While the winter term’s gloom and chill could provide ample reason for students to stay indoors, exciting new events at the Hopkins Center provide an even better reason for students to head indoors. This term’s events include performances by visiting artists, theater companies and renown musicians. In January alone, there is a huge variety of artistic performances, workshops and shows that will appeal to a wide palate of tastes and styles.
The Hop will host a diverse array of film showings, including a series from the Dartmouth Film Society that will revolve around the theme “Question Authority.” The selection of films will span many genres and styles, from historical drama piece “Suffragette” (2015) to the claymation children’s film “Chicken Run” (2000).
Irene Lee ’19, a student who has attended many of the Hop’s events, including the Telluride Film Festival, during the fall term, said the theme of “Question Authority” interested her.
“I would never have thought [“Suffragette” and “Chicken Run”] would go together in any way, but using a theme is definitely an interesting way to approach two films,” Lee said. “The juxtaposition would make [the film series] worth checking out.”
Christian Williams ’19, a prospective film major, also expressed interest in the film series.
Williams said that acknowledging the limitations of storytelling, seeing how different people can pose the same question in different ways is interesting.
Just this weekend alone several films will play in the Loew auditorium. “The Assassin” (2015) plays on Friday, a Hsiao-Hsien Hou martial arts piece that follows a female assassin who is ordered to kill her betrothed. Also this Friday, Tom Hanks stars as a lawyer sent to negotiate the release of an American pilot in “Bridge of Spies” (2015). On Saturday, follow Joseph Gordon Levitt in “The Walk” (2015), in which he plays Phillippe Petit, the real life daredevil who walked on a tightrope between the two towers of the World Trade Center. In two showings on Sunday, Carey Mulligan stars in “Suffragette” (2015), the historical drama about the increasingly violent suffragette movement in the early 1900s in London.
The Hop will bring a host of artists and performers, beginning with DakhaBrakha on Jan. 13. Hop program coordinator Rebecca Bailey wrote in an email that DakhaBrakha puts a spin on Ukrainian folk tunes with a Central European style of singing. Their over-the-top stage wear is intentionally faux folklore and they have been a big hit at music and art festivals such as the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.
On Jan. 14 and 15, Filter, a London theater company, will be visiting with a new take on Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” (1602), through their style of “devised” theater, in which a close-knit troupe writers, directs, designs and performs as a collective. Bailey said that Filter’s performance, “Twelfth Night” (2016), would include music and innovative sound design.
“It’s anarchic and wild and really funny - and true to the spirit of the play,” Bailey said.
Filter will be on campus for about a week and will offer a workshop, Bailey said.
For Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, the Rockapellas, a Dartmouth a capella group, and Soyeya, a Dartmouth African dance troupe, will have a joint performance celebrating social awareness and freedom. Their performance will take place on Jan. 16 at Alumni Hall. The same weekend, on Jan. 18, Rohina Malik, a playwright and performer, will give the keynote address at Moore Theater, alongside remarks by College President Phil Hanlon and Afro-American society president Zac Hardwick ’16.
On Jan. 20 and 21, Dada Masilo, a South African dancer and choreographer who trained in both ballet and traditional African dance, will bring her reinterpretation of “Swan Lake” (1876) to the Hop. Bailey said that Masilo’s work joins ballet and traditional African dance in ways that will provide a fresh perspective to the classical ballet performance. Masilo will also be giving a dance master class and take part in a discussion panel titled “Global Perspectives on HIV/AIDS: Policy, Advocacy, and the Arts,” on Jan. 19.
Jiyoung Song ’16, a student who has studied ballet, said that she found the combination of ballet and traditional African dance intriguing.
“I had been thinking that I wanted to attend more events at [the Hop],” Song said. “[Masilo’s performance] definitely sounds like an event I would be interested in checking out.”
On Jan. 23, Stephen Hough will give a piano performance at the Hop, with a program including pieces by Schubert, Franck and Liszt, as well as a work of his own composition.
“I think one has to be rather magical to not only be a brilliant and illuminating pianist but also a wonderful composer, writer, painter,” Bailey said. Hough will also give a piano master class for Dartmouth student pianists on Jan. 24, which will be open to the public for observation.
On Jan. 27, Charles Lloyd and Bill Frisell, a saxophonist and jazz guitarist, will visit the Hop. Known as two jazz greats, the two musicians have long careers and have done significant crossover projects with one another.
Bailey said that the two musicians have known each other on and off for decades, but only started playing together over the past several years. The two musicians share a love of Americana, which will play a large role in their collaboration. Joining them are two young players, Eric Harland on drums and Reuben Rogers on bass. The four will play as a collective, rather than as two frontmen and two supporting players, Bailey said.
The rest of the winter term will see other events at the Hop, including the Dartmouth Idol semi-finals and final performances, the Vagina Monologues, Voices, and a production of “Chicago” (1975) from Dartmouth’s theater department.
Lydia Freehafer ’18, a member of the Voices programming board this winter, encouraged other students to participate in the Voices event.
Speaking of her experience performing her freshman year, “I didn’t read my own story, but it felt amazing to give a voice to someone else’s words, to someone else’s story,” Freehafer said. “The experience was empowering.”
With just the sheer number of artists and performers for January, students at Dartmouth have plenty of reasons to duck into the Hop night after night.
