Arts & Culture

WUSTL ArchivesFashion Design class of 1960Fashion today is about the new, the hip, the cool and — above all else — the young. But such was not always the case. In 1929, a student fashion show at Washington University in St. Louis changed the apparel industry forever by launching the juniors’ dress. On May 2, the School of Art’s Fashion Design Show will celebrate its 75th anniversary with a Paris-style runway extravaganza at Saint Louis Galleria.

A collection of promotional images highlighting some of the garments on display at the 75th Annual Fashion Design Show.

The Washington University Symphony Orchestra and Washington University Chamber Choir will present the 2004 Chancellor’s Concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 25. The evente will feature the premiere of three new compositions — written for the university’s sesquicentennial — by Harold Blumenfeld, John MacIvor Perkins and Robert Wykes, all professor emeriti from the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences.

Maki & Associates, TokyoMildred Lane Kemper Art MuseumThe first art museum west of the Mississippi River is getting a new name and a new, state-of-the-art building designed by one of the world’s premier architects, thanks to a $5 million gift from one of Missouri’s most distinguished families.

Dave Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesSenior Dave Carp as Yang Sun in Bertolt Brecht’s “The Good Person of Szechwan.”In an unjust world, is it possible to be good? Such is the dilemma posed by The Good Person of Szechwan, Bertold Brecht’s provocative modern parable about the tensions and alliances between virtue and ruthlessness. Washington University’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present the show as its spring MainStage production April 16-18 and 23-25.

The Sacagawea Golden DollarAs the nation commemorates the 200th anniversary of the 1804-06 Lewis and Clark Expedition, the explorers’ journals, which offer a veritable treasure trove of information, are being scrutinized as never before. Two historians at Washington University in St. Louis say, however, that most scholars studying the journals aren’t familiar with the literature of the time, and therefore don’t thoroughly understand the content. For example, Lewis writes that Sacagawea, the only woman on the expedition, became extremely ill due to her “taking could” (sic). Most reading that passage interpreted it as “taking a cold. The Washington University researchers think that actually she was pregnant again and had a miscarriage because “taking a cold” was a euphemism for pregnancy back then.

Poet and Nobel Prize-winning chemist Roald Hoffmann will use examples from chemistry, poetry, painting and ceramics to make a case for an underlying unity of science and the arts.

U.S. Poet Laureate Louise Glück will present a pair of events April 6 and 8 for the Spring Reading Series 2004, offered by The Writing Program and the Department of English in Arts and Sciences at Washington University.

Courtesy photoBang on a Can All-StarsThree of the most esteemed names in contemporary music will come together for a once-in-a-lifetime concert when Bang on a Can All-Stars welcome special guests Philip Glass and Terry Riley to Washington University’s Edison Theatre May 2.

Courtesy photoDonald Antrim will read from his work April 16. Fiction writer Donald Antrim will read from his work at 4 p.m. Friday, April 16, for The Writing Program in Arts & Sciences at Washington University.