Arts & Culture

How should the United States present itself abroad? A diplomatic question, and a political one, but also a question for 18 students from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts who are living and working in Helsinki, Finland. Recently the students — part of a semester-long study-abroad studio organized by the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design — posed that question to Bruce J. Oreck, the U.S. ambassador to Finland. 

“A runway show is the highest level at which fashion can perform,” says Robin Verhage-Abrams, associate professor in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. On May 1, 13 students from the Sam Fox School — home to the nation’s oldest four-year fashion design program — will rise to that challenge with the school’s 81st Annual Fashion Design Show. Titled “Fashion & Flash,” the fully choreographed, Paris-style extravaganza will begin at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 1, in the university’s Holmes Lounge.

Seven architecture faculty from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts are among five teams that have advanced to the design phase of the international competition to reinvigorate the area around St. Louis’ iconic Gateway Arch. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 28, representatives from all five teams will meet with the public to discuss how they plan to approach the competition’s goals as they begin developing their proposals.

The Washington University Symphony Orchestra and the Washington University Concert Choir will join forces at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 25, for the 2010 Chancellor’s Concert. The annual performance, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences and will highlight the work of French composer Francis Poulenc. 

“The myth is a public dream.” So argues playwright Mary Zimmerman in Metamorphoses, her hypnotic, Tony Award-winning adaptation of myths by the Roman poet Ovid. Beginning Friday, April 23 and for two consecutive weekends, the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present Metamorphoses, perhaps the most acclaimed theatrical work of the last decade, as its spring Mainstage production. 

Critic Marjorie Perloff, a Visiting Hurst Professor in the Department of English in Arts & Sciences, will present a lecture titled “Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the New Century” at 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 14. The talk — adapted from the opening chapter of her forthcoming book of the same title — will examine the practices of allusion and quotation in modern poetry. 

German conceptual artist Tobias Rehberger is known for creating a wide range of playful-yet-pointed objects and installations that explore the boundaries between public and private, function and aesthetics, original and reproduction. At 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 26, Rehberger will discuss his work for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ Public Lecture Series. The free talk is cosponsored by the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. 

Kevin Prufer and Teddy Wayne, both alumni of The Writing Program in the Department of English in Arts & Sciences, will read from their work at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 22. Prufer is the author of four books of poetry as well as editor of Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing. Wayne (right) is the author of the forthcoming novel Kapitoil. 

Poet Kerri Webster, who is completing a three-year appointment as visiting writer in residence in The Writing Program in the Department of English, will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 15. Webster is the author of the collection We Do Not Eat Our Hearts Alone, as well as a pair of chapbooks: Rowing Through Fog and Psalm Project.

Sharon Lockhart is internationally recognized for creating conceptual films and photographs that meticulously observe the quiet details of everyday life. On consecutive Saturdays April 10 and 17, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present special screenings of two recent feature-length projects: Pine Flat (2005) and Double Tide (2009). Both are presented in conjunction with the exhibition Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break, on view at the Kemper Art Museum through April 19.