Author: Liam Otten

Celebrated mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges will launch the 2023 Great Artists Series Jan. 29. The intimate recital will span classic lieder by Johannes Brahms, beloved song cycles by Maurice Ravel and Manuel de Falla, and a rare gem by St. Louis-born composer John Carter.

Celebrated sculptor Chakaia Booker will launch the Sam Fox School’s spring Public Lecture Series with a free talk Jan. 19. Subsequent speakers will range from Pritzker Prize-winning architect Francis Kéré to author and illustrator Deb J.J. Lee, avant-garde stage director Robert Wilson and fashion technologist Anouk Wipprecht.

Amira Jihane Khelfallah, a doctoral candidate in comparative literature in Arts & Sciences, won a special jury prize during the 11th International Film Festival of Algiers.

Douglas Flowe, an associate professor of history in Arts & Sciences, will be featured in “The Lie Detector,” a PBS documentary about the invention, promise and unintended consequences of the polygraph machine.

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum has acquired a major recent work by artist and activist Ai Weiwei. Titled “Illumination” (2019), the piece reconstructs, in colorful Lego blocks, an iconic selfie the artist took during his 2009 arrest in Chengdu, China.

“Color can appear anywhere,” says Katharina Grosse. “It is independent from any location.” In this video, Grosse, one of Germany’s most celebrated artists, explores the nature of color, the visceral reactions it prompts and its power to override pictorial relationships and hierarchies.

Elinor Harrison, a postdoctoral fellow in physical therapy and in dance, will present a new duet choreographed for twin dance majors Ali and Juli Yaniz as part of “This is Temporary,” the 2022 WashU Dance Theatre concert.

In “The Dust,” Taiwanese playwright Hsu Yen Ling combines six short, genre-bending scenes that together explore “the instant of explosion.” From Nov. 17-20, the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present the U.S. premiere of “The Dust,” in a new translation by alumna Annelise Finegan.

Penelope Parkman Biggs, a graduate and longtime benefactor of the Department of Classics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died under hospice care Nov. 3 after a long illness. She was 85.

On Friday, Nov. 11, a new Smart Home for Occupational Therapy Healing — aka SMOOTH House — will break ground in St. Louis’ Delmar Maker District. Designed by WashU students, this energy efficient, net-zero building will feature research, training and clinical spaces for the School of Medicine’s Occupational Therapy program.