André DeShields, UW alumnus and a Broadway actor, will not direct “Hair” at University Theatre this spring as planned and announced.
Instead, the actor and director, 62, will appear in “Impressionism” with Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons in a Broadway production directed by Jack O’Brien.quare
Points of Departure: A Concert of Early Works and Premieres, a Li Chiao-Ping Dance presentation at the Margaret H’Doubler Performance Space on campus last weekend, proves yet again that Li, a UW dance prof, is one of the country’s most interesting second-wave postmodern choreographers.
The evening was bookended by works set to experimental composer Steve Reich’s three-movement suite Different Trains, dark poems to World War II. Both pieces worked well with Li’s new company (only Robin Baartman returns this season). The first, “Points of Departure,” a Madison premiere choregraphed in 1990, took its cues from the Trains suite’s first two movements, “America â?? Before the War” and “Europe â?? During the War.” As the sound images of the dome-car Zephyrs that linked the U.S. coast-to-coast in the 1940s and ’50s gave way to the death trains of Europe, the choreography evoked a jig, train crossing signals, then flailing and horror. The dancers were in shoulder-stands at the end, legs crossed overhead like swastikas.
Please refrain from texting during the performance of “The War of the Worlds,” the director requests soon after we enter the Mitchell Theatre. It would totally ruin the mood.
It’s one thing for a play to nod to a time period in costume, set or speech. It’s another to fully embrace it and push it outside the script, as the University Theatre has done in its head-to-toe vintage production of “The War of the Worlds.”
This past spring, Sarah Muehlbauer began sewing coaster-sized circles of wax paper together in her textile design course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was experimenting with the materialâ??s transparency and sometime thereafter the project took over.
The evocative title of the latest concert by the contemporary troupe Li Chiao-Ping Dance, “Points of Departure,” raises as many questions as it answers. Are these literal points of departure, actual physical locations? Do they refer to places where Li has found inspiration, in music, history and art?
The answer is: all of the above.
It takes a village to produce a play, one of the most collaborative of all art forms.
So it might seem natural this season that UW-Madison’s University Theatre is putting the spotlight on cross-town teamwork. But that’s not the only reason: Sharing the stage helps the bottom line, too.
Aliens have landed in Black Earth, and they’re attacking Madison!
Rising from cylindrical balls and emitting toxic gases, the Martians’ relentless march toward the city will be chronicled in University Theatre’s staging of “The War of the Worlds,” opening Friday, Sept. 26.
It’s been 70 years since Orson Welles’ legendary radio broadcast convinced fearful listeners that Martians had invaded New Jersey. University Theatre has retained the 1938 setting, but changed the location from the eastern seaboard to the capital of Wisconsin.
Don’t be surprised to see Queen Amidala, Draco Malfoy or Frodo wandering around campus this weekend.
Whether decked out as one these popular science fiction/fantasy characters or not, more than 1,000 aficionados of everything from computer games to science fiction will head to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the second annual Geek.kon.
A self-described former “very liberal” college activist, UW-Madison grad David Zucker â?? whose work on 1980’s “Airplane!” cemented his place in the satirical comedy ranks â?? has a shock for anyone familiar with his long-ago political stances in Madison.
When art student Sarah Muehlbauer began work last spring on a wax-paper dress in an experimental textile class at UW-Madison, little did she know it would end up at the Smithsonian â?? and earn her a $20,000 cash prize.
It’s not easy to define the artistic endeavors of Fred Ho, the latest artist brought to campus by the UW-Madison Arts Institute. Ho, sponsored by the Asian American Studies department and the School of Music, is a composer, a performer of poetry, a jazz virtuoso on the baritone saxophone, an activist and, for the past two years, a survivor of a particularly malicious cancer.
This fall, the composer of everything from operas to a “martial arts ballet” is teaching more than a dozen UW students some intangible things — how to invent art rooted in their background and beliefs, how to push their minds and bodies to new levels of creativity and how to trust themselves.
Author: Mr. Nadler is chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the author of “Sinoza: A Life” and “Rembrandt’s Jews.” His new book, “The Best of All Possible Worlds,” will be out this fall.
Despite obstacles like funding challenges, William Farlow has had a successful decade piloting the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s opera program, which primes young singers for globe-trotting careers.
On Friday, some of Farlow’s hard work will be recognized in a gala performance featuring 30 alumni, graduate and undergraduate students. The evening of singing will include selections from operas the university has produced over the years, including Mozart, Offenbach, Wagner and selections from Broadway productions.
The state Building Commission Wednesday added $15.57 million to the Chazen Museum of Art’s construction budget, bringing the cost of the University of Wisconsin-Madison art, auditorium and classroom facility to $47.1 million.
UW System Vice President David Miller said the 50 percent increase was needed as a 2005 study of expanding the then Elvehjem Museum for an estimated $31.5 million didn’t include space for hallways, mechanical or storage areas.
MADISON, Wis. — It is a seldom used power that the University of Wisconsin-Madison says it is considering using again.
WISC-TV first reported on Tuesday about the possibility that the university could condemn private property owned by Brothers Bar and Grill.
Because it is an arm of state government, the UW Board of Regents granted the university the power of eminent domain. This means if negotiations between the university and the two property owners don’t lead to a sale agreement, the university could condemn two private properties, WISC-TV reported.
University of Wisconsin music faculty expressed excitement Tuesday in the wake of the announcement of a $20 million donation from anonymous donors to support a new campus music center.
Two anonymous donors have given $20 million to UW-Madison’s School of Music for building two performing venues in a prominent campus location, next to the Chazen Museum of Art and three blocks north of the Kohl Center, by early 2013.
The financial gift will shift up to 300 concerts each year by UW faculty and students from the hard-to-find Mills Hall and Morphy Hall â?? both built in 1969 and tucked in the Mosse Humanities Building â?? to the new building at the northwest corner of University Avenue and Lake Street.
Two anonymous donors have given $20 million to the UW-Madison School of Music to build a new performance center on the northwest corner of University Avenue and Lake Street, a few blocks north of the Kohl Center.
The space will feature two concert halls: one 800-seat facility and a 350-seat recital hall.
Plans call for an architect search to begin this winter. Construction could be completed by spring 2013.
As part of a plan to create an arts hub on the UW-Madison campus, the “East Campus Gateway,” the School of Music has received $20 million from anonymous donors to build a performance center at the northwest corner of Lake and University avenues.
If all goes well raising the additional $18 million necessary to build the facility, School of Music director John Schaffer hopes to open within five years.
Former Chancellor John Wiley was honored Monday night at the Overture Center by the Office of the Chancellor and the UW-Madison Arts Institute.
MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced that two anonymous donors have made a commitment of $20 million in support of UW-Madison’s School of Music’s future Performance Center.
The commitments were announced Monday night during an “Evening of Celebration” at the Overture Center for the Arts, which featured student performances in music, drama and dance in celebration of the career of former Chancellor John D. Wiley.
Both Wiley and current Chancellor Carolyn “Biddy” Martin informed the audience of the development.
The center will have approximately 56,000 square feet of space and contain two concert halls. One will have 800 seats, while a recital hall will hold 350 patrons, UW-Madison said in a news release. In addition, the performance facility will house a box office, dressing rooms, support services, recording studio, a lobby and green room.
Former University of Wisconsin Chancellor John Wiley and Chancellor Biddy Martin announced a $20 million donation to finance a new music performance hall for the university.
Former Chancellor John Wiley went out with a bang â?? as well as a song, dance and symphony â?? at â??An Evening of Celebration,â? held at the Overture Center for the Arts Monday night.
A review of My Family and Other Saints, by Kirin Narayan. Narayan is a professor of anthropology at UW-Madison.
Sitting in his State Street studio, Robert Schultz smiled as he described his upcoming showing at the Chazen Museum of Art as “hometown boy makes good.”
Schultz graduated from Madison West High School in 1971 and attended University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1971-76 and again from 1978-81, earning a Master’s of Fine Arts degree in art. Now Schultz’s work, mostly black-and-white human figure drawings in graphite, is featured in galleries in Los Angeles and Chicago (Koplin Del Rio and Printworks Gallery, respectively). An exhibition of his sold work assembled from collectors opens Sept. 20 at the Chazen Museum of Art on the UW-Madison campus.
The fifth annual Madison World Music Festival, which starts Friday, Sept. 12, and runs over 10 days, is the biggest and most spread out it’s ever been. The festival will mainly be staged at the Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St. — outside on the Terrace, if weather permits — but other venues will include The Annex and the Willy Street Fair.
And best of all, it’s free, although donations are encouraged to keep the festival going into the future.
This Friday night, Cinematheque celebrates its 10th Anniversary with a screening of the classic Singin’ in the Rain, shown in its original 35 mm format.
Manning the projector for Cinematheque is Mike King, a recent transplant from Chicago who got hired earlier this summer as an associate academic curator (which is basically fancy job-title-speak for “projectionist,” although he’ll be involved in some programming as well).
We are blessed with a great arts scene in Madison, which many of us take for granted. An oft-repeated sentiment is that with all the plays, concerts and gallery openings to take in, a person can get overwhelmed quickly.
But a few places stand out as being consistent locations to experience locally and nationally made art, and offer a good introduction to the fine arts scene here.
(Among the seven are the Chazen Museum, Wisconsin Union Theater, Vilas and Lathrop halls)
MADISON, Wis. (AP) _ The college graduate, wearing the traditional cap and gown, sits on top of the world.
A closer look shows the world is actually a bomb and a lit fuse is coming out of one side.
The date on the cover is May 1939, more than two years before the United States entered World War II, but the University of Michigan Gargoyle humor magazine was clearly on to something.
Published near the end of what is considered the heyday of college humor magazines, that issue of Gargoyle is one of more than 1,000 recently donated to the University of Wisconsin-Madison from what may be the largest collection of its kind.
The University of Wisconsin System’s Board of Regents met Thursday on the top floor of Van Hise Hall, which provides a breathtaking view of the UW-Madison campus below.
And while the 18-member group that governs the UW System’s institutions of higher education has more than 500 pages worth of materials to sift through on a wide range of topics before adjourning Friday, the main focus of this week’s meetings is centered on submitting biennial budget requests to the state for 2009-11.
….The Regents’ Capital Planning and Budget Committee unanimously approved the Design Report for UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art project and gave the authority to increase the project’s scope and budget by $15.6 million, of which $15.4 million will be paid for with gift funds.
The state of arts education in Wisconsin public schools is “at a crossroads” according to a study released Monday.
The report shows music and art classes are readily available in almost all Wisconsin public schools, however, there has been a 5 percent decline in participation over the last four years. The study, which was commissioned by the arts advocacy group Arts Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Alliance for Arts Education — a statewide organization dedicated to arts education — also found that dance and theater classes are very rarely offered.
“Did you see those awful jokes these students wanted to put in their magazine?”
“Filthy, weren’t they? What are college students coming to?”
Thus begins a self-parody printed in the late, great Octopus, the UW-Madison’s campus humor magazine. Those naughty, naughty students were writing jokes about sex … in 1928.
A new exhibit, “The Art of College Humor,” opened last week on the UW-Madison campus and was the subject of a story in Friday’s State Journal.
As the story noted, the exhibit celebrates “the glory years of humor magazines on college campuses,” including UW-Madison’s own, The Octopus, which was published from 1919-1959.
It was a war of words Wednesday night, and Madison was somewhat triumphant.
The hometown spoken word team placed second in its competition against San Antonio, Houston and Manchester during its first bout in the National Poetry Slam held at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Various venues around the city are hosting the competition, which ends Thursday night.
Monday night the (City Plan) commission OK’d plans for a $9 million, 70,000 square foot expansion of the Chazen Museum of Art at 750 University Ave.
The project consists of a new four-story museum building linked to the existing Chazen via an enclosed bridge. The third-floor bridge will serve as an art gallery and span Murray Street, which is being converted into the east campus pedestrian mall.
Eighteen has been good to Danez Smith.
It’s the age that he’s come into his own, he says.
And the age he was named Madison’s Grand Slam Poetry Champion.
With less than a week remaining before National Poetry Slam 2008 gets rolling in Madison, the cityâ??s team is working hard in preparation for the competition. All five members — Evy Gildrie-Voyles, Josh Healey, Ryan Hurley, Eric Mata, and Danez J. Smith — are busy making their performance decisions and last-minute adjustments to ensure their success. But how did they find themselves on the hometown squad for the latest addition to Madisonâ??s artistic crown jewels?
All around the city, or at least as far as the station’s signal can reach, WSUM/FM 91.7 host Paul Alan Baker knows a lot of radio dials flee from his program at 1 p.m. on Thursdays.
The student-run station has its rock and its hip-hop, some heavy metal and some jazz. But once a week the station has poetry and spoken word in all its forms, some as contemporary as hip-hop music, some so avant-garde it seems to be nonsense.
“I’m this big break in the day when I can just hear people turning their radios off,” joked Baker. “People just have the music on all day as background and then all of a sudden this weird, experimental poetry comes on and they think, ‘What the hell?’ ”
Baker is the host of “Wordsalad,” an hour that features authors reading from their own works.
Downstairs, Garbage is pouring misery out from the jukebox. Upstairs, David Hart is battling his faulty memory and the audible sound of Shirley Manson’s voice to get his poem out.
His eyes are squeezed shut, he’s trying to remember the next line. He pauses.
“Take your time, Dave!” encourages a woman from the back of the room.
He begins again, “The putrid corpse of hip-hop lies in state in a Brooklyn nightclub, flanked by bouquets of dubs, 20-inch rims and covered in shrubs of Sean John.” With that, he’s off into the lyrical web of a story about his evolution from hip-hop artist to spoken word poet. The audience makes their appreciation known.
With a year and a half remaining, American Players Theatre has raised more than 75 percent of the financial goal for its $4 million “Touchstone Campaign.”
The Touchstone Campaign focuses on collecting donations for a new, 200-seat indoor theater, expanded scene shop and additional rehearsal space. Contractors have laid foundations for the buildings, and organizers at APT hope to open them next summer.
Quoted: Andrew Taylor, director of the UW-Madison Bolz Center for Arts Administration
In a season full of old and new(er) classics, University Theatre will explore the value of collaborations in its 2008-09 season.
The seven shows will explore settings ranging from a fantasy forest, late-1960s New York City and alien-invaded New Jersey. For artistic and financial reasons, the season is strongly cooperative with other arts organizations, which include new and continuing partnerships with Wisconsin Public Radio and the Madison Repertory Theatre and a strong link to University Opera.
“We are thrilled to work with these companies,” said University Theatre director Tony Simotes. “We know that the public will benefit from the partnerships as well.”
Milwaukee poet Dasha Kelly stood on the stage of the dimly lighted Miramar Theatre last Wednesday night and addressed a small but supportive audience.
“This is more than just a hobby,” she said. “This feeds your soul.”
Kelly was referring to the art of spoken-word poetry, in which poems are written to be heard by an audience rather than read on a page. Her words resonated with the audience, many of whom had come to perform in Soul Fire, a weekly open mic night that Kelly hosts.
Even viewers familiar with the British filmmaker Matthew Buckinghamâ??s penchant for politically and historically abstruse subjects may be puzzled by the bland color photographs in this exhibition. They depict interior views of a modern, institutional building: stairways with tiled walls and stainless-steel railings; bathrooms with metal partitions and electric hand driers; elevator doors in a painted concrete block wall; a corner near a bank of windows with a nondescript brown sofa.
A clue to what Murray Guy’s photographs mean is provided by photographic copies of an article from a Wisconsin newspaper and of a news photograph of a crowd of agitated-looking young people, both from 1967. They refer to an anti-Vietnam War demonstration at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in which students protested the presence on campus of recruiters for Dow Chemical, the napalm manufacturer. The newspaper report describes how the demonstration turned into a bloody melee when police with nightsticks broke it up.
(Kimberley) Coonts is more involved in the graffiti world than ever. For the past three years, she hosted a graffiti wall for local artists, or “writers” as they are often called, as part of radio station WSUM’s Party in the Park, a festival at James Madison Park.
When Party in the Park moved to Memorial Union this year because of funding, renaming itself as Snake on the Lake, Coonts was dismayed that there would be no room for her wall at the festival. The wall, made from reinforced plywood, had expanded during its years as part of Party in the Park from 45 feet to 80 feet.
Rather than give up, though, Coonts — normally a Madison nightclub promoter — decided to give the wall its own event, Kilroy’s Art in the Park.
SANTA BARBARA — The title of Olivier Messiaen’s “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus” does not translate easily into English. A common version is “Twenty Gazes Upon the Child Jesus.” But “regards” also implies “aspects” or “contemplations.” One translator, apparently feeling that any suggestion of corporeality would be misleading, simply supplied ellipses for “regards.” After all, Messiaen’s mystical music invites out-of-body experiences.
That was certainly the effect of Christopher Taylor’s spellbinding performance of the work Wednesday night in a new, intimate space at the Music Academy of the West.
Quick, name a 1950s TV show. If you said “Howdy Doody” or “Leave it to Beaver,” time to get your consciousness expanded.
What about “World of Giants,” a pilot about a six-inch-tall spy? Or “East Side, West Side,” a series starring George C. Scott as a social worker in a New York City ghetto?
Look no further than 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Ave., on the UW campus. That’s where you can find Cinematheque shows on Thursday and Friday evenings throughout the summer. For the 10th year now, Cinematheque has been plumbing the archives of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) to bring free screenings of the finest, wackiest or most ground-breaking cinema in its original form.
The University of Wisconsin regularly plays host to numerous distinguished speakers, writers and performers. For a city so historically associated with activism and progressive politics, few are as good a fit as the Amiri Baraka, who spoke on Monday at the Wisconsin Union Theatre. His talk kicked off the Third Annual Spoken Word & Hip Hop Educatorâ??s Institute at the university organized by the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI) and Youth Speaks Wisconsin in association with Urban Word NYC.
The Big Ten Network announced Monday that Wednesday would be a “Wisconsin Day” on the channel with 3 1/2 hours dedicated to University of Wisconsin-Madison programming, including conversations with renowned alumni and features about student life.
Women’s hockey coach, former Badger hockey player and Olympic gold medal winner Mark Johnson leads off at 8 a.m. on the alumni program “Wisconsin Reflections.” He will be joined by several former teammates, including UW men’s hockey coach Mike Eaves.
The UW programming ends at 4 p.m. with a documentary on the First Wave Spoken Word and Urban Arts Learning Community at UW-Madison. “First Wave- An Unfiltered Story” profiles several talented undergraduates who are part of the only collegiate spoken word/hip-hop theater program in the country.
Printmaking is among the most resolutely contradictory of the contemporary arts. It ‘s premised on archaic technology (woodblocks 1,300 years old have been recovered in Korea), but is constantly being rethought, re-tooled and expanded.
The finished product is inherently reproducible, but the technique is used to emphasize the hand wrought and unique. Accomplished artists who have gained fame for work in other media return to the form again and again, yet few who are primarily printmakers can achieve prominence.
Poet, playwright and political activist Amiri Baraka will open the third annual Spoken Word and Hip-Hop Educator’s Institute with a special reading Monday night at the Union Theater on the University of Wisconsin campus.
Born Leroi Jones in 1934 in Newark, N.J., Baraka is the author of more than 40 books and was the founder of the Black Arts Movement in Harlem in the 1960s.
When Andy Moore turned 50 last year, he asked his wife and kids to give him a banjo.
On Wednesday, Moore said: “Is there any better definition of a midlife crisis than learning to play the banjo? ”
Moore is actually too busy to have a midlife crisis. While he continues as producer of “Here and Now, ” Wisconsin Public Television ‘s weekly public affairs program, Moore earlier this year launched a weekly music show, the “30 Minute Music Hour, ” a great name that was dreamed up by Pat MacDonald, who also happened to be the show ‘s first guest.
Author: Jordan Ellenberg is an associate professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of â??The Grasshopper King,â? a novel.
The ninth annual Madison Early Music Festival is pushing the definition of “early” music a few years later.
By featuring the music of George Frideric Handel, all of whose works date after 1705, the festival straddles the cusp of “modernity.” The musicians are playing Handel’s music, but like all the performances at the weeklong festival, they’re playing it on the baroque instruments for which it was written.
IN COMMUNITY LIFE, a short story by Lorrie Moore, a woman librarian looks around and realises that compared with her boyfriend’s social group, her friends are all a bit wonky. They say sour things in quiet voices and make terrible wardrobe decisions. They are “delicate and territorial, intellectual, and physically unwell” but, writes Moore, “these were the people she liked: the kind you couldn’t really live with”. She might be describing her characters in general, who, even when they do find someone to live with, tend to wince at everything they say and then show them up in public.
It’s time to confess — I am a musical theater fanatic. I was raised on the classics: “Sound of Music,” “South Pacific” and “Camelot.” I grew up with “Rent” and, later, “The Last Five Years” and “Avenue Q.”
Most recently, “Spring Awakening” and — dare I say it? — “Legally Blonde: The Musical” have been in rotation on my mp3 player.
So when University Theatre’s “Musical of Musicals (The Musical!)” proclaims in the first number its intention to spoof Broadway’s most beloved composers, I know I am the perfect audience. I will get every joke, catch every reference.
….The problem? Hearing parodies of Rogers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Kander and Ebb leaves me unfulfilled. I want to hear the real stuff.
From Concerts on the Square to Opera in the Park, free summertime arts opportunities abound in Madison. Now, for the second year, dance is on tap.
More than 220 high school, college and professional dancers, teachers and choreographers from around the world have come to Madison this month for the UW-Madison Dance Program’s Summer Dance Institute. The event, which started June 16, is concluding this week with a series of free public concerts beginning Thursday, June 26, in historic Lathrop Hall.
It’s confirmed: Rapper Kanye West will be in Madison on July 26 for the 2008 Industry Meltdown Midwest Music Summit. But he’s not performing. That’s what Greg Doby, the Summit’s organizer, has to keep telling people as he’s fielded calls from all over the country and Canada since confirming West’s visit last week.
Instead, West will be speaking at a 2 p.m. panel discussion about “The Message in the Music.” It’s part of the Summit’s broader goal to bring urban music leaders together to network and talk about the future of the industry in the Midwest.
Farrah Fawcett just didn’t do it for Sean Flyr. He tried, he really tried. That icon of ’70s gorgeousness did nothing for the teenage Flyr as he stared at that famous poster hoping it would thrill him just a little.
It didn’t. And that’s when he knew.
Flyr, 43, of Madison, is one of 16 people telling just that kind of story on the Cinemax documentary “When I Knew,” which airs at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. The film features men and women who recall the moment in their lives — as kids, high schoolers or grown adults — when they realized they were gay. It is also airing on Cinemax on Demand throughout the month.
The trailer for sleeper hit sci-fi movie Zero Trooper F has just landed online.
The film wowed audiences at the 2008 Wisconsin Film Festival in late April — even though it was shot by a group of students for under a grand.
Artist Tom Askman has done many sculptures around the country and has sat and watched people look at public art. What he’s discovered is that most people just walk right by.
Airports often have a lot of public art, commissioned at high prices, and maybe one person out of 500 might notice the artwork, he said.
“There is nothing engaging enough in the art to pull them off their conceptual trap,” said Askman, who in all likelihood will design and install Madison’s next major piece of public art, a high-profile water feature at Frances Plaza, which is part of the State Street Design Project.
….The sculpture is of two bronze cones leaning toward each other with six waterspouts crisscrossing from cone to cone. There will be multicolored LEDs in the middle that will shine up and illuminate the water overhead.
