Spring Photos: Opening Reception and Gallery Talk: Lêna Bùi – Proliferation

On Thursday, March 29, 2018 Proliferation brought contemporary art from Vietnam to the College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center for the first time. Drawing on her context of living in a rapidly changing country, works by Lêna Bùi ’07 ranged from abstract paintings to candid video, broadly examining the less obvious effects of development on the socio-political and cultural fabrics of the country, and specifically dealing with people’s negotiation with nature in various forms.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.

Spring Photos: A Modern Woman’s Wit

On Wednesday, March 28, 2018 A Modern Woman’s Wit was on display at the Wesleyan University Davison Art Center. This performance built on themes in the Slovak folktale A Woman’s Wit and was an interactive installation that combined projection, sound, textile, animation, and movement to explore modern feminist connections to historical texts. A Modern Woman’s Wit was a collaboration between costume designer/textile artist and Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater Cybele Moon and media artist Erica Larsen-Dockray.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.

Spring Photos: Susan Lourie Dance Class

On Monday, March 26, 2018 long-time Wesleyan professor, Susan Lourie gave a dance class at the Bessie Schonberg Dance Studio.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.

Spring Photos: Japan Twang: An Evening with Shamisen Player Michiyoshi Sato

On Tuesday, March 6, 2018 a rare performance by Michiyoshi Sato outside of Japan took place at Wesleyan University’s World Music Hall. He is one of Japan’s leading practitioners of tsugaru-jamisen, an improvisatory musical style performed on a Japanese three-stringed spike lute called a shamisen. Mr. Sato is known for a cutting-edge performance style that fuses the traditional with the modern, and the classics with pop. In his Connecticut debut, the first stop on his second tour of the United States, he stretched the limits of his instrument and his art, and took the audience through traditional folk songs, contemporary improvisation, and original compositions.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.

Spring Photos: Robert Ashley’s Crash

On Saturday, March 3, 2018 a new generation of artists performed Crash (2014), featuring vocalists Gelsey Bell, Brian McCorkle, Paul Pinto, Dave Ruder ’05, and Aliza Simons ’09 from the music collective Varispeed, as well as Amirtha Kidambi. The six singers rotated through the three characters of the opera, with sound by Music Director Tom Hamilton and photos by Philip Makanna. This haunting masterpiece is the last opera written by American composer Robert Ashley. Throughout his five-decade career, he radically redefined the operatic genre.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.

Spring Photos: Thomas Buckner sings Robert Ashley and Alvin Lucier

On Friday, March 2, 2018 Baritone Thomas Buckner, a longtime Robert Ashley collaborator, performed works written for him, including The Producer Speaks featuring John Spencer Camp Professor of Music Neely Bruce on piano, Tract, and The Mystery of the River arranged by Tom Hamilton; plus Litany, a new work written for this celebration by Alvin Lucier, John Spencer Camp Professor of Music, Emeritus. Assisted by Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Alex Waterman. Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department Paula Matthusen directed the chorus, and graduate music students Jordan Dykstra and Matt Wellins worked on recording and playback.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.

Spring Photos: Manual Cinema: Ada/Ava

On Friday, February 23, 2018 Performance collective Manual Cinema created live film on stage, combining cinematic techniques, theatricality, handmade shadow puppetry, innovative sound, and live music. The Connecticut premiere of Ada/Ava (2013) used a story of the fantastic and supernatural to explore mourning and melancholy, self and other. Bereaved of her twin sister Ava, septuagenarian Ada solitarily marks time until a traveling carnival and a trip to a mirror maze plunges her into a journey across the thresholds of life and death.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.

Spring Photos: Masayo Ishigure: Koto 360°

On Friday, February 16, 2018 A musical dialogue between the east and west, Koto 360° featured traditional Japanese instruments alongside classical guitar, tap dancing, and percussion. This concert included contemporary compositions by Hikaru Sawai, John Neptune, and a New England premiere by Celil Refik Kaya.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.

Spring Photos: West End String Quartet: Variations and Arrangements

On Sunday, February 11, 2018 The West End String Quartet featured Wesleyan chamber music instructors Sarah Washburn on violin, Anne Berry on cello, and John Biatowas on viola, plus the group’s new violinist Marianne Vogel. The quartet was joined by clarinetist Charles Yassky and John Spencer Camp Professor of Music and pianist Neely Bruce who performed the world premiere of Chorale and Variations by Mr. Bruce, The Neutral Mask by graduate music student Jordan Dykstra, Two Folk Songs and an Abstract by Roger Király, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quintet in A Major for clarinet and strings, K. 581.

Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the full album on Flickr.