Arts & Culture

Jamie Adkins can walk on wire, stand atop unsupported ladders, do handstands off the back of a chair and juggle just about anything. But in Circus INcognitus, this internationally acclaimed clown, balancing artist and acrobat — a featured soloist with Cirque du Soleil and Montreal’s Cirque Éloize — must attempt the one thing he fears most: public speaking.

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-99) was one of the great self-made men of 18th century Europe, a watchmaker who rose through the ranks of French nobility. Yet Beaumarchais is probably best remembered for his semi-autobiographical Figaro plays, two of which — The Marriage of Figaro (1778) and The Barber of Seville (1773) — would form the basis for celebrated operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91) and Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), respectively.

Washington University’s Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will present its annual sing-along of George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah at 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 6, in Graham Chapel. John Stewart, director of vocal activities, directs the program.

Washington University Dance Theatre (WUDT), the annual showcase of professionally choreographed works performed by student dancers, will present Transmotion, its 2009 concert, Dec. 4 to 6 in Edison Theatre. Performances — sponsored by the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences — will feature more than three dozen student dancers, selected by audition, in seven original works by faculty and guest choreographers. Pieces range from ballet and contemporary dance to works drawing on Chinese and Native American traditions.

The Center for the Humanities and Program in Film & Media Studies, both in Arts & Sciences, will host the Sixth Annual Children’s Film Symposium Saturday, Nov. 21. Titled “An Exploration of Children’s Films and Their Audiences,” the symposium is presented in conjunction with Cinema St. Louis.  

The Trombones of the Saint Louis Symphony are one of the nation’s leading brass chamber ensembles, dedicated to elevating the status of the trombone quartet and to expanding the trombone quartet repertoire. At 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 20, the group will present a free concert of music spanning the 18th through 21st centuries in the Tisch Commons of the Danforth University Center.

Los Angeles-based conceptual artist Sharon Lockhart creates films and photographs that are at once rigorously formal and deeply humanistic. Beginning Friday, Feb. 5, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum opens a major exhibit of Lockhart’s called “Lunch Break,” showcasing American workers at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine.

At 8 p.m. Nov. 20 at Edison Theatre, Roger Rees, a 22-year veteran of television, movies and the Royal Shakespeare Company, comes to campus with “What You Will,” a side-splitting one-man-show that combines the Bard’s greatest soliloquies with colorful observations about the acting life and offbeat tales of theatrical disaster.

Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist and literary critic Louis Menand will present the keynote address for “Celebrating Our Books, Recognizing Our Authors,” the University’s eighth annual faculty book colloquium, at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17, in Graham Chapel.

In a career spanning more than 50 years, the great French actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) emerged as one of the most celebrated women of her day, known for a signature acting style based on grand, theatrical gestures and a famously melodious voice. On Nov. 22 the Washington University Symphony Orchestra will highlight a series of rarely heard works originally composed for “The Divine Sarah,” who commissioned and revived dozens of musical scores to accompany her plays.