Arts & Culture

Washington University alumnus Julie Alexander will return to campus as the 2010-11 Marcus Artist in the Dance Program in the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences. While in residence, she will present a free informal performance, titled “Weaving Traditional Japanese Dance and American Postmodern Dance,” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 1. 

Banana-slinging catapult? Check! Smoke ring cannons? Check! Bright orange lab coat and goofy protective goggles? Check! Say hello to Doktor Kaboom!, “ze smartest man to ever enter any room.” Later this month, the humble Doktor will bring his sidesplitting, family-friendly tour of the modern scientific method to Washington University’s Edison Theatre for a special one-time-only performance. 

The Washington University Chamber Orchestra will present “Follow the Fugue,” a concert of fugues in a variety of forms and arrangements, at 8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 24, in Graham Chapel. The program will feature examples by Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Joseph Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn, Ludwig van Beethoven and Ernst Toch.

In architecture as in life, the devil is in the details. Few know this better than Edward Ford, an educator, architect and author whose two-volume The Details of Modern Architecture (1990 and 1996) provided the first comprehensive analysis of how detailing and construction techniques can distort, camouflage or enhance a building. On Jan. 24, Ford, the Vincent and Eleanor Shea Professor of Architecture at the University of Virginia, will launch the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ spring Public Lecture Series. 

Since its formation in 1978, Island Press has evolved from a traditional contract print shop — producing high quality editions in standard media and formats — into a uniquely collaborative and educational enterprise known for complex, large-scale works by a range of nationally and internationally renowned artists. In January, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will explore that evolution with Island Press: Three Decades of Printmaking. Curated by Karen K. Butler, assistant curator of the Kemper Art Museum, the exhibition will survey more than two dozen works highlighting the press’ history of technical innovation, artistic experimentation and student participation.

The Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will launch its spring Danforth University Center Chamber Music Series with a concert titled “Music from Spain and the Middle East” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 19. The performance will include works by Joaquin Turina, Isaac Albeniz, Enrique Granados and Pablo de Saraste, as well as traditional Kurdish and Persian folk music. Soprano Stella Markou will perform with pianist Martin Kennedy April 7.

One of the most celebrated American painters of her generation, Elizabeth Peyton is among today’s foremost contemporary figurative artists and a renowned chronicler of modern life. Her subjects include personal friends and heroes as well as visual artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, David Hockney, Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe, and historical and cultural figures ranging from William Shakespeare and Richard Wagner to Eminem and Chloe Sevigny. In January, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present Ghost: Elizabeth Peyton, the most extensive critical survey of Peyton’s work as a printmaker to date.

In 1890, the American painter John La Farge embarked on a yearlong journey through the islands of the South Pacific. Just months later, Paul Gauguin began his own Polynesian odyssey. Though the two artists never met, their paths nearly crossed in Tahiti, with Gauguin arriving a mere four days after La Farge departed. So it is perhaps fitting that, last fall, a group of five graduate and undergraduate students from the Department of Art History and Archaeology in Arts & Sciences set out on their own mission of travel, visiting a pair of East Coast exhibition that focused on works by the two artists. 

Readers of all ages have embraced Lois Lowry’s The Giver, a classic of contemporary science fiction and winner of the 1994 Newbery Medal. Beginning Friday, Jan. 7, Metro Theater Company and the Edison at Washington University in St. Louis will join forces to produce the local premiere of playwright Eric Coble’s powerful stage adaptation. 

Chicago has many iconic buildings, but perhaps none as instantly recognizable as Bertrand Goldberg’s Marina City. Now, in their critically acclaimed Marina City: Bertrand Goldberg’s Urban Vision, Igor Marjanović, assistant professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, and Katerina Rüedi Ray, director and professor of the School of Art at Bowling Green State University, present the first book-length history — a “building biography” — of this architectural landmark.