Author: Liam Otten

Chariots, a folk-indie-pop trio that delivers stripped-down vocals and diverse instrumentation over infectious beats, will launch the annual Kemper Presents Concert Series Feb. 26. In all, the series will showcase eight St. Louisl acts working in a variety of styles and genres most Friday evenings throughout the spring. 

Over the past 40 years, PHILADANCO has grown from a small community arts organization into a world-renowned troupe that mixes African-American cultural traditions with ballet, modern, jazz and other dance forms. This weekend, the trailblazing dance company will help the WUSTL community celebrate Black History Month with a pair of performances for the Edison Theatre OVATIONS Series Friday, Feb. 19, and Saturday, Feb. 20. 

Equipped with dialogue as pithy as their helmets, three female Victorian adventurers journey across time, space and history in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences comedy  “On the Verge (or The Geography of Yearning),” opening Friday, Feb. 19, in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre.

Brian Evenson — whose intensely macabre yet darkly comic and subtly philosophical novels and stories led American Book Review to praise him as “essentially our poet laureate of violence” — will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 11, for The Writing Program in the Department of English in Arts & Sciences.

Saxophonist Jason Swagler opens the spring Jazz at Holmes Series at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 4. The series, which was launched in 1996, features professional jazz musicians from around St. Louis and abroad performing in Holmes Lounge — a casual, coffeehouse-style setting — most Thursday evenings throughout the fall and spring semesters. 

The Boston Book Review once compared Jane Miller’s careening, associative verse to the painting of Jackson Pollock and Jasper Johns: inventive, energetic and risky. At 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 4, the celebrated poet will read from her work for The Writing Program in Arts & Sciences’ spring Reading Series.

Seven musicians from the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra will join Seth Carlin, professor of music in Arts & Sciences and director of the piano program, for a performance of works by Toshi Ichiyanagi, Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert.

“The strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone.” So argues Dr. Thomas Stockmann, the beleaguered hero of Henrik Ibsen’s darkly funny thriller “An Enemy of the People.” New York’s Aquila Theatre Company returns to Edison Theatre Feb. 12 and 13 with a new production of Ibsen’s drama as well as William Shakespeare’s delirious, gender-bending comedy “As You Like It.”

Christopher Wilson (left), a freshman in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, demonstrates a musical instrument he built from found and recycled materials for members of ScrapArtsMusic, the acclaimed Vancouver percussion ensemble, in Edison Theatre Jan. 22. Wilson was one of four finalists in the Sounds of Sustainability competition, held in conjunction with a Jan. 23 concert by ScrapArtsMusic.

While the story of Michelangelo’s artistic genius has been told many times, the story of his social ambitions has been told scarcely at all. Indeed, scholars have largely dismissed the artist’s claims to noble birth. Yet it was precisely that belief that propelled Michelangelo’s lifelong quest not only to improve his family’s financial position, but to improve the very social standing of artists. So argues art historian William Wallace in the new biography “Michelangelo: The Artist, the Man, and his Times.”