 2009.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016 at 12:10pm
Ani Cordero  
Ring Family Performing Arts Hall (former CFA Hall), 287 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut
FREE!

New York singer-songwriter Ani Cordero was a founding member and drummer for the celebrated Mexican band Pistolera, fronted her own critically-lauded bilingual band Cordero, plays drums for rock trio Tuff Sunshine, and recently embarked on a solo career performing music with a political message. At Wesleyan, she will discuss the inspiration she found in nueva canción artists, and the classic Latin American songs of love and protest from the 1930s through the 1970s on her recent album "Recordar (Remember)".

Thursday, July 7, 2016 at 8pm
Jimmy Greene Quartet
Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown, Connecticut
$28 general public; $26 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni; $12 students

"['Beautiful Life'] combines jazz with spirituals, contemporary Christian music and ballads.”
—All About Jazz

One of the most respected jazz saxophonists of his generation, Jimmy Greene will perform works from his Grammy Award-nominated album "Beautiful Life" (2014, Mack Avenue Records) with Aaron Goldberg on piano, Doug Weiss on bass, and Otis Brown III on drums.

Mr. Greene graduated from The Hartt School of Music in West Hartford in 1997. He previously performed as part of the "Summer at the CFA" Series in July 2008 as part of the Kwaku Kwaakye Martin Obeng Band in the CFA Courtyard.

Sunday, July 10, 2016 at 3pm
This Is It! The Complete Piano Works of Neely Bruce: Part IX
Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown, Connecticut
FREE!

John Spencer Camp Professor of Music Neely Bruce presents the ninth in a series of CD-length recitals of his piano music, featuring "The Blue Box," a group of twelve modal pieces; miscellaneous short works (dances, studies, etc.); and two world premieres: "A Double Fugue for Jim and Carol" and, as a change of pace, David Borden's "Prelude and Fugue on the name Neely Bruce."

Tuesday, July 12, 2016 at 12:10pm
Mohamad Hafez
Ring Family Performing Arts Hall (former CFA Hall), 287 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut
FREE!

Syrian artist and architect Mohamad Hafez creates mixed and multi-media sculptures representing Middle Eastern streetscapes and buildings besieged by civil war, deliberately contrasted with hopeful verses from the Holy Quran, audio recordings from his homeland, and other elements of his Islamic heritage. At Wesleyan, Mr. Hafez will discuss how his surrealistic art reflects political turmoil through the compilation of found objects, paint, and scrap metal.
 
His recent exhibition "Desperate Cargo" at Real Art Ways in Hartford was a multimedia installation that incorporated a life raft, miniature elements, and photography, focusing on the war and the current refugee crisis.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 12:10pm
Faye Driscoll
Ring Family Performing Arts Hall (former CFA Hall), 287 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut
FREE!

Through the thrill and unpredictability of live performance, Faye Driscoll aims to create a communal space where the co-emergent social moment is questioned, heightened, and palpable. Ms. Driscoll will discuss her work and process, and a question that recently drives her practice: How do we perceive ourselves as participants in the co-creation of our reality? Her work "Thank You for Coming: Attendance" received its Connecticut premiere at Wesleyan in November 2015 as part of the Performing Arts Series.
 
Faye Driscoll is the recipient of the 2016 Danspace/Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance Creative Artist Residency.

Thursday, July 21, 2016 at 8pm
RUBBERBANDance Group: "Vic’s Mix"
CFA Theater, 271 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut
$28 general public; $26 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni; $12 students

“The crowd was so spellbound there was a palpable quiet in the air.”
—Philadelphia City Paper

Montréal’s RUBBERBANDance Group returns to Wesleyan to perform the United States premiere of "Vic’s Mix" (2016). Plunging into fifteen years of choreographer Victor Quijada’s trailblazing creativity, "Vic’s Mix" extracts illuminating breakthroughs in the Co-Artistic Director’s experiments with urban hip hop dynamics and contemporary ballet since his founding of the company in 2002.
 
RUBBERBANDance Group previously performed the work "Punto Ciego" as part of the Breaking Ground Dance Series in the CFA Theater in April 2009.

About the Center for the Arts
Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts exists to catalyze people’s creativity by engaging them in the dynamic work of diverse artists.
 
Three inter-related activities enable the CFA to realize its purpose:

• supporting the research, public productions, and in-studio teaching needs of the departments of Art and Art History, Dance, Music, and Theater;
• leading inter-disciplinary collaborations and other initiatives that integrate artists into creative curricular and co-curricular initiatives; and
• organizing powerful encounters between visiting artists and diverse elements of the Wesleyan community, the greater Middletown community, statewide, and regional audiences.  

The Center for the Arts opened in the fall of 1973, and includes the 400-seat Theater, the 260-seat Ring Family Performing Arts Hall (former CFA Hall), the World Music Hall (a non-Western performance space), the 400-seat Crowell Concert Hall, the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Adzenyah Rehearsal Hall, and classrooms and studios.

The Center for the Arts gratefully acknowledges the support of its many generous funders and collaborators, including the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, the Connecticut Office of the Arts, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New England Foundation for the Arts, as well as media sponsors the Hartford Courant, WESU 88.1FM, and WNPR.

For more information about Center for the Arts, please call (860) 685-3355, or visit http://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa.