Arts & Culture

It will integrate teaching techniques based on the work of modern choreographer Lester Horton with a variety of body-friendly concepts.

WilliamsAcclaimed poet C.K. Williams will read from his work at 4 p.m. Friday, April 22, as part of Washington University’s Writing Program Spring Reading Series. Williams is the author of numerous books of poetry, including The Singing (2003), winner of the National Book Award; Repair (1999), winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize; and Flesh and Blood (1987), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Soprano Debra Hillabrand, a master’s candidate in vocal performance in Washington University’s Department of Music in Arts & Sciences, will present a graduate voice recital at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 24. The program includes music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Charles Ives as well as the gypsy songs of Johannes Brahms and Antonín Dvořák.

Joe Angeles/WUSTL Photo ServicesWedding gown by Barbara MoranThe Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis will present The 76th Annual Fashion Design Show at Saint Louis Galleria Sunday, May 1. The fully choreographed, Paris-style extravaganza will feature dozens of professional and volunteer models wearing more than 100 outfits created by 13 seniors and five juniors from the school’s fashion design program.

A sociocultural anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis spent 18 months in a Mexican convent in an attempt to understand young women’s motivations for leaving their homes, friends, school and independence to become a nun. Rebecca J. Lester, Ph.D., assistant professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, was also interested in understanding “what goes on emotionally, psychologically and spiritually with these women as they try to decide if they should pledge themselves eternally to Christ and the church.” Lester found while doing her fieldwork at the convent from 1994-95 that the more interesting question was “what kept these women there, day after day?” In her new book, “Jesus in Our Wombs: Embodying Modernity in a Mexican Convent,” released April 5, Lester sets out to explain the force of “the call.”

Tennessee Williams’ ‘blue’ bookA piece of literary history has returned to Washington University in St. Louis, thanks to a fortuitous find in a New Orleans bookstore. In 2004, Henry I. Schvey, Ph.D., professor and chair of the university’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, co-directed the world premiere of “Me, Vashya,” a one-act play written in 1937 by then-student Tennessee Williams. Only weeks later, Schvey happened upon another important Williams-related artifact from 1937: a small blue Washington University test booklet containing what appears to be Williams’ Greek final, which he had worried about passing, as well as a previously unknown poem. It is assumed Williams wrote the 17-line poem, which he appropriately titled “Blue Song,” in the back of the booklet while taking his exam.

The Concert Choir of Washington University — under the direction of John Stewart, director of vocal activities in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences — will perform a concert of music about animals at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 16.

Eric Wright*Hiroshima Maiden*Washington University’s Edison Theatre OVATIONS! Series and Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values will present a panel discussion titled “Examining the Hiroshima Maiden: Exploring the Historical, Cultural and Ethical Issues” from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, April 20, at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

Dancer and choreographer Darwin Prioleau, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Dance at the State University of New York (SUNY) Brockport, will present a “Movement Lab for Teachers” from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 16, in Washington University’s Annelise Mertz Dance Studio.

Eric Wright*Hiroshima Maiden*In 1955, a group of 25 women disfigured by the nuclear blast at Hiroshima visited the United States to undergo reconstructive surgery. Their bizarre odyssey climaxed on the television program “This Is Your Life” in a live, face-to-face meeting with Enola Gay pilot Robert Lewis. In Hiroshima Maiden, performance artist Dan Hurlin recreates this stranger-than-fiction tale though a combination of Japanese Bunraku-style puppetry and dance. The show makes its St. Louis debut Friday and Saturday, April 22 and 23, as part of the Edison Theatre OVATIONS! Series.