Author: Liam Otten

Guitarist Vincent Varvel and soprano Stella Markou will launch the fall Danforth University Center Chamber Music Series at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 12. The performance will feature songs spanning four centuries, including works by Henry Purcell, George F. Handel, Enrique Granados, Heitor Villa-Lobos and George Gershwin. In addition, the program will highlight My Beloved Is Mine, a 2007 composition by WUSTL’s own Martin Kennedy, assistant professor of music.

Take a deep breath. Smooth your brow. Raise your hands and stomp your feet. It’s time to talk about art. Welcome to Kemper Art Reaches Everyone (KARE), a new arts engagement program designed for people with early-onset to moderate Alzheimer’s.

Painter and poet Edward Boccia, professor emeritus of art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, died Monday, Sept. 3, in his home in Webster Groves, from pneumonia. He was 91.

Gerald Early, director of the Center for the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis, and Leslie Berlowitz, president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, will host the third national meeting of the Academy’s blue-ribbon Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences. The event, which will take place at the Missouri History Museum Sept. 7, will feature more than a dozen  local arts leaders testifying to the importance of the humanities and social sciences in public life and lifelong learning.

Modern dance solos and duets will share the stage with hip hop, ballet, flamenco, West African and classical Indian dance when Washington University presents Dance CloseUp Sept. 6-8. The intimate, informal concert — which has helped launch St. Louis’ fall performing arts season since 1995 — showcases new and original works by dance faculty in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences.

Good design can be many things: a book, a poster, a smart phone. But increasingly, designers are being asked not only to create objects, but to address large-scale social problems, from poverty to sustainability to eating disorders. In September, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will launch its fall Public Lecture Series with two speakers, Jon Kolko and Cynthia E. Smith, who are rethinking the role of contemporary design.

How do you recreate a live event? It’s a pressing question in many fields, as scholars, historians and arts institutions struggle to archive and preserve choreography, performances, installations and other works that, by their nature, can be fleeting.In September, Washington University in St. Louis will present Reperformance, an interdisciplinary symposium exploring the means, methods and difficulties of restaging live work. ​

Graham Paul, consul general of France in Chicago, will discuss “France and the Future of Europe” at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 19. Immediately following the lecture, Paul — on behalf of the French government — will formally recognize WUSTL alumna Elizabeth Gentry Sayad as a Chevalier (knight) of L’Ordre des Palmes Académiques.

WUSTL’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and Tarlton Corporation will build a sample “intelligent house” next to the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Aug. 18. The project comes as part of preparations for Design with the Other 90%: CITIES, a major survey exhibition illustrating the profound, transformative and sometimes lifesaving power of innovative design.

“What do I want?” asks Jane Eyre. “A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces, under new circumstances.” Annie Loui sympathizes. Since the early 1980s, the St. Louis native has created ambitious theatrical hybrids for prestigious venues around the nation. On Sept. 7 and 8, Loui will return to St. Louis and launch the 2012-13 Edison Ovations Series with an original adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s beloved novel.