FALL 2014
All events are free and open to public unless otherwise noted.
GROOVERSITY with Marcus Santos and CreateLab
Thursday, September 4 │2:30 p.m.
St. Joseph Chapel Plaza
Brazilian percussionist Marcus Santos and CreateLab students kick off their first day of class with a drumming extravaganza based on the traditional Afro-Brazilian rhythms and drawing from other world traditions. Meet us at the St. Joseph Chapel Plaza (weather permitting) and join in -- we’ll have shakers and other noisemakers at hand!
Rain location: Brooks Concert Hall
TIME, MEMORY, IDENTITY
Performance & Panel Discussion
Tuesday, September 23│ 7 p.m.
Brooks Concert Hall
Cristina Pato, bagpipes, piano and voice
Todd Palmer, clarinet
Shane Shanahan, percussion
Musicians from A Far Cry
Panel will include faculty from CreateLab.
Cristina PATO: My Lethe Story
Osvaldo GOLIJOV: The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind
Pato weaves her native Galicia and the mythical Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness, into a powerful story on a loved one’s memory loss. Inspired by the great Kabbalist rabbi Isaac the Blind, Golijov’s Dreams and Prayers is a meditation on life, Judaism, and music – the primordial human expression “with the power to build castles of sound in our memories.”
Arts Transcending Borders (ATB), the new arts initiative at the College of the Holy Cross, invites you to a year-long exploration on TIME, MEMORY, IDENTITY through performances, lectures, workshops and more. In this concert and panel discussion, ATB Artist-in-Residence Cristina Pato is joined by fellow Silk Road Ensemble member Shane Shanahan, renowned clarinetist Todd Palmer and musicians from the Boston-based A Far Cry. Faculty from CreateLab, an innovative pedagogical experiment and an outgrowth of ATB, share insights on the interrelationship between time, memory and identity.
CULTURAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: At the Intersection of Business and the Arts
Dinner Speaker Series with Artist-in-Residence Cristina Pato
Thursday, September 25│6 - 8 p.m.
Hogan Center – Suite A
Learn about the development of Cristina’s annual Galician Connection Festival and the emerging field of cultural entrepreneurship from the perspective of an independent artist.
Must register in advance
Co-sponsored by the Ciocca Office of Entrepreneurial Studies and Pre-Business Program
FRUIT FLIES, DARK MATTER, and DANCERS: Making Art to Answer Questions
Talk by Liz Lerman
Wednesday, October 1│5:30 p.m.
Rehm Library
Liz Lerman is a choreographer, performer, writer, educator and speaker. From a piece about her days as a go-go dancer in 1974 to a recent investigation of origins that included putting dancers in the tunnels of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, she has spent the past four decades making her artistic research personal, funny, intellectually vivid, and up to the minute. A key aspect of her artistry is opening her process to various publics from shipbuilders to physicists, construction workers to ballerinas, resulting in both research and outcomes that are participatory, relevant, urgent, and usable by others. Her public talk, as well as related campus activities will largely focus on facilitating dialogue between artists and scientists, embodied learning, and making/breaking rules.
A WINDOW TO THE ART OF KATHAKALI: Traditional Dance-Theatre from South India
Lecture-demonstration
Monday, October 6│5 p.m.
Brooks Concert Hall
Kathakali, literally story-play, is the best known south Indian traditional dance-theater. Its broad canvass aesthetically synchronizes dance, drama, music – vocal and instrumental. Make-up and costuming of its non-worldly characters drawn from the great Indian epics, Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Bhagavata, are colorful and intriguing. A traditional Kathakali recital is a nocturnal affair beginning at 9 P.M. and goes on till next dawn.
In this lecture-demonstration, following a brief introduction to Kathakali, we will learn about the grooming of a Kathakali actor, and the use of language, gestures and facial expressions as techniques and part of the story and the characterizations.
Co-sponsored by the Dance program
TABLEAUX VIVANTS
In conjunction with The Italian Presepe: Cultural Landscapes of the Soul
Friday, October 24│3 - 4 p.m.
Saturday, October 25│11 AM - NOON
Cantor Art Gallery
n. [ta-bloh vee-vahn] French: tableaux (pictures) + vivant (living)
The Italian nativity comes to life at the Cantor Art Gallery through a "tableau vivant" theatrical presentation, featuring students enacting the presepe's surprising mix of high and low, angels and demons. Costume design by Kurt Hultgren of the Holy Cross Theatre Department.
Co-sponsored by the Cantor Art Gallery
SITE and the IMAGINARY
Talk by Patty Chang & David Kelley
Tuesday, October 28│5 p.m.
Seelos Theater
Patty Chang and David Kelley discuss their collaborative video work with excerpts from a selection of projects. Exploring what they describe as “the intersection of site and the imaginary,” the work of Patty Chang and David Kelley merges performance, photography, and digital video.
Co-sponsored by the Visual Arts Department
SIDEBAND LAPTOP ENSEMBLE hosted by H-CLEF
(the Holy Cross Laptop Ensemble)
Sunday, November 2 │3 p.m.
Brooks Concert Hall
Using specially designed, custom made hemispherical speakers and a fleet of laptops, Sideband turns each member of its ensemble into an island of sound, returning a sense of acoustics and space to the normally flat world of electronic music. Ranging from solos and duos to sextets and beyond, Sideband is an evolving project that inspires composers, performers and audience members to reevaluate the role of computers in music.
Co-sponsored by the Music Department
POWER OF ARTS IN EDUCATION
A conversation with ATB Visiting Artist-in-Residence Cristina Pato
Tuesday, November 4 │4 - 5:30 p.m.
Stein Hall, Room 133
Arts Transcending Borders visiting artist-in-residence Cristina Pato shares her experiences in the classroom through two powerful initiatives – Silkroad Connect education programs offered by the ensemble led by renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and the Turnaround Arts initiative, a nationwide public-private partnership designed to help narrow the achievement gap and increase student engagement through the arts and improve the culture and climate in the country’s highest poverty schools. Watch a brief clip featuring Cristina Pato, Yo-Yo Ma, and jookin’ legend Lil’ Buck at Inner City Arts, LA.
Co-sponsored by the Education department
Free and open to public, but RSVP required. Register here by Monday, October 27.
MARK O'CONNOR
Lecture-demonstration
Monday, November 17│12 - 1:30 p.m.
Brooks Concert Hall
In conjunction with Mark O’Connor: Hot Swing presented by Music Worcester on November 16 at Mechanics Hall, Grammy-award winning violinist/composer/fiddler comes to campus to talk about the diverse influences from American folk traditions to jazz and classical music that shape him as an artist.
Co-sponsored by the Music Department
ANNETTE LEMIEUX
Artist Talk
Tuesday, November 18│5 p.m.
Seelos Theater
Annette Lemieux first garnered attention on the newly global art scene of the 1980s. Since that time she has continued to produce work that grows in depth and resonance, proving herself an artist of lasting significance. Lemieux's early use of traditional techniques painting, printing, casting, and photography expanded to include found materials laden with cultural meanings and evocative of personal memories. Whatever the material, Lemieux masters and invents techniques and processes that correlate with states of mind. Major themes she returns to within our shifting political and cultural climate include the horror of war, the nature of time, the elusive truth of memory, the nature of ideas and art-making, and the relationship between personal experience and cultural history.
ARTS TRANSCENDING BORDERS IS PLEASED TO ALSO SUPPORT:
Building After Auschwitz: Jewish Architecture and the Memory of the Holocaust
Monday, September 15│4:30 p.m.
Rehm Library
Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, professor of history and director of the Judaic Studies Program at Fairfield University, will discuss his book “Building After Auschwitz” (Yale University Press, 2011). The talk will explore how Jewish architects have risen to unprecedented prominence since World War II and the ways in which their work reflects their Jewish identities and memories of the Holocaust. Part of a series on "Time, Memory and Identity" co-sponsored with the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, and supported by the Kraft-Hiatt Fund for Jewish-Christian Understanding.
Coloring Outside the Color-Line: Community Muralism and Racial Justice
Thursday, October 30│7:30 p.m.
Seelos Theater
Maureen O’Connell, chair and associate professor of religion at LaSalle University, is the author of “If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice,” (Liturgical Press, 2012). She will speak about the community muralism movement in Philadelphia and its theological aspects. Her talk is co-sponsored by the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, Montserrat’s Divine Cluster, and Arts Transcending Borders.