Theater

Students Interview Dewey Dell Company Members

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Students in Professor Ellen Nerenberg’s Advanced Italian class (ITAL221) interviewed the company members of Dewey Dell soon after they arrived on campus.  The students then translated the interviews into English, so that members of our campus and community can get to know them better.  Enjoy!

Eugenio Resta

Interview by Chelsea Reutcke, Class of 2012, Advanced Italian I

This weekend I sat down to talk with Eugenio Resta, of the avant-garde Italian theatre group Dewey Dell. The quartet consisting of Eugenio and Agata, Teodora and Demetrio Castellucci was first formed at a rhythmic movement and philosophy school in Cesena in 2007. Teodora gathered the group together to put on a small performance. Now they have five shows in their repertory and tour Europe. The group’s visit to Wesleyan is also its premiere in the United States. Eugenio commented on the excitement of performing to an audience made up largely of students, saying how rare an occurrence that would be in Europe. Each member plays a specific role in the group and Eugenio’s task is to design and oversee the lighting and scenery. Although he studied set design in Urbino, Italy, he has had no formal training in lighting and has learned as he goes along. The type of sets and lighting required vary from one show to another, ranging from simple to complex designs, depending on the mood he tries to invoke. If a problem concerning the set or lights arises during a show, Eugenio says he tries to stay level-headed and calm as he works through the issue, and the show continues on. The individual performances always vary though, so company members don’t get bored, he joked. He also explained that Dewey Dell members strive to always be astonished by their work. As far as any specific lessons he wants imparted on the audience, he said “Niente,” nothing. He wants the public to see something they had never seen before, a new world far from their own, and to take away an emotion that they felt while watching the performance.

Interview by Alana Rodriguez, Class of 2013, Advanced Italian I

Following study at the Stoa in the city of Cesena, Italy, the avant-garde theater group named Dewey Dell has been performing since 2007. They have performed in different European countries and now, for the first time, in the United States here at Wesleyan. Within Dewey Dell, Eugenio Resta is responsible for the shows’ set and lighting design. He has various sources of inspiration including movement, and when designing a set attempts to create the environment. He also utilizes special effects, such as smoke and lasers, to visually enhance the scene for the audience. The other group members-Agata, Demetrio, and Teodora Castelluci-are siblings and he enjoys working with them and helping them with other tasks involved in creating a show for performance. For the audiences here at Wesleyan, who are mostly university students, he wants to create a world that doesn’t exist and that evokes many emotions. He likes classical genres in theater and design that is very imaginative since, according to him, there are ample sources of inspiration for one idea in theater. In addition to Dewey Dell, Eugenio studies and works other kinds of jobs. Yet for him, Dewey Dell is not just a job, but a passion.

Agata Castellucci

Interview by Grace Asleson, Class of 2013, Advanced Italian I

Last Saturday (September 10), I had the opportunity to meet with Agata Castellucci, a twenty-year-old actress, choreographer dancer, and member of the experimental theater group, Dewey Dell, which she helped to found with her sister, brother, and another friend. When I met Agata, I didn’t know what to expect—she is my age and has already traveled the world. She has not only established a career in the performing arts, but has also co-created her own group. Oh and did I mention that this is all while she continues to study at the University of Milan? Needless to say, I was intimidated.

But, as I found out, she is not only down to earth, but she was also great fun and happily attended a local concert with my friends and I on Friday night. When I asked Agata about Dewey Dell, she told me that the name was inspired by a character in William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying. From this name, and support from her artist parents, Agata and the rest of Dewey Dell have created something potent, eerie, and totally unexpected. Friday night’s performance was an explosion of energy and talent with elaborate costumes and sharp staccato movements.

Soon into our interview, it became apparent that Agata is an old soul—she began to travel with Dewey Dell while still in high school, learning about different cultures, which in turn fuel her ideas. But Agata, in many ways, felt like she could be a peer and a friend. She admitted that the siblings do not always agree on choreography, but sometimes the disagreements spark greater creativity. I look forward to seeing more of Agata’s style and grace at Dewey Dell’s final performance this weekend, Cinquanta Urlanti 
Quaranta Ruggenti Sessanta Stridenti, to be performed in the CFA Theater on Friday, September 16 at 8pm.

Interview by Isabella Cucchi, Class of 2013, Advanced Italian I

It was incredibly enlightening to speak with Agata Castellucci about her past in theater, her roles within Dewey Dell, and her impressions of both Italian and American culture. Agata explained that her passion for choreography and theater began at a young age.  Because their parents own a well-established, internationally renowned theater company in Italy, Agata and her siblings were constantly exposed to the arts, and cultivated an appreciation for theater from an early age. This ultimately led to the Castelluccis’ desire for and decision to create a niche for themselves, separate from their parents’ sphere of influence. (According to Agata, the group decided on the name Dewey Dell for the simple reason that the four members happened coincidentally to be reading Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying at the same time.) While sibling rivalry can sometimes hinder their artistic process, Agata reported that the group generally gets along well, and that each member contributes something unique and important. As the youngest member of Dewey Dell, Agata is inspired by her older siblings. At one point in the interview, she fondly described her household growing up as “never silent,” with music booming constantly  from her brothers’ rooms. This, she explained, offered yet another source of appreciation for the arts, and specifically for artistic diversity. Agata explained that she now listens to everything from classical music to electronic dance music to rock and roll, and all of these genres affect the group’s work. Dewey Dell did not achieve immediate success, however. Agata noted that her professors at school did not initially approve of the movement, and group members were forced to make excuses for occasionally missing class or turning in a late assignment. Since overcoming these scholastic obstacles, Dewey Dell has traveled the world, exploring different universities, groups, and cultures. Agata remarked that she loves America, noting its differences from Italy, and especially from her small town of Cesena. She, like all the Dewey Dell members, is very happy to explore Wesleyan and all it has to offer. She is particularly excited to have the experience of working with her own age group in pursuit of something she loves.

Teodora Castellucci

Interview by Sydney Lowe, Class of 2013, Advanced Italian I

The first time I met Teodora, she wasn’t wearing much makeup—just a t-shirt and jeans along with a bright smile. I was slightly embarrassed by my newly-remembered Italian (tenses and vocabulary which I lost over the long summer), but was excited at the opportunity to get to know this rising international star. Born in the small town of Cesena, Italy, at 23, Teodora is already an incredibly accomplished dancer, choreographer, costume designer and founding member of the avant-garde performance group Dewey Dell. With her co-company members, she has performed around the world (Barcelona, London, Berlin, and Italy, to name a few venues). Even though she never formally studied dance, she says that to be a dancer has been her dream since she was a young girl.. In 2007, her dream became a “family-affair” reality when she started working with her equally talented siblings Agata and Demetrio, and their close friend Eugenio Resta.  à elle vide is an avant-garde performance piece that revolves around the curious void between a rooster (Teodora) and a scorpion (Agata). The second piece that will be performed at Wesleyan on September 16, Cinquanta Urlanti Quaranta Ruggenti Sessanta Stridenti, is about the blurred borders between sailors, the ship, the wind and the sea. Teodora says that although their performances have no specific objective, they want the audience to try to understand their movements without using words—to have their eyes talk for them the way Dewey Dell Bundren in Faulkner’s book As I Lay Dying does. (The group’s name, Dewey Dell, is a tribute to one of Teodora’s favorite authors, the strange yet captivating Faulkner.) When I attended their performance later that night that was exactly what I saw. The Teodora on stage seemed to be a completely different person from the young woman I’d talked to in the middle of Usdan only hours earlier. It is clear that Teodora speaks with her precise movements, her bold red makeup, the music and more; more than just her eyes. “People always tell you, ‘Yes, go follow your dream!’ It seems very cliché. But now, I am actually following my dream and, honestly, it couldn’t be better.”

Interview by Edgar Pliaskis, Class of 2014, Advanced Italian I

The contrasting colors of the posters of Dewey Dell around Wesleyan campus attract the attention of many. And although everyone has a chance to see the fantastic performances of this experimental theater group Dewey Dell, I got a chance to meet and chat with one of the performers, Teodora Castellucci.

As we slowly assembled a conversation, I learned that generally, two different animals such as a cat and a scorpion influence each performance. This influence is usually gets reflected through the costumes that Teodora designs herself (seen on the posters.) Theodora noted that Dewey Dell does not have a real mission. Rather, it wishes the audience to perceive the movements of the choreography and build their own interpretation.

This group has performed multiple times throughout the members’ native Italy as well as in London, Paris, Barcelona and just recently the United States. I urge everyone to show up to at least one of the performances that Dewey Dell has put together for us to enjoy.

Demetrio Castellucci

Interview by Rosie Keogh, Class of 2013, Advanced Italian I

The Wesleyan community is thrilled to have the avant-garde Italian theatre group Dewey Dell on campus.  Demetrio Castelucci, co-founder of the group, and its musical engineer, is enthusiastic to see Wesleyan students’ response. The music for the two productions– à elle vide, and Cinquantana Urlanti Quaranta Ruggenti Sessanta—is largely electronic.  The experimental, non-verbal sound reflects the company’s muse:  Dewey Dell Bundren in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Dewey Dell, one of the novel’s stream of consciousness narrators, is nearly mute. The Dewey Dell production, correspondingly, uses expressive non-verbal music and visual onomatopoeia to relate to its audience.  The music employs both computer technology and an electronic orchestra. The internationally traveled group hopes to return to Wesleyan with a student workshop on campus sometime before this December.

Dewey Dell: Cinquanta Urlanti 
Quaranta Ruggenti Sessanta Stridenti
United States Premiere
Friday, September 16, 2011 at 8pm
CFA Theater
$18 general public; $15 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students

Dewey Dell is an event in Outside the Box, a series of groundbreaking performances and discussions in theater, co-sponsored by the Theater Department and Center for the Arts.

Dewey Dell at Wesleyan: A U.S. Debut (September 9, 10 & 16)

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Dewey Dell
Dewey Dell (left to right): Teodora Castellucci, Demetrio Castellucci, Agata Castellucci, and Eugenio Resta. Cesena, Italy. April 2009.

In the summer of 2009, Associate Professor and Chair of the Theater Department, Cláudia Tatinge Nascimento, attended a festival of contemporary European performance at Centrale Fies, a venue that invests in the creation of new performance work located just outside of Trento, in Northern Italy.  There, she discovered Dewey Dell and was so taken by their work, their process and sheer talent, that she wanted to find a way to bring them to Wesleyan for an extended residency.

Formed in 2007 by Teodora, Demetrio, Agata Castellucci and Eugenio Resta, Dewey Dell’s founders grew up as artistic collaborators, sharing the important formative experience of the Stoa, a rhythmic movement and philosophy school of the Sociètas Raffaello Sanzio based in Cesena, Italy. The name Dewey Dell is a tribute to the young girl in William Faulkner’s 1930 novel, As I Lay Dying.

Nascimento wrote to me upon her return from Italy:

“Dewey Dell is the strongest representative of what is most innovative and sophisticated in the new generation of European stage artists. They perfectly integrate the actor’s bodies, visual elements, and soundscape to create performances that may at first resemble pure dance, but ultimately possess a dramaturgical treatment that brings them closest to theater. Through the exploration of themes ranging from an Eastern perspective on raw animal energy to an abstract interpretation of Western political history in the figure of Richard the Lionheart, their performances are at the same time nostalgic and deeply marked by post-modern art. Visually stunning and musically powerful, above all their pieces create a truly arresting experience for the audience.”

The Theater Department and Center for the Arts joined forces with Ellen Nerenberg, Professor of Italian and Chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literature, to create a two-week residency for the company that includes the presentation of à elle vide, the earliest work in their repertoire, and Cinquanta Urlanti Quaranta Ruggenti Sessanta Stridenti, their most recent work.  In between the two performances, the company members will be visiting with five different Italian classes and conducting a seven-day workshop on their generative process with theater and dance students.  At the same time, the members of Dewey Dell, who are close in age to Wesleyan students, will be experiencing life on an American campus.

Nascimento says, “my objective for their residency is to allow for a true exchange between Dewey Dell and Wesleyan students; the company is not only teaching a workshop, but also attending classes, eating at USDAN, socializing with students, meeting as many members of the Wesleyan community as possible; in short: establishing relationships and experiencing the university as maybe exchange/international students would.”

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts

Dewey Dell: à elle vide
United States Premiere
Friday, September 9 and Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 8pm
Patricelli ’92 Theater
$10 general public; $8 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff, non-Wesleyan students; $5 Wesleyan students

Dewey Dell: Cinquanta Urlanti 
Quaranta Ruggenti Sessanta Stridenti
United States Premiere
Friday, September 16, 2011 at 8pm
CFA Theater
$18 general public; $15 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students

Fall events include U.S. & New England Premieres, Navaratri Festival, Lucier Celebration

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Center for the Arts Fall 2011At a time when so many of us are turning to YouTube to see performances by our favorite artists, we can lose sight of what it’s like to experience live performance. This fall, the Center for the Arts offers you a wide range of performances and exhibitions that will connect you with some of the brightest minds in contemporary art-making, transport you to foreign lands, and inspire you to think about the world in new ways—and the performers will never be more than 69 feet away!

We recognize that it has become increasingly difficult to classify a work as strictly music, dance, theater, visual art, or film as more artists are blurring the boundaries among disciplines. So we have merged our visiting artist performances into a single Performing Arts Series. We hope this will lead you to cross the boundaries of your own comfort zone and discover new artists and art forms.

Highlights of the fall season include the American premiere of the ground-breaking Italian movement theater collective Dewey Dell and the return of Philadelphia’s Rennie Harris Puremovement, that has been a trailblazer in taking hip hop forms from the street to the concert stage for nearly twenty years. We’ll also host two New England premieres: the astoundingly brilliant throat-singers and musicians from Inner Mongolia, AnDa Union and, continuing our collaboration with the College of the Environment, we’ll welcome Water is Rising, a breathtaking performance by a group of 35 dancers and musicians from the Pacific Island atolls, the first islands predicted to be submerged due to climate change. In November, the Music Department and CFA join forces to celebrate Alvin Lucier, internationally renowned composer who has just retired after serving on our faculty for four decades. Alvin Lucier: A Celebration features a major symposium, concert series, film screenings and an exhibition curated by Andrea Miller-Keller.

With performances and exhibitions by visiting artists, students and faculty, there is an extraordinary amount of good work to see at Wesleyan this fall, with 60% offered free to the public or at ticket prices that make us one of the most affordable venues in the state. Tickets are on sale now online. Starting at 10am on Tuesday, August 16, you can call or visit the Wesleyan University Box Office at 860-685-3355 to receive a 10% discount on your purchase of four or more Performing Arts Series events (and if you buy six or more “Performing Arts Series” events, you’ll save 15%!) Starting August 16, you will also be able to buy subscription packages for both the 35th annual Navaratri Festival (a 15% savings) as well as the Alvin Lucier Celebration (a 25% savings!)

Please join us. We appreciate that you believe, as we do, in the power of the arts to add meaning to our lives and to remind us of the capacity of the human spirit. Thanks for making Wesleyan’s CFA your center for the arts.

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts

Marc Bamuthi Joseph at the CFA: “If You Surrender to the Air, You Can Ride It”

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Marc Bamuthi JosephWhen I first saw Marc Bamuthi Joseph at New York’s Under the Radar Festival in 2005, I was struck by the fact that Marc is a spoken word artist who uses his whole body, his whole being to speak.  He is one of the few spoken word artists whose poetry is matched by his capacity as a dancer and mover, so that his body can serve as either a metaphor for his words, punctuate his words or even fight his words.

He is truly a hybrid artist and activist: a Broadway veteran, a National Slam Poetry Champion, a featured artist in Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam and founder of The Living Word Project, a company based in Oakland, California that creates verse-based work that is spoken through the body, illustrated by visual and sonic scores, and in communication with the important social issues and movements of the immediate moment.

In Marc’s words:

“I experience God as a verb, not a noun. I experience art in the same way. The music doesn’t live on a flat disc, it lives in the thing it does to your hips. So it is with my writing. I compose for embodiment. I write words with the intent to live it through movement. At the end of Song of Solomon, [Toni] Morrison writes, ‘…if you surrender to the air, you can ride it.’ If words are my air, dance is my surrender. In the intersection of movement and text, the collapsed space for breath to speak is like a different kind of oxygen. I am intellectually piqued by the physical journey it takes to meet the spiritual place I wish to occupy.”

Tonight at the CFA Theater, audiences will have the opportunity to see excerpts of three of his major works, Word Becomes Flesh (2003); the break/s (2008); and his newest work, red, black and GREEN: a blues (2011).  Hope you can join us!

Marc Bamuthi Joseph: The Spoken World
Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 8pm
CFA Theater
Center for the Arts
Wesleyan University
$15 general public; $13 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff; $10 students

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts

Summer at the CFA

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Tickets for Kenny Barron Trio, Marc Bamuthi Joseph / The Living Word Project, and Trey McIntyre Project are now on sale! Click here to buy your tickets online.

EVENING PERFORMANCES

 

FREE NOONTIME TALKS AND PERFORMANCES

Music and Theater This Weekend: Spotlight on Cheryl Tan ’11

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An interview with Cheryl Tan ’11 by Sarah Wolfe ‘12.

The Old Maid and the Thief
The Old Maid and the Thief

Cheryl Tan, a senior music and theater major, will present her senior project The Old Maid and the Thief by Gian Carlo Menotti on Sunday, April 10 at 7pm in Crowell Concert Hall. I sat down with Tan, who plays Laetitia, to discuss the performance and her process. The opera, one in a series of one-act operas composed by Menotti in the middle of the twentieth century, follows the tradition of radio opera. Tan produced the piece more as staged reading than as a traditional opera.

The story takes place in the home of two women: the old maid Miss Todd (Meghan Twible ’12) and her serving maid, Laetitia (Cheryl Tan ’11). They are visited by a beggar, Bob (Matthew Getz ’14) who requests food, “and they let him stay because they’re lonely and sad,” as Tan summarizes.  Worrying that Bob may be a recently escaped fugitive from a few towns over, they nonetheless allow him to stay in their house in order stave off their loneliness. In order to keep him there, they begin to steal from other townspeople. “It’s really about a bunch of awful people being awful to each other, which is great,” quips Tan.

Chelsea Goldsmith ‘13, rounds out the cast by playing the neighbor, Miss Pinkerton. Tan chose this particular Menotti opera because it asks for a small cast.  Originally drawn to the Italian American composer through a challenging aria she encountered, Tan decided early on that she did not want to perform a solo recital. Opera has not been one of Tan’s focal points in her time at Wesleyan, but is the culmination of her work with Voice Teacher Priscilla Gale, who specializes in the operatic style. “I’ve done a lot of musical theater, jazz, theater and taiko,” says Tan, “[but] I’ve been with [Priscilla Gale] for three years, and she’s really made my voice into what it is today. The great thing about this for me right now is that I’m singing every day. Which means everything’s getting stronger, and that’s really exciting.”

The Old Maid and the Thief offers the chance to experience a memorable performance. Sung in English, the cast features four excellent Wesleyan singers, as well as Andrew Chung ’11 on the piano. “Going to be great,” ends Tan, “Going to be so good.”

“The Old Maid and the Thief” will be presented in Crowell Concert Hall on Sunday April 10 at 7pm. Admission is free.

Thesis Theater This Week: Spotlight on Samantha Joy Pearlman ’11

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An interview with Samantha Joy Pearlman ’11 by Sarah Wolfe ‘12.

Devotedly Sincerely Yours
Devotedly Sincerely Yours

This Thursday, April 7 and Friday, April 8, the Center for the Arts will travel back to World War II to experience the life of an American woman who participated in the USO Camp Shows. The solo performance, titled Devotedly, Sincerely Yours: The Story of the USO, counts as the creative component for Samantha Pearlman’s senior thesis in the Theater Department. Sitting down with Pearlman last week, we discussed how she came to this topic, the history of the United Service Organizations (USO) Camp Shows, Inc., and the process involved in putting on a show at Wesleyan.

The story follows the style of the USO’s radio broadcasts, which featured Hollywood stars like Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Lena Horne and Bob Hope singing to American soldiers all over the world, as well as telling jokes and humorous anecdotes. Pearlman’s character and the host for Devotedly, Sincerely Yours is based on the career of Louise Buckley as a USO entertainer.   Pearlman came across the character through a letter Buckley wrote describing her experience as an entertainer.  Pearlman describes the find as, “an 8 page, single spaced letter, one of the most beautiful letters I’ve ever read, and she just poured her heart out about her experience overseas and what it was like living there. A lot of the text of my show is taken from the letter.”

Pearlman also draws on a variety of sources for the text of the performance, inspired by the work of playwright Charles Mee, who wrote Big Love, which Pearlman acted in her freshman year.  She comments that, “he works in collage and assemblage… I always kind of wanted to do something like that, and so this project for me was my chance to get my feet wet in creating some kind of piece of musical theater, and then also taking all the tools I’ve learned as an actress here.” Pearlman took Professor Ron Jenkin’s “Solo Performance” theater class which granted her the skills to create and star in this one-woman theatrical event.

Due to Pearlman’s strong musical background, she was able to challenge herself through this performance by utilizing her voice and musical theater abilities to express the broad range of emotions needed for a powerful show. The songs chosen come from wartime periods between 1915 and 1945.  She found these after long searches through the Music Division of the New York Public Library, Olin Library, and eBay purchases from “people who are auctioning off what’s in grandma’s attic, and have no idea what they have.”  Sorting through approximately 300 songs, she managed to narrow the numbers down to eight that will be performed as a part of Louise’s story.

It was easy to see Pearlman’s enthusiasm and love for the project while she spoke about the process. She spoke with exceptional ardor about the music, stating that it was the part of the performance she most looks forward to. She’s been working with senior Ian Coss, a banjo player, who Pearlman describes as an “amazingly talented, unbelievably dedicated music student”, and they have met together since last semester to compile and arrange the music for the performance. The show includes an eight piece, all-male band.  Each of the men in the ensemble play a soldier who might be watching and experiencing the performance. “I remember, the first band rehearsal [when] they played the opening fanfare of the show . . . I literally was just beaming, I couldn’t believe that this was happening.”

Pearlman, eager to share her work states, “I’m excited to have the opportunity to present my work and have a lot of fun with it, and hopefully make people think about American identity, American wars, and especially about being an American woman.” The show presents American culture and history through an artistic form that will present enthusiastic Wesleyan students.  Not to be missed, Devotedly, Sincerely Yours represents the end of Pearlman’s career at Wesleyan, but a stunning ode to what the time at Wesleyan can allow a student to create.

“Devotedly, Sincerely Yours” plays April 7 and 8 in the CFA Theater at 8pm. Admission is free, but tickets are required. There is a two ticket limit per person. Tickets are available on the day of each performance at the box office, located in the Usdan University Center, 45 Wyllys Avenue, or by calling (860) 685-3355.

The other ensemble members include Ian Coss ’11, Jack Gallagher ’12, William Frakner ‘14, Jacob Hiss ‘13, Myles Potters ‘12, Owen Callahan ‘12, Issac Silk ‘14, Daniel Moakley ‘13, and Zachary Rosen ‘11. “Devotedly, Sincerely Yours” is also inspired by, or takes texts from, Louise Buckley, Grace Drysdale, Maxine Andrews, Ann Miller, Lena Horne, Judy Garland, Arch Oboler, Robert B. Westbrook, Tampax Incorporated, Woman Power Campaigns, the National Center for PTSD, Four Jills and a Jeep, the USO Camp Show Inc. “Guide to the Foxhole Circuit,” Command Performance, Mail Call, BBC Radio Broadcasts, and the USO Camp Show Inc. Publicity Records (1941-1945), among others.

News about Eiko & Koma, Brian Stewart and KaWa Hula

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First, I want to thank everyone for enlivening this blog with your opinions about the work that you’ve seen at the Center for the Arts over the past month.  All of us at the CFA appreciate your comments…keep it up!  There’s nothing better than an engaged audience!

I had a wonderful trip to New York on Saturday to see the latest iteration of the Eiko & Koma Retrospective Project at New York’s Baryshnikov Arts Center.  Sam Miller ’75, the producer of the project, and Program Director of Wesleyan’s new Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance, introduced the work and two members of ICPP’s faculty (Judy Hussie-Taylor, Danspace Project and Doryun Chung, MOMA) gave an introductory talk and then we were ushered into an adjacent studio to view the installation.  If you saw Raven at Zilkha in November of 2009 or at the CFA Theater last summer, you would see how Naked has grown out of that work.  The scorched canvas pressed with rice and salt now surrounds the work and the audience.  Eiko and Koma lie together on another canvas laden with earth and raven feathers.  To me, the work is about life and death, aging bodies, memory, dreams, proximity and distance.  It is visually stunning and completely captivating.  The New York Times thought so too.

I saw Evelyn Israel ’10 and Julia Cheng ’08 in the audience and chatted with them after we saw the piece.  They, too, were moved and excited to see the long line of people waiting to get in.

Those of you who attended the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange’s Time Has Set the Table for Tea in February will remember Brian Stewart, Professor and Chair of Wesleyan’s Physics Department, who hosted of the tea alongside the character of Edith Warner.  You’ll be interested to know that after his highly acclaimed performance, Brian went on tour with the Dance Exchange!  The company performed The Matter of Origins (which includes the stage work as Act I and the tea as Act II) at Montclair State University in New Jersey last week, and Brian reprised his role as host of the tea for three sold-out houses.

KaWa Hula: Hula Through Time
KaWa Hula: Hula Through Time

Finally, please don’t miss KaWa Hula: Hula Through Time on Friday night.  This is the first time we have featured traditional Hawaiian music and dance in Crowell Concert Hall.  The group of glorious dancers and their jovial master Kawika Alfiche are from San Francisco and received a wonderful write up in the Times for their performance at Symphony Space last week.

Our own Kehaulani Kauanui, Associate Professor of Anthropology and American Studies, gives the pre-show talk at 7:15pm.

Click here for more information or to purchase tickets online.

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts

Sarah Ruhl: The Interplay Between the Actual and the Magical

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This Thursday, playwright Sarah Ruhl will pay her first visit to campus for this year’s Outside the Box playwright’s residency. (Past playwrights have included Tony Kushner, Charles Mee, Moises Kaufman and David Henry Hwang.)  As a part of her residency, Ruhl will give a lecture on Thursday evening, visit classes and meet with the cast of the Theater Department’s upcoming performance of her Melancholy Play.

Ruhl, who grew up in Illinois, started her career as a poet and published her first book by the age of 20. Now she writes imaginative and unusual plays that often feature unlikely, dreamlike occurrences. In a 2008 article in The New Yorker, Ruhl said that her characters exist in both “…the real world and also a suspended state.”

Routine activities continue amidst strange developments—in Melancholy Play, for example, one character turns into an almond!—and highlight “the interplay between the actual and the magical.” Amidst its elements of fantasy, Ruhl’s work raises serious questions about human experience and psychology. Melancholy Play presents moments of genuine sorrow. But Ruhl creates these moments while maintaining a witty humor that keeps the tone of the play lighthearted; she explains: “Lightness isn’t stupidity. It’s actually a philosophical and aesthetic viewpoint, deeply serious, and has a kind of wisdom—stepping back to be able to laugh at horrible things even as you’re experiencing them.”

Ken Prestininzi, the director of a 2007 production of Melancholy Play at Brown University (where Ruhl received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in 1997 and 2001) suggests that Ruhl’s upbringing could be responsible for the distinctive tone of her work, pointing out that Ruhl “grew up in the Midwest, where there’s this assumption that you’re supposed to smile, mow your lawn and get on with things. You’re not supposed to stare out the window and think of a line from a poem for a week.”

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts

Spring Season at the CFA Announced

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Dear Friends of the CFA,

This spring, when you travel to the CFA, you’ll see the world. Well, some of it, at least. Vincent Mantsoe will bring his Paris-based company to perform a work that features South African dance traditions infused with contemporary street dance forms. California-based companies Viver Brasil and Hālau o Keikiali‘i will bring the music and dance traditions of Bahia and Hawai‘i respectively, and DanceMasters Weekend will feature Guilford’s-own Andrea Miller’s Gallim Dance. The company was a sensation at the Spoleto Festival last June and Miller is the winner of this year’s Emerging Choreographer Award.

Jazz figures prominently on the schedule with a concert by the legendary Charles Lloyd and his quartet in January and Sherrie Maricle’s DIVA, an all-female concert jazz orchestra, in April. Lloyd is best known for his seminal album Forest Flower, and his quartet will also feature Jason Moran, who recently won a MacArthur, on the piano. The Music Department will bring its Gamelan Orchestra together with the Wesleyan Ensemble Singers and University Orchestra to celebrate the music of legendary 20th-century composer Lou Harrison. In February, the Theater Department brings its alumnus Michael Rau ’05 to direct Sarah Ruhl’s contemporary farce Melancholy Play, and the playwright herself will be in residence early in February to meet with the cast and give a public talk.

The Zilkha Gallery will host a major exhibition of sculpture, photographs and video by Professor of Art Jeffrey Schiff. His exhibition, Double Vision, will explore how unconscious projections from America’s colonial origins shape perceptions of its current reality.

Many of our majors are creating original works for their theses, and we encourage you to attend their performances and exhibitions as well. We invite you to meet the next generation of art-makers and participate in their visions.

It’s all here in the heart of Connecticut.

Pamela Tatge
Director, CFA

For complete details, visit the CFA website.