Center for the Arts

Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts announces 2019-2020 Performing Arts Series

Middletown, Conn.—Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts announces the 2019-2020 Performing Arts Series, including one New England premiere, four Connecticut premieres, and two Connecticut debuts. "We have a wonderful slate of creative innovators whose work we hope will inspire, engage, and energize the entire community,” said Sarah Curran, Director of the Center for the Arts. "We're thrilled to share that landmark artist Laurie Anderson will be on campus for ‘The Art of Falling’—the first event of her year-long appointment as the Center for the Arts 'Artist-at-Large,' funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. We can't wait to connect with audiences throughout a year of creativity." Please see below for more information.

Tickets for the 2019-2020 season at the Center for the Arts are on sale now online at https://www.wesleyan.edu/boxoffice. Tickets are also available 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. Tickets may also be purchased at the door beginning one hour prior to each ticketed performance during the season, 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 to select performances – please call (860) 685-3355 for details. No refunds, cancellations, or exchanges. Programs, artists, and dates are subject to change without notice.

The Inn at Middletown is the official hotel of the Center for the Arts. Patrons who show their Center for the Arts ticket stub receive 10% off their food bill at the Tavern at the Armory, located at 70 Main Street in Middletown.

Performing Arts Series
The ninth annual Performing Arts Series at the Center for the Arts features a wide array of world-class musicians, cutting-edge choreography, and groundbreaking theater performances and discussions.

Taylor Mac: "A 24-Decade History of Popular Music (Abridged)"
Saturday, September 21, 2019 at 7:30pm
CFA Theater, 271 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut
$35 general public, $33 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students, youth under 18

"One of the most exciting theater artists of our time."
—TimeOut New York

For the last 20 years Taylor Mac—who uses the gender pronoun "judy"—has created performance events that provoke and embrace diverse audiences. At Wesleyan, judy will perform the Connecticut premiere of the highly immersive and outrageously entertaining two-hour abridged version of "A 24-Decade History of Popular Music" (2016), a subjective history of American culture and dysfunction since 1776. The show highlights various musical styles and artistic voices, ranging from murder ballads to disco, Walt Whitman to David Bowie.

Funded in part by the Expeditions program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from the six New England state arts agencies.

Presented in partnership with Wesleyan's Center for the Humanities and Theater Department, with support from Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

Co-produced by Pomegranate Arts and Nature's Darlings.

Netta Yerushalmy: "Paramodernities”
Friday, October 4, 2019 at 7:30pm
CFA Theater, 271 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut
$28 general public, $26 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students, youth under 18

"Ms. Yerushalmy's work melds daring ideas with lush movement that makes space for nuance and detail."
—The New York Times

Raised in Galilee, Israel and based in New York, choreographer Netta Yerushalmy has worked with dance companies including Doug Varone and Dancers and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. At Wesleyan, the Connecticut premiere of her "Paramodernities" (2018) will feature a series of four dance-experiments, deconstructing landmark dances by Vaslav Nijinsky, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and Alvin Ailey; performed alongside texts by scholars and writers who place these iconic works within a historical context.

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.

Laurie Anderson: "The Art of Falling"
Friday, November 8, 2019 at 7:30pm
Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown, Connecticut
$35 general public, $33 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students, youth under 18

"The evening felt like a cross between story time and some kind of ritual."
—NPR Music

Writer, director, visual artist, and vocalist Laurie Anderson has created groundbreaking works that span the worlds of art, theater, and experimental music. A renowned and daring creative pioneer, she has contributed music to dance pieces by Bill T. Jones and Trisha Brown. Her 2018 recording with the Kronos Quartet, "Landfall," won a GRAMMY Award this year. At Wesleyan, she will perform the Connecticut premiere of the new work "The Art of Falling"—which explores the subject through sounds, images, poems, and electronics—at the start of her artist residency supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Presented in partnership with Wesleyan's College of the Environment and Music Department.

Golden Hornet's "The Sound of Science" featuring Jeffrey Zeigler
Friday, January 31, 2020 at 7:30pm
Memorial Chapel, 221 High Street, Middletown, Connecticut
$28 general public, $26 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students, youth under 18

"A comprehensive, responsible work that makes its listeners think about the ethereal beauty of life as well as the real world with its very real problems."
—Sightlines Magazine

Cellist Jeffrey Zeigler has performed as part of the Kronos Quartet, as well as with Laurie Anderson, Roomful of Teeth, and Vijay Iyer. Co-curated with Austin, Texas-based bandleader Graham Reynolds, "The Sound of Science" (2018) features works by seven composers, who chose eight influential scientists and created pieces inspired by their life and research. The Connecticut premiere at Wesleyan will feature "Pastaza," which reflects on the work of Robert Schumann Professor of Environmental Studies Barry Chernoff.

Presented in partnership with Wesleyan's College of the Environment.

New England Dance on Tour
Friday, February 14, 2020 at 7:30pm
CFA Theater, 271 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut
$28 general public, $26 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students, youth under 18

"There's nothing routine about the work of tap dancer and choreographer Ian Berg."
—The Improper Bostonian

Four regional dance artists showcase the diversity and richness of dance in New England: Wesleyan Dean of the Arts and Humanities and Associate Professor of Dance Nicole Lynn Stanton collaborates with Professor of Music Jay Hoggard on a work that explores the Great Migration. The Davis Sisters—the choreographic duo of Alexander and Joy Davis—combine physical rigor, theatrical structure, dramaturgical research, and glamour in their Connecticut debut, performing their work "Junk Drawer; Or the Inherited Utilitarian Archive of the Future" (2018). The cutting edge Boston-based tap dance company Subject:Matter directed by Ian Berg blurs the line between choreography and improvisation in their Connecticut debut, performing the work "Blowout" (2018). Scapegoat Garden, directed by Hartford native Deborah Goffe MA '19, presents "Liturgy | Order | Bridge" (2017-2018), which considers dance and imagination an act of faith, and performance as communal ceremony.

Funded in part by the Expeditions program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from the six New England state arts agencies.

Beethoven's 250th Birthday Bash
Friday, February 21, 2020 at 7:30pm
Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown, Connecticut
$28 general public, $26 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students, youth under 18

"[Beethoven's] combination of beauty and unpredictability, extreme emotional depth and intellectual rigour, across so many genres, is unsurpassed and probably always will be."
—BBC Music

Listen local! The Wesleyan Music Department community celebrates the 250th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) with an inspired, diverse mix of traditional and experimental tributes. Private Lessons Teachers will perform the Quintet in E-Flat for Piano and Winds, Op. 16 featuring Libby Van Cleve on oboe, Charlie Suriyakham on clarinet, Robert Hoyle on French horn, and Gary Bennett on bassoon; Cello Sonata No. 3 in A Major, Op. 69 featuring Julie Ribchinsky on cello; and the Grosse Fugue for string quartet, Op. 133 featuring the West End String Quartet—Sarah Washburn and Marianne Vogel on violin, Wesleyan Chamber Music Ensemble Director John Biatowas on viola, and Anne Berry on cello; as well as pieces written as homages by graduate student composers. Wesleyan South Indian music faculty—vocalist and Adjunct Associate Professor of Music B. Balasubrahmaniyan and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music David Nelson on mridangam—will share their own renditions of the German composer’s work as well as selections by Tyagaraja.

Tabaimo and Maki Morishita: "Fruits borne out of rust"
Friday, February 28, 2020 at 7:30pm
Saturday, February 29, 2020 at 2pm
CFA Theater, 271 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut
$28 general public, $26 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students, youth under 18

Save with a Family Four Pack! Get four matinee tickets for only $35.

"Initially, [Tabaimo's works] seem straightforward, but they quickly morph into something distinct and even peculiar and deliciously inexplicable."
—Hyperallergic

Conceived and directed by Japanese visual artist Tabaimo in collaboration with choreographer Maki Morishita, the New England premiere of the whimsical, mischievous multimedia work "Fruits borne out of rust" (2016) features a solo female dancer and two musicians playing an original score by Yusuke Awazu and Keisuke Tanaka. The work explores the notion of moving between states of stability and instability, suggesting an innate power to renew ourselves after our bodies and souls have suffered and been neglected.