Arts & Culture

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.

As a dual-degree candidate in architecture and urban design at the Sam Fox School, Theodore “Teddy” Levy has studied sustainable design principles, zoning and code regulations and digital modeling techniques. He also learned to listen. He is among the degree candidates who will be celebrated during the December recognition ceremony Saturday, Dec. 10.

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 midst of a global pandemic, Betty Bayer, AB ’11, started a bookstore specializing in comics and graphic novels — and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

In The Watermen, Michael Loynd, JD ’99, weaves a compelling tale of how U.S. swimming became an international power in the first decade of the 20th century — and the band of upstart American swimmers who made it so.