Category: Arts & Humanities

Reviewed: Mark Seidenberg’s important, alarming new book, “Language at the Speed of Sight.”

With the use of vibrant colors and cartoon-inspired imagery, Audrey Hansa tells the stories of women. Beginning at a young age, the University of Wisconsin student used art as an outlet to express herself and her emotions.

Johannes Wallmann remembers the day he found his people.

Noted: She kept after archivists at the University of Wisconsin until they checked an all-but-forgotten closet and found what she was looking for, a videotape of Edward Albee’s play “The American Dream,” recorded in 1963, but never broadcast. She had seen it on a listing of the places in which the producer David Susskind’s programs were housed.

Some artists at UW-Madison put all that energy of disappointment with society on stage. In a series of movement and dance, UW-Madison Professor Li Chiao-Ping and students capture the essence and conflict of life. The “Weight of Things” confronts what we as humans place value on and what we see as important. The show also addresses the hardships of women and the constraints our society has placed on them, having to live up to standards of beauty while constantly battling within themselves to have as much power as men.

This past weekend, the WUD Art Gala made its debut, offering people the chance to observe student work to be featured in University of Wisconsin’s Illumination journal, an undergraduate humanities publication. The Gala only happens once a year, this time popping up in a cozy room on the second floor of Memorial Union.

Chover worked as a professor of math at UW-Madison for 36 years, officially retiring in 1993 but continuing to teach part-time for five additional years.

There’s no doubt that alumni of the University of Wisconsin go on to achieve greatness, but how often do students get to witness their success first-hand?

Lynda Barry likes to say things that most people shouldn’t or couldn’t. A short conversation about her job as a teacher gets very interesting very quickly.

A new musical feat has been accomplished at UW Madison, and it is ready for you to see this weekend.

It will be a chance to meet amazing historical figures like Maya Angelou, Frida Kahlo, and Frederick Douglass while also supporting a great cause on Thursday at the University Club in downtown Madison as the Odyssey Project will host its 2nd annual “Night of the Living Humanities” fundraiser.

Noted: Presented by the Union Directorate and UW Arts Institute, the show is part of “Shakespeare in Wisconsin,” a year-long series of events to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. The statewide celebration will culminate with the arrival Nov. 3 of an original edition of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays. The precious volume, from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is on national tour and will be exhibited at the Chazen Museum of Art through Dec. 11.

With the release of her book in June 2016, “Art of Suppression: Confronting the Nazi Past in Histories of Visual and Performing Arts,” Pamela Potter said she hopes people will have a different view of the arts in a Nazi-dominated Germany.

Noted: One thread surrounds Shakespeare, which coincides with the Year of Shakespeare in Wisconsin to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death and the arrival of a First Folio at UW-Madison in November. Some Shakespeare-centric books highlighted include Andrea Mays’ book “The Millionaire and the Bard,” “Performing New Lives” by Jonathan Shailor, and “Much Ado” by Michael Lenehan, about a summer with American Players Theatre.

More than a century ago, Wisconsin’s education leaders decided the boundaries of the university should reach the boundaries of the state – and beyond. Today, the Wisconsin Idea is still making Badger State life better.

Noted: One of those is glass artist Helen Lee, for whom the timing of the 2016 Triennial has a lot of significance. It marks three years since Lee moved to the Midwest, after a lifetime on the East and West Coasts, and settled here to become head of the esteemed glass program at UW-Madison.

The six-volume Dictionary of American Regional English, completed in print in 2012, continues to augment its coverage with quarterly updates by the chief editor, George Goebel, at the University of Wisconsin. The fifth update, for summer 2016, has just been published, with a dozen new entries and 40 revised ones. Most of the entries update or enrich the letter B, originally published in Volume I more than 30 years ago.

As a child, Claire Stigliani became obsessed with making dolls. Now the artist films videos of puppets acting out grownup fairy tales on her miniature theater sets. MMoCA hosts an evocative exhibit from the UW MFA grad through Sept. 4.

Olivo has shared her expertise as a director at UW-Madison’s University Theatre, served on Forward Theater’s advisory committee, worked on Theatre LILA productions and been involved in the Overture Center’s Tommy Awards for high school students in musical theater.

Having graduated from the UW-Madison and being a veteran of American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Carrie Coon can probably do a pretty good Wisconsin accent. Now it’s time to work on her Minnesota accent.

“Hamilton” might provide new material, but it isn’t pioneering the idea of using hip hop in the classroom. Next week, UW-Madison’s Office of Multicultural Initiatives will be holding its 11th annual Hip Hop in the Heartland conference.

The festival, now in its 17th year, is presenting a full week of Elizabethan music at UW-Madison from July 9-16 to help mark the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.

Noted: In “40: Collages by Kevin Henkes,” the Madisonian best known for authoring award-winning children’s books shows another creative side. He uses paper saved from the 1980s, when he was an undergraduate at UW–Madison, and arranges them in ways that highlight stark and jagged lines, curved forms, muted shades and texture. Presented in long, tidy rows, with uniform white matting and frames, the collages offer an opportunity for quiet and contemplation.