It’s no secret that winter term is not the most popular time for students to be on campus. While you begin to brace yourself for negative temperatures and unbearable wind chill, it is also a great time to explore more of the arts events as a variety of groups will offer exciting performances to bring you out from the winter slump.
“Winter is the time where we really get to take stock and find moments where we can come together and be in the room together with an experience,” said Margaret Lawrence, director of programming for the Hopkins Center.
The winter season will kick off with the Revels North’s “Christmas Revels” production from Dec. 12 to 15 in Spaulding Auditorium. Featuring lively music, dance and folktale, this performance will be inspired by the sounds of Southern Appalachia.
When students return after winter break, they will be greeted with a lively performance by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, one of the nation’s greatest contemporary dance companies.
Next comes the East Coast premiere of “Poro Oyna: The Myth of the Aynu.” Larry Reed, a San Francisco-based traditional Balinese shadow puppet artist, will tell the story of Japan’s indigenous Aynu people along with Aynu artists Marewrew, a female vocal quartet, and OKI, a musician who plays the five-string tonkori.
“[Marewrew] have a very traditional form of singing,” said Rebecca Bailey, Hop publicity coordinator. “It creates this sonic landscape of these overlapping voices in gorgeous chant harmony.”
In mid-January, two theater companies — the Los Angeles Poverty Department and Netherlands-based Wunderbaum — will showcase their latest collaborative piece titled “Hospital.” The play, which examines the state of American health care, is based on interviews with patients and doctors, including researchers at The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science.
Renowned violinist and campus favorite Joshua Bell will return for a one-night performance on Feb. 18. Although tickets are currently sold out, more will be for sale after New Year’s specifically for students.
The Hopkins Center ensembles also have exciting performances planned. On Feb. 15, the Glee Club will perform a variety of Spanish and Latin American songs of all styles from medieval to choral. The Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble will mix up their performance on Feb. 23 with the integration of electronics. They will also perform a piece that features a percussionist playing the marimba.
Winter will be especially exciting for the Hood Museum, which will feature its largest exhibition ever. “In Residence: Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth” is a look to the past of the College’s artist-in-residence program, which began in 1931. Since then, 166 artists have come to campus.
The Hood will display works by over 80 artists in the museum, the Top of the Hop, the Jaffe-Friede Gallery in the Hopkins Center and the Nearburg Gallery in the Black Family Visual Arts Center.
“I’m most excited to see all of the works installed together and how they’re going to hang together as a cohesive whole,” said Michael Taylor, director of the Hood.
The theater department’s mainstage production will be the musical “Spring Awakening,” taken from the play of the same name written by Frank Wedekind in the 1800s. “Spring Awakening” is about teenagers who discover their sexuality and explores abortion, homosexuality and parental reactions.
“There are a lot of sexual and gender issues at Dartmouth, and this is a play that speaks to a point in your lives that is actually before college age,” said Dan Kotlowitz, chair of the theater department.
The Dartmouth Film Society’s series titled “The Write Stuff” will highlight films that give insight into the writing process and the unforeseen obstacles and rewards of the writing life. They will also work to bring some of Academy Award-nominated full-length features as well as animated and live shorts.
If music is more your style, Programming Board and Friday Night Rock have an exciting collaborative concert that will celebrate the 10th anniversary of FNR.
Blaine Ponto ’14, public relations and marketing chair for Programming Board, said she is particularly excited to see how both organizations will work together in this collaborative process.
The Green Fish music series will also continue with hopes of expanding the current program. Creator of Green Fish and music professor Spencer Topel is excited to integrate more visual arts through film and animation pieces, though the main focus of the coming term is to include more faculty and graduate student performers.
“We have a lot of latent talent in our faculty, a lot of musicians, and we hope to showcase that,” Topel said.
This article has been updated to reflect the following correction:
Correction appended: November 18, 2013
Ponto's statement was not a direct quote.
