Arts & Sciences

Stories are nice. So are songs. But put them together and you have cabaret, a distinctively intimate artform that collapses the distance — both figuratively and literally — between performer and audience. On Feb. 12, the husband-and-wife team of Todd and Kelly Daniel Decker will present “Songs from Broadway and Hollywood” as part of the DUC Chamber Music Series.

Ten years ago, on Jan. 24, 2004, the Opportunity rover landed on a flat plain in the southern highlands of the planet Mars and rolled into an impact crater scientists didn’t even know existed. In honor of the rover’s 10th anniversary, Ray Arvidson, PhD, deputy principal investigator of the rover mission, recently took an audience on a whirlwind tour of the rover’s decade-long adventures and discoveries.

In the Jan. 24 edition of the journal Science, Ray Arvidson, PhD, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis and deputy principal investigator of the MER mission to Mars, writes in detail about the discoveries made by the Opportunity rover and how these discoveries have shaped our knowledge of the planet.

Kim Norwood, JD, professor of law and of African and African-American Studies, in Arts & Sciences, will lead a panel discussion of her new book, “Color Matters: Skin Tone Bias and the Myth of a Postracial America,” at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 29, in Olin Library’s Gingko Room. Joining Norwood will be two contributors to the book, Vetta S. Thompson, PhD, an associate professor in the Brown School, and Richard Harvey, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Saint Louis University. Books will be available for sale and signing at the event.

Jane Comfort and Company has been described by The New York Times as “a postmodernist pioneer in the use of verbal material in dance.” From Jan. 26-30, company member — and WUSTL alumna — Elinor Harrison will return to campus as the 2014 Marcus Residency Dance Artist.

William F. Tate, PhD, the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences and chair of the Department of Education at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named the next dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and vice provost for graduate education. He will succeed Richard Smith, PhD, who steps down July 1.

Ruthe Foster sings like a force of nature. Eric Bibb, with his warm baritone and sparkling, effortless guitar, can seem like the happiest bluesman around. On Saturday, Feb. 15, these two Grammy-nominated blues artists will say “Thanks for the Joy” as part of the Edison Ovations Series.

Virginia Terpening was an accomplished painter and an important regional artist. Yet by the time of her death, in 2007, Terpening’s work had been largely forgotten; hundreds of paintings languished in a rusty trailer in northeastern Missouri. Yet now a reappraisal is underway, thanks in large part to The Hinge, a nonprofit gallery cofounded by Eileen G’Sell, lecturer in The Writing Program in Arts & Sciences.

The 27th annual Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration at Washington University in St. Louis will include a number of events on campus, all free and open to the public. Michel Martin, host of Tell Me More, National Public Radio’s one-hour daily news and talk show, will deliver the School of Medicine’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Lecture Monday, Jan. 20.

All WUSTL faculty, staff and students are invited to sing with the WUSTL Chamber Choir and WUSTL Concert Choir as part of the annual Chancellor’s Concert, to be held April 13. Auditions will be held through Friday, Jan. 24.