The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music has received a $25 million gift to help construct a new building featuring performance spaces and a large concert hall.
Central Time: We’re joined by a celebrated Cuban musician and bandleader who’s been working in-residence with students at the UW-Madison.
CLEVELAND, Ohio – Vietnam is a visceral emotion as much as a memory for those who were part of the war that began in 1955 and didn’t end until 1975.
Sheepshead lives. So does the card game’s Germanic name, Schafskopf. Wisconsin residents still gulp water at bubblers and eat cannibal sandwiches (made from raw ground beef seasoned with onions, and also known as tiger meat).
Quoted: In New York City, University of Wisconsin art professor Laura Anderson Barbata is preparing to perform in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade a living social justice art piece called “Intervention: Indigo” she came up with with 17 other people, including two others from UW.
“It is a reminder and way of bringing back what the symbolism and protection of the color indigo is all about,” Barbata said.
Noted: “The Zonderling” (KN), by Kersti Niebruegge. A small-town Wisconsin college grad, trying to gain a foothold in New York, lands in an old-fashioned residence hotel for women. Comic complications ensue. Niebruegge is a University of Wisconsin-Madison grad who has worked for “Conan” and “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”
Noted: Trumbo tries to talk rings around HUAC in his testimony (drawn from the actual transcripts, which are archived along with 45 boxes of other Trumbo materials at the UW-Madison), but he’s found in contempt and sentenced to prison.
Ashley Thomas, a Harlem native and senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, never thought she’d end up in the Midwest.When she started looking for schools, she was interested in diversity. But according to UW’s website, over 70% of the school’s students identify as white. So, why did Ashley choose UW? Because of a hip-hop and urban arts program called First Wave. UW is the only school in the country with anything like it.
Dancers with a UW-Madison connection will be performing as part of Thursday’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.
Quoted: “The toy culture has … contributed a lot to the movie,” said Jonathan Gray, professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Anyone who thinks that the movies were successful just for the movie is forgetting the huge impact that the toys had.”
Sunday’s event on the sixth floor of UW-Madison’s Humanities Building on Park Street was its 11th outing since 2008. By midday, it was on pace to attract about 100 people.
A man once blacklisted from the silver screen is making a return. He’s Dalton Trumbo, one of the most famous screen writers of all time. A new movie chronicling his life is set to be released later this month. While many know him for his films, he actually has a tie to Madison.
“Not many people get to be down here,” said Mary Huelsbeck as she leads us to the basement of the Wisconsin Historical Society. There, more than 20,000 films are stored as part of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, WCFTR.
We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War is a new book by veteran Doug Bradley and Craig Werner, professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, about soldiers’ musical memories and the impact of James Brown, Eric Burdon, Country Joe McDonald, and other popular artists on the Vietnam experience and our understanding of it.
Chris Walker, a professor of dance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Walker, says in Marley songs like “No Woman, No Cry,” “Three Little Birds,” and “One Love,” a message of “love and redemption and equal rights and justice comes through that caused the world to be so in love with the music, those basic human ideas.” In “FACING Home: Love & Redemption,” to be staged Thursday through Saturday in Lathrop Hall on the UW-Madison campus, Walker and choreographer Kevin Ormsby put those stated values “in dialogue” with Jamaica’s rampant homophobia.
Sometimes, the easiest way to gather a collection of historical papers is to simply ask.
Former UW-Madison Spanish professor Birute Ciplijauskaite won the 2015 Wednesday, a unanimous selection by the Wisconsin Historical Records Advisory Board.
Last May, artist Laura Anderson Barbata turned downtown Madison into a giant parade, as “Strut!” brought puppets, dancers and musicians into the streets of the Capitol Square.
When Ron Wallace accepted a teaching position in the University of Wisconsin’s English department in 1972, he got some practical advice from Frank Miller, a family friend and professor at Washington University School of Law.
(Video) Hollywood shines a light on one of its darkest periods in the new movie “Trumbo.” Jeff Smith, a University of Wisconsin communication arts professor, talks about the Trumbo era.
With a reputation as a gifted teacher, violinist Soh-Hyun Park Altino will get to practice what she preaches at her Nov. 13 Madison debut recital in Mills Hall.
The UW School of Music’s new violin professor will share the stage with pianist Martha Fischer in a demanding program that includes Bach’s Sonata No. 3 in C major for solo violin, Brahms’ second violin sonata, Ives’ Violin Sonata No. 2 and the soaring “Romance” by Amy Beach.
[T]his weekend, the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music offers a rare treat: a homecoming of celebrated alumni composers. They’re presenting exciting work, some of it postmodern, some of it emphasizing novel, symbolic staging and motion — along with a few world premieres.
(Video) Live at Four welcomes festival director Greg Mitman to talk about the environmentally focused event.
Noted: Daniel Kaplan, a student in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s First Wave Hip Hop and Urban Arts Learning Community, chose “Lord of the Fly” as his stage name because it represents “being in control of the things you think are cool or ideal,” he told The Daily Cardinal earlier this year.
Noted: In the past year, the Milwaukee Press Club has worked with UW-Madison students to interview people who worked and served with Chapelle. Those interviews will become part of the historical society’s collection.
Noted: “Racism is Highly Adaptable” consists of four large wood carvings, inspired by the carvings done by slaves that Parks Snider had read about during one of her frequent visits to the Kohler Art Library at UW-Madison.
Noted: The solitary confinement cell replica ties into Go Big Read, UW-Madison’s annual campuswide reading program. Organizers wanted a book this year that fit into a theme of inequality in America. Chancellor Rebecca Blank chose Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy,” which centers on race and the criminal justice system.
Noted: It’s all part of the environment that is being explored at this weekend’s Tales from Planet Earth Film Festival, a collection of international films that thematically explore the concept of “environment.” It’s hosted by the Center for Culture, History and Environment at UW-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
Cartoonist Lynda Barry has a new exhibit at the Madison Children’s Museum called “Drawing Fast and Slow.” She joins us to talk about why children inspire her, the power of drawing and the stories behind some of her new creations.
There will be no more School of the Arts at Rhinelander.
Noted: In her drawn and written introduction to “The Best American Comics 2008,” Ms. Barry copies other cartoonists’ styles, demonstrating the ventriloquial skills that helped her learn her craft. Also featured: 18 original drawings from Ms. Barry’s latest book, “Syllabus: Notes From an Accidental Professor,” inspired by her students at the University of Wisconsin.
Designing coffins seems like a gloomy task, but Eric Anang — who is completing a residency this fall at University of Wisconsin — uses the family art form to make a statement.
Bryan Stevenson, the author of this year’s Go Big Read book, filled Varsity Hall in Union South Monday night during a talk on mass incarceration and race.
“Just Mercy” follows Stevenson’s career and his work as the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, an organization that defends the poor and wrongly convicted, according to the book.
The university gave out more than 5,000 copies of the book to students at convocation and more than 170 courses on campus are using the book.
University Opera’s opening night of Mozart’s magical romp proves to be worthy on most every level—and not just allowing for a “student” production.
In a shared bid for improved social justice, Madison police recruits and officers from UW-Madison and Middleton for the first time are participating in Go Big Read, the university’s annual common-book program in which students, staff and faculty across campus read and study the same selection.
Noted: A series called “Serpent” made by Michael Velliquette, a member of the UW-Madison faculty, is comprised of a collection of small hand-cut paper sculptures.
Noted: Wallace is a professor of poetry and co-director of the creative writing program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His earlier books include “For a Limited Time Only” and “God Be With the Clown: Humor in American Poetry.”
Noted: Benbow, 38, got his masters and doctorate in educational policy studies at UW-Madison and now works as a researcher at the university. He is responsible for writing the lyrics and a majority of the music for Drive to the Ocean.
Celebrating its ten-year anniversary this fall, the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives has created a ripple effect throughout the hip-hop arts and spoken word community.
When the Center for the Humanities staff at the University of Wisconsin–Madison saw how difficult it had become for humanities students to find academic positions, they looked to the local community to see what possibilities existed for fruitful collaborations.
When was the last time you drew something? For most, it was probably high school. Lynda Barry, director of the Image Lab at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, is looking to change that with her Saturday Science Drawing Jam for Kids—a public drawing event for kids and adults at WID.
When Kelsey Van Ert (“Kelsey Pyro”) was a freshman in college, she got a phone call that changed her life — an offer of a full-tuition scholarship to UW-Madison.
Noted: Through the humanities, the students [in the Odyssey Project] earn college credits, gain confidence in their abilities to succeed, and an opportunity to find a career path. In other words, they find hope.
There’s a gathering next Thursday night at the University Club on campus for those interested in supporting the Odyssey Project. We think it is so worthy of support.
One day in the 1980s, Jennifer Angus was traveling through Northern Thailand researching the dress of tribal minorities when she stumbled on a traditional “singing shawl,” whose tassels were embellished with green metallic beetle wings that made a tinkling sound when they knocked together.
When he died in 1999, George L. Mosse’s friends and colleagues wanted to name the Humanities Building after him — even if he wasn’t known to like the building very much.
But the chairman of the University of Wisconsin history department at the time knew Mosse appreciated a good joke, Mosse’s friend and UW history professor emeritus Stanley Payne said. And so the UW System Board of Regents approved dedicating the building after him, honoring the legacy he left behind as a professor with personality and a big voice.
“Chapter a Day” narrator, Cynthia Woodland, talks about why she chose “Just Mercy” to be featured during the month of October. The memoir charts the experience of Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer and social justice activist, who worked with incarcerated African Americans in the South.
In a time of obvious oppression against blacks in the Jim Crow South, where did Asian-Americans fit during segregation? Or did they at all?
I’ve written before about Jerome Chazen, founder and chairman of Chazen Capital Partners, and his wife Simona. The Chazens are major art collectors with more than 500 pieces by 200 modern and contemporary artists. A lot of the couple’s art philanthropy focuses on New York, where the Museum of Arts and Design, Lincoln Center of Performing Arts, MoMA, Roundabout Theater Company, and others have received support.
Many of us have seen the home movie footage that captured the grim images of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy – also knowns as the Zapruder film. This footage proved to be invaluable to the assassination investigation, and to this day it is one of the most studied pieces of film ever shot.
UW assistant professor Lori Kido Lopez has started “Asian-American Media Spotlight,” a mini-film festival of five movies playing for free on the UW-Madison campus this weekend.
Preview of “Black, White, and Color” exhibit that opens Monday in the Commons Gallery on the first floor of the Old Education Building on the UW-Madison campus. An opening reception will be held from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
Preview of the “Harmonious Spaces: Wei Dong and Feng Shui Culture” exhibition at the Ruth Davis Design Gallery on the UW-Madison campus through Nov. 15. Wei Dong is a professor of interior architecture at UW-Madison.
Madison is filled with fans of Tandem Press, the University of Wisconsin–Madison-affiliated organization that collaborates with artists from around the world to create contemporary fine-art prints. If you count yourself among them, don’t miss the new Fall Art Showcase at Promega.
The Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin Madison has received a donation of artworks and cash valued at twenty-eight million dollars total from New York art collectors Jerome and Simona Chazen, who are both alumni of the school, reports the Wisconsin State Journal’s Gayle Worland.
A decade ago, distinguished University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni Jerome and Simona Chazen made a $20 million donation in support of the school’s art museum expansion. Formerly known as the Elvehjem Museum of Art, the institution was renamed in honor of the Chazens.
Interviewed: Esty Dinur, chair of artistic selection, Madison World Music Festival; director of marketing and communications, Wisconsin Union Theater; host of ’A Public Affair,’ WORT 89.9 FM
Feature on Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, the UW Arts Institute’s interdisciplinary artist in residence for fall 2015.
New York art collectors Jerome and Simona Chazen, both of whom attended UW-Madison in the 1940s, have made a “firm commitment” to donate 30 major artworks by contemporary and modern masters, museum director Russell Panczenko said. Many of those artworks were on display in Madison in the museum’s 2005 exhibition “Dual Vision: The Simona and Jerome Chazen Collection.”
“What History Tells” plans to recreate the experience of sitting in the iconic Mosse’s classroom, according to UW-Madison News. Participants will listen to recordings of his lectures from 1969 and 1982 on European cultural history, and read works by Mosse and others.
The theatrical version of “Learning to Stay” is set to have its first staged reading on Saturday, Oct. 3, in the Fredric March Play Circle in the Memorial Union. (The author, Erin Celello, is a assistant professor at UW–Whitewater and is married to Aaron Olver, managing director at University Research Park.
The film, directed by UW graduate Chad Garcia, won the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It follows an eccentric Ukrainian artist named Fedor Alexandrovich who is investigating a conspiracy surrounding the Chernobyl disaster. Alexandrovich’s exploration of Soviet-era secrets and brutality mirrors the present day strife in his own country, as Russian Premier Vladimir Putin threatens Ukraine’s sovereignty. Indie film distributor FilmBuff has bought the rights.
