Center for the Arts

Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts announces highlights of 2021 fall season

Middletown, Conn.—Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts announces the highlights of their 2021 fall season, including outdoor and virtual performances, artist talks and discussions, a dance workshop, a film screening, and three exhibitions featuring installations, sculpture, video, drawing, poetry, performance, photographs, and protest art.

The general public will be welcomed back to Wesleyan this fall to enjoy Center for the Arts outdoor programming and exhibitions in both the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery and the College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center. All patrons must adhere to and follow the University COVID-19 safety guidelines. Wesleyan requires all visitors to be fully vaccinated. All visitors will need to provide proof of having been fully vaccinated. Public health officials consider an individual to be fully vaccinated two weeks after their final dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Masks are required in all University buildings regardless of vaccination status. Indoor performances as well as special events, including opening receptions in the galleries, will be open to Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff. Vaccinated visitors may attend outdoor events and outdoor activities unmasked. Patrons under the age of 12 are required to wear a mask at outdoor events. Due to current CDC age limits on vaccinations, individuals under the age of 12 will not be permitted at indoor exhibitions.

Please see below for more information.

Ticket sales and reservations for free fall events at the Center for the Arts will be available starting Wednesday, September 1, 2021 at 11am online at https://www.wesleyan.edu/boxoffice. Programs, artists, and dates are subject to change without notice.

Performing Arts Series
“As we continue to face the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Center for the Arts offers a dynamic Performing Arts Series featuring both in person and virtual events,” said Fiona Coffey, Associate Director for Programming and Performing Arts. “Our fall 2021 programming at Wesleyan highlights racial and social justice visionaries whose work forges meaningful change, interrogates heteronormative standards, subverts racial and gender stereotypes, examines our relationship to class and labor, and empowers audiences.”

Forklift Danceworks: "WesWorks—A Performance with Wesleyan University Facilities Staff"
Thursday, October 14 through Saturday, October 16, 2021 at 7pm
Starting at Andrus Field (55 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown, Connecticut)
FREE! RSVP required.

Please note that the performance on Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 7pm is an open dress rehearsal.

By purchasing a ticket or making a reservation, patrons over the age of 12 confirm that they are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 and will be able to provide proof of vaccination at the event.

“Allison Orr [is] a choreographer who sees elements of dance in unlikely places. Ms. Orr’s project creates a way to both honor and celebrate the employees’ efforts.”
—The New York Times

"WesWorks" (2021) features the movement and stories of Wesleyan University employees as directed by Forklift Danceworks of Austin, Texas. The company is led by Artistic Director Allison Orr, Distinguished Fellow in the College of the Environment and Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies.

Forklift Danceworks productions are built on a core belief that all people are inherently creative. "WesWorks" celebrates the skilled movement and tells the often unheard stories of the people whose work sustains the daily lives of the Wesleyan campus. Through their performances, Forklift Danceworks seeks to create opportunities for more informed civic dialogue, deeper understanding of the jobs essential to urban life, and greater connection between citizens and across communities.

Building on seven years of Forklift Danceworks engagement with Wesleyan, "WesWorks" was developed through a series of residencies and intensive course collaborations over the past year and a half. The multi-site outdoor performance invites the audience to witness the virtuosic and skilled work of Facilities staff as performed by the workers themselves, and to celebrate their indispensable place at Wesleyan.

Presented by the Center for the Arts in partnership with the College of the Environment, Physical Plant, SMG Custodial, the Creative Campus Initiative, the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, and the Dance Department, with additional funding support from the New England Foundation for the Arts.

45th annual Navaratri Festival
Navaratri, one of India’s major festival celebrations, is a time to see family and friends, enjoy music and dance, and seek blessings for new endeavors. Wesleyan’s 45th annual festival celebrates the diversity of Indian music and dance with the virtual events below. For more information, please visit www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/navaratri.

Presented by the Center for the Arts, Music Department, and Dance Department, with leadership support from the Madhu Reddy Endowed Fund for Indian Music and Dance at Wesleyan University, and additional support from the Jon B. Higgins Memorial Fund.

Film Screening and Discussion: "Kattumaram (Catamaran)"
Thursday, September 30, 2021 at 7pm
FREE! RSVP required for access to virtual event.

“Eswaran balances politics with aesthetics, making Kattumaram a beautiful and genuine experience.”
—Frameline

Part of an emerging queer cinema from South India, the 2019 film "Kattumaram (Catamaran)" depicts a conservative fisherman who gradually comes to accept his Tsunami-orphaned niece’s relationship with a woman. The virtual screening will be followed by a discussion with director Swarnavel Eswaran and Professor and Chair of the Dance Department and Professor of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Hari Krishnan, moderated by Assistant Professor of Film Studies Anuja Jain.

B. Balasubrahmaniyan: Vocal Music of South India
Friday, October 1, 2021 at 7pm
YouTube
FREE! RSVP required for access to virtual event.

Vocalist and Adjunct Associate Professor of Music B. Balasubrahmaniyan will be joined by Adjunct Associate Professor of Music David Nelson on mridangam.

Dance Workshop and Conversation with The Post Natyam Collective
Saturday, October 2, 2021 at 2pm
FREE! RSVP required for access to virtual event.

Moderated by Professor and Chair of the Dance Department and Professor of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Hari Krishnan.

The Post Natyam Collective (Sandra Chatterjee, Cynthia Ling Lee, and Shyamala Moorty) will engage workshop participants through creative exercises and video documentation of performance works from the past fifteen years. In conversation with Professor Hari Krishnan, the coalition will also discuss their transnational collective practice of creating queer, postcolonial, diasporic, and feminist explorations via South Asian dance through virtual and in-person collaboration.

Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan’s Raag Bhimpalasi
Sunday, October 3, 2021 at 2pm
FREE! RSVP required for access to virtual event.

“Ustad Shahid Parvez was at his melodious best…with harmonised phrases of intertwined melody and intricate rhythmic patterns.”
—The Hindu (India)

World-renowned sitar virtuoso Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan belongs to the seventh generation of an influential musical lineage. His playing focuses on exploring and expanding the possibilities of the melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music, or raag, often to mind-blowing effect. The rasa (mood) of his presentation of the raag Bhimpalasi seamlessly melds afternoon serenity, the fire of a glowing sunset, and awe of the approaching night.

The pre-recorded concert will be followed by a live discussion and Q&A with the artist moderated by sarangi (bowed string instrument) player and vocalist and Wesleyan graduate student Suhail Yusuf.

In the Galleries

Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery
Benjamin Chaffee, Associate Director of Visual Arts
Tuesday through Sunday, Noon–5pm
www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/zilkha

"The Language in Common"
Tuesday, September 14 through Sunday, December 12, 2021
Opening Reception: Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 4:30pm; Curator Talk by Associate Director of Visual Arts and Adjunct Instructor in Art Benjamin Chaffee at 5pm
FREE!

The group exhibition "The Language in Common" presents artistic practices that site language in the space between poetry, visual art, and their performance. Moving beyond the spectacle of the origination of poetry or art, this project seeks to allow memory as a creative act in the process of making experience common, of making space for a new imaginary. The exhibition will bring together five artists whose work engages with politics on the periphery of hegemony, including Cecilia Vicuña (b.1948, Chile), Tanya Lukin Linklater (b.1976, Alutiiq), Julien Creuzet (b.1986, France), Jasper Marsalis (b.1995, U.S.), and Alice Notley (b.1945, U.S.). Featuring works encompassing installation, sculpture, video, drawing, poetry, and performance, as well as newly-commissioned works developed in response to the exhibition, "The Language in Common" aims towards what the poet Alice Notley calls “the language that holds all being together.”

Please note that due to COVID-19 safety protocols, this exhibition opening reception will not include food or drinks.

This exhibition and related events are supported by the Shapiro Center and Writing at Wesleyan, the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, the Thomas and Catherine McMahon Fund of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the History Department, the Latin American Studies Program, Connecticut Humanities, and the Center for the Arts. Additional support by Etant donnés Contemporary Art, a program developed by FACE Foundation, Villa Albertine and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States, with lead funding from the French Ministry of Culture and Institut Français-Paris, Ford Foundation, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Chanel USA, and ADAGP.

Performance and Artist Talk by Cecilia Vicuña
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 at 6pm
Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery
FREE! For Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff.

A performance and artist talk by Cecilia Vicuña in conjunction with the exhibition "The Language in Common." Co-sponsored by the Shapiro Center and Writing at Wesleyan.

"Behind Enemy Lines: The Prison Art of Ojore Lutalo"
Tuesday, September 21 through Sunday, October 17, 2021
Gallery Tours with Artist Ojore Lutalo: Wednesday, September 22, 2021 from 6pm to 8pm
South Gallery, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery
FREE!

Artist Ojore Lutalo will give tours of “Behind Enemy Lines: The Prison Art of Ojore Lutalo," an exhibition of his prison protest art. These mini-tours with small groups will be held at 20 minute intervals on a first-come, first-served basis.

Please note that due to COVID-19 safety protocols, this event will not include food or drinks.

Ojore Lutalo, a member of the Black Liberation Army, spent 22 of his 28-year prison sentence in a variation of solitary confinement called a “management control unit.” One of the tactics Lutalo devised to survive those years of “no-touch torture” was to construct the collages featured in this exhibition as an ongoing act of political resistance.

“As a revolutionary I had to come to terms with the prospect of death in captivity," said Lutalo. "I was a political prisoner, a prisoner of war. I took on the state. Their goal was to break me psychologically. They wanted to destroy my mind. Making these collages helped me maintain my sanity.”

Lutalo's collages were recently displayed at MoMa’s PS1 gallery in Queens as part of the exhibition "Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration" from September 2020 through April 2021.

The Wesleyan exhibition, curated by Professor and Chair of the Theater Department Ron Jenkins, is part of “Remembering Attica: Legacy of a Prison Revolt," a series of events at Wesleyan commemorating the Attica anniversary, including lectures, films, and performances.

Made possible with support from the Wesleyan University Departments of Music, Film Studies, Theater, and History, the Art Studio Program of the Art and Art History Department, the African American Studies Program, the Science in Society Program, the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, the Center for Pedagogical Innovation, the Center for the Arts, the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, and the Provost’s Equity Advisory Board. Special thanks to the Healing Justice and Prison Watch Programs of the American Friends Service Committee in New York and New Jersey.

College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center
Benjamin Chaffee, Associate Director of Visual Arts
Tuesday-Friday, Noon-4pm
www.wesleyan.edu/ceas/exhibitions

25th Anniversary of the College of East Asian Studies Japanese Garden (Shôyôan Teien)
Wednesday, September 29 through Friday, December 10, 2021
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 29, 2021 at Noon
College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center
FREE!

Please note that due to COVID-19 safety protocols, this exhibition opening reception will not include food or drinks.

The College of East Asian Studies celebrates the 25th anniversary of its Japanese Garden (Shôyôan Teien) with an exhibition in their gallery at the Mansfield Freeman Center. The curated show will feature archival photographs, poetry, photography, video, and installation demonstrating the breadth of the garden’s cultural connections over the last two and a half decades. This exhibition was originally planned for the anniversary year of the garden in 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Shôyôan Teien was constructed in 1995 through the generosity of Mansfield Freeman '16 and encouragement of Mr. Freeman’s son, Houghton Freeman '43. It was designed, built, and is continuously cared for by Stephen Morrell, a landscape architect specializing in Japanese-style gardens. Planned from the start as an educational resource, the garden provides visitors the opportunity to explore the intricate relationships between landscape and culture in Japanese aesthetics. For over 25 years, the garden has been one of the most beloved spaces at Wesleyan University, and actively used for a range of purposes, from art classes to daily meditation practices. This exhibition celebrates and contemplates the garden’s rich history.

Theater Department

"Echoes of Attica"
Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 3pm
Ring Family Performing Arts Hall
FREE! For Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff.

"Echoes of Attica," a play about the 1971 Attica Prison revolt, will receive a world premiere for Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff as performed by formerly incarcerated actors and musicians to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the uprising, and to raise awareness about its relevance to the current outbreak of state violence against communities of color. This event is part of “Remembering Attica: Legacy of a Prison Revolt," a series of events commemorating the Attica anniversary, including lectures, films, and an exhibition.

“Attica in 1971 is a picture of what can happen to you," said Carlos Roche, a 79 year old survivor of the Attica Prison massacre. "It’s not just the past. It’s the present. It’s the future. It’s all of us.” Roche will be introducing the play, as well as taking part in a post-performance discussion.

The music / theater performance is based on court transcripts, recently released FBI files, and interviews with men who survived the assault. The Attica Prison riots took place between September 9 and 13, 1971, during which 29 incarcerated men were shot to death by state police in what the New York State Official Commission on Attica called “the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War.”

"Echoes of Attica" includes original songs written and performed by Philadelphia-based rap poet and activist BL Shirelle, and the gospel singers Simply Naomi and Crystal Walker, who are associated with Die Jim Crow records, which produces music written and performed by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated artists. Also featured in the performance is Dario Peńa, who played the title role in “Macbeth” when he was serving time in Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York and studying theater with the author of the play Ron Jenkins, Professor of Theater and Chair of the Theater Department at Wesleyan. And the cast also features Wesleyan Assistant Professor of the Practice in Theater Edward Torres, who spent ten years working with men on death row while co-founding the award-winning theater company Teatro Vista in Chicago.

Ron Jenkins has staged plays in prisons in Indonesia, Italy, and the United States, and will be teaching the course "Gospel, Rap, & Social Justice" about Attica at the Yale Divinity School’s Institute of Sacred Music in New Haven, Connecticut this fall with Roche, Shirelle, and Naomi as guest lecturers.

In May 2021, Wesleyan students in the course THEA 114-01 “Incarcerated Stories: Documenting In/Justice” taught by Jenkins collaborated with formerly incarcerated individuals and their families to create performances of theater and music based on interviews, trial transcripts, prison memoirs, and other texts related to mass incarceration and the Attica Prison uprising. Guest artists on the free Zoom webinar included Shirelle and Naomi, as well as Maserati E. The May performance was followed by a dialogue with Attica survivors Roche and Tyrone Larkins, and was supported in part by the Creative Campus Initiative of the Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University. The course will be offered again at Wesleyan during the 2021-22 academic year.

Made possible with support from the Wesleyan University Departments of Music, Film Studies, Theater, and History, the Art Studio Program of the Art and Art History Department, the African American Studies Program, the Science in Society Program, the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, the Center for Pedagogical Innovation, the Center for the Arts, the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, and the Provost’s Equity Advisory Board. Special thanks to the Healing Justice and Prison Watch Programs of the American Friends Service Committee in New York and New Jersey.

Talk It Out: "Oedipus El Rey"
Thursday, October 28, 2021 at 5pm
FREE! For Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff.

The Wesleyan Theater Department presents a "Talk It Out" interdisciplinary, open conversation around the issues framed by their November production of "Oedipus El Rey" directed by Assistant Professor of Theater Katie Pearl and featuring a senior theater capstone performance by Milton Espinoza ’22.

"Oedipus El Rey"
Friday, November 12, 2021 at 8pm
Saturday, November 13, 2021 at 2pm and 8pm
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 2pm
CFA Theater
$8 for Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff.

Based on Sophocles’ "Oedipus Rex," "Oedipus El Rey" (2017) is an urgent examination of the criminal justice system, societal barriers, and the influence of storytelling for those bold enough to challenge the gods of our time. Playwright Luis Alfaro brings the audience into the Chicano culture of Southern California in an adaptation that is as necessary as it is timeless: is fate mandated by the gods, or by unjust economic systems, systemic racism, and a life where power seems to be the best answer for survival?

Directed by Assistant Professor of Theater Katie Pearl and featuring a senior theater capstone performance by Milton Espinoza '22.

Capstone Theater Production: "The Party at the Edge of the World"
Friday, November 19 through Sunday, November 21, 2021 at 8pm
FREE! Tickets required. For Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff.

Ten year old Georgia lives in a house that was supposed to be underwater, that is sinking, that is already sunk, and that soon will sink for good.

"The Party at the Edge of the World" follows Georgia and a gaggle of ghosts, parents, and friends as they navigate what it means to live life on the brink: of ecological disaster, time, magic, and loss. Presented in a site-specific and immersive format, this capstone theater production by Liz Woolford ’22 is an original play about childhood, togetherness, and how we embrace both grief and joy in the face of the massively unthinkable.

"The Party at the Edge of the World" is a play in development. A tight-knit team of actors and designers will spend the first part of the fall semester playing and experimenting together to finalize the script. Intimate performances will take place in a non-traditional venue on the Wesleyan campus.

Thesis Theater Production: "Heroes of the Fourth Turning"
Tuesday, December 7 through Thursday, December 9, 2021 at 8pm
Patricelli '92 Theater
FREE! Tickets required. For Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff.

Amidst rapidly increasing national polarization, four young conservatives have gathered to celebrate their mentor, newly inducted as president of a tiny Catholic college. But as their reunion spirals into spiritual chaos and clashing generational politics, it becomes less a celebration than a vicious battle to be understood. By harnessing the empathetic nature of theatrical storytelling, "Heroes of the Fourth Turning" (2019) creates opportunities for audiences to hold space for competing beliefs and listen to those for whom they may have the impulse to block out.

Written by Will Arbery, this thesis theater production will be directed by Anna Buchmueller ’22.

Dance Department

Dance Alumni Chat Series: Anyone Can Dance!
Friday, September 24, 2021 at Noon
Zoom
FREE! RSVP required for access to virtual event.

The Dance Department’s second Alumni Chat Series event features four amazing Wesleyan alumni, discussing the benefits of a dance degree and how their dance education at Wesleyan transformed their lives beyond the university.

Fall Senior Thesis Dance Concert
Friday, October 29 and Saturday, October 30, 2021 at 7pm
Patricelli '92 Theater
$6 for Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff.

A collection of new works will be presented by senior choreographers as part of their culminating project of the dance major.

Fall Faculty Dance Concert: "FULL SPEED AHEAD!"
Thursday, December 2 and Friday, December 3, 2021 at 7pm
CFA Theater
$8 for Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff

Forging ahead with gusto and excitement, the Wesleyan Dance Department presents a mixed bill of dance works intertwining activism, race, identity, dance history, somatics, and dynamic movement featuring Artist in Residence in Dance Patricia Beaman, Associate Professor of Dance Katja Kolcio, and Visiting Instructor in Dance Nik Owens '12.

Katja Kolcio premieres "The Force of Breath." Since the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity in 2014, she has been working in Ukraine, connecting dance and somatic practices with psycho-social resilience and social justice-based activism. Her solo will introduce the audience to a lobby exhibit depicting her Ukraine project, and the courageous people with whom she works.

"Ode, or What We’ve Learned" is Patricia Beaman’s reverent yet heroic homage to compelling methods of seminal choreographers, ranging from 18th century Baroque ballet to postmodern and contemporary dance of the 20th century. This collaborative dance, in which a heeled shoe might confront a bare foot, or a formal portrait may face a fractured collage, will be performed by a cast featuring Dance Department faculty and students.

Nik Owens presents a deeply personal work with the working title "The Right Kind." What do you do when you’re not the right kind of person? What are the lies we tell ourselves to be the right person? Or just to feel right? "The Right Kind" delves into a personal journey, exploring what it means to be who you are when you feel who you are isn’t enough, touching upon notions of Black identity, empathy, and the relationship between invisibility and invincibility.

Worlds of Dance Showcase
Sunday, December 5, 2021 at 2pm
Crowell Concert Hall
FREE! For Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff.

The Worlds of Dance Showcase will feature Wesleyan students performing an exciting array of dance styles from a variety of courses, including Indonesian Dance, Bharata Natyam, Hip Hop, and “Introduction to Dance,” under the direction of Visiting Associate Professor of Dance Doug Elkins, Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Maho Ishiguro MA ’12 Ph.D. ’18, Professor and Chair of the Dance Department Hari Krishnan, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Joya Powell.

Winter Dance Concert
Friday, December 10 and Saturday, December 11, 2021 at 7pm
CFA Theater
$6 for Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff.

Wesleyan student choreographers across different class years present new group works focusing on a diversity of techniques, methods, and aesthetic approaches.

Music Department

West African Drumming and Dance Concert
Saturday, December 4, 2021 at 7pm
Crowell Concert Hall
$6 for Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff.

An invigorating performance filled with the rhythms of West Africa, featuring Assistant Professor of Music John Dankwa and Assistant Professor of Dance Iddi Saaka joined by students in West African music and dance classes.