Arts & Culture

Elizabeth ArmstrongElizabeth Armstrong, curator of Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, will discuss the exhibition at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20, at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Armstrong’s talk will explore the motivations, processes and scholarship that went into creating this sprawling multimedia installation, which opens at the museum Sept. 19 and remains on view through Jan. 5, 2009.

Interdisciplinary cooperation is at the heart of the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences’ 2008-09 season, which will explore connections between theater and contemporary cultural and political issues.

Interdisciplinary cooperation is at the heart of the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences’ 2008-09 season, which will explore connections between theater and contemporary cultural and political issues.

David MarchantAsha PremModern solos and structured improvisation will share the stage with classical Indian and contemporary Chinese dance in Dance Close Up, the biennial concert of new and original choreography by dance faculty in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences. Launched in 1995, the biennial concert serves as the unofficial kickoff to St. Louis’ professional dance season. This year’s showcase will feature 11 works choreographed and performed by full-time and adjunct faculty.

Ting-Ting ChangTheater, like film and architecture, is a collaborative art, drawing on the work of actors, writers, directors, designers, dancers, choreographers, musicians and others. That sense of interdisciplinary cooperation is at the heart of the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences’ 2008-09 season, which will explore connections between theater and contemporary cultural and political issues as well as between the PAD and other campus areas.

Tracy K. SmithFour faculty members from the 2008 Callaloo Creative Writing Workshops will read from their poetry and fiction at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 6. Launched in 1976, Callaloo is the premier African-American and African literary journal, publishing a rich mixture of fiction, poetry, plays, critical essays, interviews, and visual art from the African diaspora. The annual Callaloo Creative Writing Workshops — hosted this year by Washington University from Aug. 3 to 16 —are designed to assist new and developing writers by providing intensive and individual instruction in the writing of fiction and poetry.

Tracy K. Smith, authorFour faculty members from the 2008 Callaloo Creative Writing Workshops will read from their poetry and fiction at 7 p.m. Aug. 6 in Duncker Hall, Room 201, Hurst Lounge. The event is free and open to the public.

Four faculty members from the 2008 Callaloo Creative Writing Workshops will read from their poetry and fiction at 7 p.m., Aug. 6 in Duncker Hall, Room 201, Hurst Lounge. The event is free and open to the public.

Lorser Feitelson, *Dichotomic Organization*From painting and architecture to music, film, furniture and the graphic arts, 1950s Los Angeles was an epicenter of American modernism. This fall the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, a sprawling multimedia exhibition that investigates how the sleek West Coast aesthetic — at once playful and poised, laid-back and sharply articulated — emerged as cultural shorthand for crisp sophistication.

Baseball diamonds are a left-hander’s best friend. That’s because the game was designed to make a lefty the “Natural,” according to David A. Peters, Ph.D., the McDonnell Douglas Professor of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and über baseball fan. Peters is a mechanical engineer who specializes in aircraft and helicopter engineering and has a different approach to viewing America’s Favorite Pastime.