Author: Liam Otten

Fourteen students from the Dance Program in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences took part in the Central Region American College Dance Conference, held March 11 to 14 at Hendrix College in Conway, AZ. Adjudicators chose two works — Stuck in the Waiting by junior Eliotte Henderson and Falling Petals by lecturer Ting-Ting Chang, the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Dance — to be performed as part of the concluding Gala Concert.

Have African-American intellectuals abandoned the Civil Rights Movement? Do black academics need to reengage the larger community, and if so, how? What is the relationship between contemporary politics and popular culture? Some of the nation’s most prominent African-American writers and thinkers will address these questions and more during the 2009 Callaloo Conference, which takes place March 25-28 at Washington University in St. Louis.

Two years ago, Washington University alumna Elizabeth Birkenmeier (LA ’08), then a junior, relished her role as a rash, young Queen Elizabeth in the historical drama “Highness,” winner of WUSTL’s 2006 A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Competition, held annually in the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences. Now Birkenmeier has returned to campus, but this time as a playwright who will witness the world premiere of her own winning production—”Candlestick Park”—at the end of this month.

Acclaimed dancer and choreographer Claire Porter will present an informal dance concert titled Namely, Muscles at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 20, in the Annelise Mertz Dance Studio. The hour-long, one-woman show features Porter as Dr. Nickie Nom, a “forensic orthopedic autopsy muscular anatomical specialist” whose poetry enacts all the major muscles of the body — and then some.

Pianist and harpsichordist Charles Metz, Ph.D., will perform an intimate program for the Washington University Department of Music in Arts & Sciences at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 22, as part of its spring 2009 concert series. The concert — which will take place at the 560 Music Center in University City — will feature 16th-century English and 17th-century Italian music performed on the virginal, a smaller, rectangular version of the harpsichord.

Courtesy Photo”Wonderboy,” the new collaboration by San Francisco choreographer Joe Goode and master puppeteer Basil Twist, comes to St. Louis Feb. 20 and 21 as part of Edison Theatre’s OVATIONS Series.

Photo by David KilperBeginning Friday, Feb. 13, the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will put a new twist on the production of “Hamlet.”

Courtesy PhotoTwo powerhouses of American theater, The Guthrie Theater and The Acting Company, will join forces to present a pair of adventure classics at the Edison Theatre Feb. 13 and 14.

Courtesy Photo-Jefferson National Expansion Memorial ArchivesThe Jefferson National Expansion Memorial — popularly known as the St. Louis Gateway Arch — is an icon of modern architecture, its great steel arc embodying strength, elegance and simplicity. Yet creation of the Arch was anything but simple. This spring, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will explore that complex history with an exhibition “On the Riverfront: St. Louis and The Gateway Arch.“

Beginning Jan. 30, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present “Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future,” the first retrospective to explore the complete career of the acclaimed Finnish-American architect of the Gateway Arch.