Arts - The Dartmouth

Arts

Symphony orchestra channels Russia

By Michaela Ledoux | February 26, 2014

For featured violinist Alex Styk ’14, Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra’s Saturday evening concert will be a musical marathon. After a year of practice, he will solo in a 35 minute-long piece that involves lyrical syncopation and closes with a finger-numbing finale.

Arts

Conference draws comic, graphic novelist scholars

By Maya Poddar | February 26, 2014

Sunday mornings are for reading comics: Garfield, Peanuts, Dilbert and Blondie. At least, that is how many children are initially exposed to the panels of drawings and text that attempt to tell a story and elicit a few laughs. Dartmouth’s second annual Illustrations, Comics and Animation Conference, running Friday through Sunday, will present a more complicated view of the art form.

Arts

‘Monologues’ to promote dialogue

By Marley Marius | February 25, 2014

Tonight, Eve Ensler’s play “The Vagina Monologues” returns to campus for Dartmouth’s 16th celebration of “V-Week.” The yearly campaign was established in concert with V-Day, a movement launched by Ensler to end violence against women and girls. This year’s “voices” theme for V-February makes the production especially relevant, Center for Gwender and Student Engagement assistant director Michelle Hector said.

Arts

Rollins Chapel to host experimental concert

By Dongjun Suh | February 25, 2014

On Thursday evening, the pulsing tones of Phill Niblock’s recorded music will reverberate throughout Rollins Chapel as the audience watches images from Niblock’s “The Movement of People Working” series. Niblock’s layered soundscapes will combine with evocative visuals in a rare audiovisual experiment. The upcoming concert will include two of about 20 films from “The Movement of People Working” series, both of which were filmed in China in 1986 and 1987. The two films have never been shown side by side in any concert before, Niblock said, because he rejects any set pairing between film and music.

Arts

Student Spotlight: Hannah Williams '14

By Caela Murphy | February 24, 2014

As Hannah Williams ’14 sees it, computer programs open up endless creative possibilities for digital artists. What else can make you feel like a god, capable of creating anything from nothing?

Arts

Behind the Curtain: The Davidson Ceramics Studio

By Aimee Sung | February 24, 2014

For the brave souls that make the trek down West Wheelock Street and across the Ledyard Bridge, Davidson Ceramics Studio is worth the trip. Located right off the Connecticut River in Norwich, the studio allows students and faculty to throw, fire and glaze their own pots, whether they have experience working on a potter’s wheel or are getting their hands dirty for the first time.

Arts

Frame of Reference

By Laura Sim | February 23, 2014

When Cornelius Gurlitt, now 81 years-old, traveled across the Swiss border by train in 2010, a routine customs check led to an incredible find. The son of a prominent Nazi was traveling with 9,000 euros, prompting a police investigation that ended with the discovery of a priceless collection of drawings and paintings allegedly taken from war-torn Germany. Stored in his 1000-square-foot Munich apartment, Gurlitt had a collection worth an estimated $1.3 billion, including works by Matisse and Picasso. German prosecutors removed over 1,400 works of art and objects from his apartment in 2012.

Arts

‘3 Days to Kill’ fails to develop characters, plot

By Varun Bhuchar | February 23, 2014

Not too far into “3 Days to Kill” (2014), recently retired CIA hit man Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner) returns to his apartment in Paris. As he puts his key into the door, a young boy opens it, and Ethan realizes his apartment has been taken over by squatters from Mali. After threatening the leader with a gun, the first of many minorities Ethan intimidates and beats in the film, he leaves his apartment to advance the plot, but I really wish he hadn’t.

Arts

Behind the Curtain: Dartmouth Photo Files

By Maximillian Saint-Preux | February 23, 2014

In the basement of Rauner Special Collections Library, below the College’s archives, works photographic records specialist Patricia Cope, the gatekeeper of all historical photos. Cope provides students access to Dartmouth’s photographic records, thousands of images that present a visual history of the College. The records, which date back to 1938, were captured by College photographers Adrian Bouchard, Stuart Bratesman, Joseph Mehling and Eli Burakian. Images from after 2000 are available online, Cope said.

Arts

Brown to host annual Ivy Film Festival

By Katherine McConnell | February 23, 2014

Hoping to send its final products to the Ivy Film Festival in April, the Stories Growing Films production group has been producing short films each term since last summer. The Ivy Film Festival, the largest student-run film festival in the world, offers a venue for student writers, directors and filmmakers to exhibit work, and Dartmouth students are seizing the opportunity. Hugh Sagona ’15, the president of Stories Growing Films, said he is excited about an upcoming film he’s directing, tentatively called “Million Dollar Crazy,” which will be finished by the end of spring.

Arts

Wind ensemble to mix acoustic and electronic music in Sun. show

By Hallie Huffaker | February 19, 2014

Through flashing lights, synthesized melody and acoustic live music, the Dartmouth Wind Ensemble will take on a new repertoire this Sunday. Led by conductor Matthew Marsit, the ensemble will play electro-acoustic music, a modern fusion of acoustic and techno sound. Matching electronically generated sounds with acoustic music creates a “new palate of sound possibilities,” Marsit said.

Arts

Musical to explore sexual ‘Awakening’

By Aimee Sung | February 18, 2014

When “Spring Awakening” was first written in 1891 by Frank Wedekind, the play was banned throughout Germany for its explicit content. After seeing the musical version that landed on Broadway over a century later, theater professor Jamie Horton was so impressed by its bold story that he pledged to eventually direct the show. His wish became a reality this year, as Horton and his student cast prepare to perform the musical this Friday.

Arts

Cuban-inspired concert to focus on rhythm, flow

By Caela Murphy | February 18, 2014

Moises Silva ’16, a drummer in the World Music Percussion Ensemble, is used to seeing empty seats at the group’s termly performances. They seldom stay filled because audience members can’t help but stand and move to the energetic rhythms from across the globe. Silva hopes for a similar reaction at Friday’s Cuban-inspired concert, “Ritmos Suaves: Smooth Rhythm.” “As a performer, you like to see the reaction from the crowd,” Silva said. “When you see somebody moving to what you’re playing it brings you joy, and it adds another layer to just playing music.”

Arts

Joshua Bell, Sam Haywood sell out Hop

By Apoorva Dixit | February 17, 2014

Classical violinist Joshua Bell has performed across the globe in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and a subway station in Washington D.C. An Avery Fisher Prize recipient, Bell performed incognito in the station in 2007 for a Washington Post story examining art and context, an article that earned its writer a Pulitzer Prize.

Arts

Winter DHMC gallery highlights local talent

By Margot Byrne | February 17, 2014

As part of its rotating exhibition program, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center introduced a host of new works by regional artists this January, including paintings, photographs and woodblock prints.

Arts

Lord ’97 and Miller ’97 write and direct smash hit, ‘The Lego Movie’

By Rebecca Asoulin | February 16, 2014

All Lego aficionados should rejoice the day in fall 1993 when filmmakers Phil Lord ’97 and Chris Miller ’97 met as freshmen at Dartmouth. The duo wrote and directed “The Lego Movie” (2014), which has received an overwhelmingly positive reception from critics and moviegoers, earning $69.1 million over its opening weekend in early February. The animated movie features the voices of Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman. Lord and Miller’s previous films include “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” (2009) and “21 Jump Street” (2012).

Arts

Student Spotlight: Genevieve Mifflin '14

By Marley Marius | February 16, 2014

When Genevieve Mifflin ’14 quit gymnastics at age 8, her parents worried that she would drop extracurricular activities altogether. Yet Mifflin concentrated her energies in dance, which she had started at age 2 and now committed to with a greater passion.

Arts

Despite star-studded cast, ‘Winter’s Tale’ has flu-like appeal

By Varun Bhuchar | February 16, 2014

Books will be written on the awfulness of “Winter’s Tale” (2014). The odd decisions, stale lines and questionable career choices will keep film scholars and BuzzFeed writers at bay for decades. If you were dragged to this movie on a Valentine’s Day date, rethink your relationship. If a relative decides a few months from now to give this movie as a gift, cut off all contact and disown him or her. If you’re on a plane and this is the in-flight movie, fake a heart attack. The resulting legal proceedings and hospital bills will be better than subjecting yourself to two hours of “Winter’s Tale.”

Arts

Glee Club show features Spanish songs

By Katherine McConnell | February 12, 2014

The Dartmouth Glee Club is full of accomplished classical and choral singers who are more than ready for a challenge — even singing in a foreign language and mastering new rhythmic patterns. For Saturday’s “From Spain to the Americas” concert, the group’s members will perform songs from Spain and Latin America in Spanish.

Arts

Howl at the Moon offers local bluegrass, dining

By Aimee Sung | February 12, 2014

A full moon drew 400 people to the Hanover Country Club golf course on Friday Feb. 13, 2005. The first Howl at the Moon dinner, organized by Dartmouth’s Outdoor Rentals Program and the Hanover Recreation Department, was not a gathering of werewolves, but an evening of food and music for local residents and students.