Updates and reflections from Wesleyan's Center for the Arts in Middletown, Connecticut
Charles Mee’s pulsating romantic comedy Summertime (2000) weaves together elements of William Shakespeare, Molière, and René Magritte. A dress rehearsal for Summertime was held on November 16, 2016 in the CFA Theater.
Images by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography. Click here to view the entire album on Flickr.
Actor/director Kaneza Schaal ’06 offers a powerful meditation on loss, grief, and ritual in a performance incorporating projection, sound, text, and movement. Inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead–a 3000-year-old series of spells and incantations intended for the deceased as a blueprint to the afterlife–GO FORTH (2016) creates space for the presence of the absent, the imagined, and the longed for. A dress rehearsal for GO FORTH was held on September 15, 2016 in the CFA Theater.
Click here to view the full album on Flickr. Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography
Kaneza Schaal ’06 has a conversation with Wesleyan Theater students during lunch in the Jones Room of the Theater Department building on Wednesday, September 14, 2016.
Click here to view the full album on Flickr. Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography.
Wes Out-Loud: Stories of Place, a site-specific auditory piece conceived and created through a collaboration between theater students and Assistant Professor of Theater Marcela Oteíza was held on Thursday, April 28th through Sunday, May 1st in the CFA Courtyard.
Click here to view the full album on Flickr. Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography.
Dear Friends of the Center for the Arts,
It is astonishing to me that Friday April 1 is my last day at Wesleyan University, after nearly seventeen years. I wanted to send you a note to thank you for being patrons of the Center for the Arts. There is simply no way we can ever welcome artists to Wesleyan without the presence of an engaged and committed audience. You have no idea how wonderful it was for me to look out at you from the Crowell Concert Hall or CFA Theater stage, or to see you at an opening in the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery. I knew that you were there to join me in celebrating what the arts can tell us about other cultures and other worlds; how they can help us to make sense of the world in which we live; and how they can make us feel both the exhilaration and the sadness of what it means to be alive. I want to thank you, in particular, for the times you bought a ticket to a performance by an artist whom you didn’t know but, because we at the CFA felt it was an important artist or group, you took the risk.
In these last days at my desk overlooking the CFA Courtyard, I am reflecting on so many great moments when we shared such joy and excitement not only for visiting and faculty artists, but also when we marveled together at the virtuosity and creative power of Wesleyan students and all that they have to offer us.
I will miss my Wesleyan and Middletown families greatly, but as an alum and parent of a member of the class of 2016, I know that I will return often and continue to experience the arts as only Wesleyan can present them. I also want to take the opportunity to introduce Laura Paul, Interim Director of the Center for the Arts, who will lead the CFA in its next chapter. Together we have been planning a 2016–17 season of performances and exhibitions that I know you will enjoy.
If, by any chance, you are free this Friday, April 1, I will be in Crowell Concert Hall at 8pm to introduce the great Wu Man and the Shanghai Quartet. I would love the chance to say goodbye and thank you in person; if not, I hope you will come to visit me this summer at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Massachusetts (if you missed the announcement in January, I’m going there to be their new Executive Director)!
Thank you again for your generous support of the Center for the Arts.
Fondly,
Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts
A talk by playwright and director Guillermo Calderón, one of Chile’s most successful contemporary theater artists, was held on Tuesday, February 9, 2016 in Memorial Chapel.
Click here to view the full album on Flickr. Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography.
On Thursday, October 8, 2015 in the CFA Hall, award-winning actor and writer Daniel Beaty and Wesleyan students held a free spoken word/poetry slam about identity, community, and topics of the day.
Click here to view the full album on Flickr. Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography.
The Center for the Arts is one of the rare places in the state where you can consistently experience arts from around the world. This semester is no exception. In January and February, the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery hosts the work of ten contemporary Chinese artists born after the Cultural Revolution who are challenging traditional notions of Chinese identity and inventing new ways to shout out in the global arena. In February, Syrian singer Gaida brings her band to Crowell Concert Hall. At a time when her country is under siege, her soulful voice will remind us of the beauty and power of Syrian music and culture. And playwright Guillermo Calderón will discuss his award-winning works about Chile in the aftermath of the dictatorship.
The CFA is also the home of countless premieres. In April, you’ll be the first to hear Harlem Heiroglyphs, a new album by composer, vibraphonist, and Adjunct Professor of Music Jay Hoggard, both in concert and as the music for Storied Places, directed and choreographed by Dance Department Chair Nicole Stanton with text by Center for African American Studies Professor Lois Brown.
Finally, the Music Department will host a March symposium on the work of the legendary experimental music composer David Tudor and, in April, the Theater Department offers Wes Out-Loud, a site-specific work created by Assistant Professor Marcela Oteíza and her students.
The semester ends on May 7 with Feet to the Fire: Riverfront Encounter, the second annual eco-arts festival featuring world music bands, educational exhibits, and site-specific performance works by area organizations at Middletown’s Harbor Park, located on the bank of the Connecticut River.
I look forward to seeing you soon.
Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts
Five Wesleyan Theater Department alumni—producer Roberta Pereira’03, director Michael Rau ’05, playwright MJ Kaufman ’08, producer Rachel Silverman ’09, and scenic and properties designer Emmie Finckel’14—talked about their work and careers in theater after Wesleyan. The talk was moderated by Associate Professor of Theater Cláudia Tatinge Nascimento on September 24, 2015 in CFA Hall.
Click Here to view the full album on Flickr. Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography.
The First Year Matters “Common Moment” was planned and produced by Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts as part of New Student Orientation for the Class of 2019. Many cultures celebrate water as a life-giving force. In keeping with the “Feet to the Fire: Comparison” theme, drummers and dancers representing several different cultures led students in a once-in-a-lifetime performance on Foss Hill on Friday, September 4, 2015.
Click here to view the full album on flickr. Photos by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography.
