Through the Kaleidoscope Lens
Fall arts events present multiple views on complex themes
by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson
From visual history to emerging technologies to the elusive American dream, the arts at Dickinson give us new ways to see and understand multilayered concepts and challenges. This fall, Dickinson presents a wide array of public arts events that help us work through shared phenomena, big and small.
The fall lineup begins Friday, Sept. 1, with an exhibition of groundbreaking Gilded Age photography and a Sept. 13 screening of the 1914 film In the Land of the Head Hunters. Other fall exhibitions at Dickinson highlight works by Rebecca Murtaugh (sculpture); Lindsay Deifik (prints, drawings); Rachel Eng (ceramics), Dickinson’s newly appointed assistant professor of art & art history; and senior studio-art majors, who will preview their capstone projects. The college also will show prints by William Kentridge and a screening of his Oscar-nominated short Journey to the Moon (2003).
During this fall’s dance concert, students will explore the ways that technology and social media help shape our perceptions of ourselves and our worlds. The concert, iEcho, will incorporate live dance, music and multimedia created by Director of Dance Sarah Skaggs, Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Erin Crawley-Woods and Philadelphia-based artist Nichole Canuso.
Members of the Factory Seconds Brass Trio and the Highlands Duo will present concerts on campus, along with the music department’s Jihoon Chang (clarinet, saxophone), Blanka Bednarz (violin), student performers and the Dickinson College Jazz Ensemble, College Choir, College Orchestra, Faculty Brass Quintet and Faculty Jazz Ensemble. The music department also will host a lecture by ethnomusicologist Paul Berliner, who will discuss his most recent research on Zimbabwean Mbira music and musicians.
The College Farm will host its first Mermaid Players production this fall. Audience members will follow along with the actors, on foot and in wagons, as they depict a Depression-era family’s flight from the Dust Bowl to California in a stage adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Dickinson’s theatre students also will present a series of one-act plays on a variety of themes, and the college’s Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues will bring playwright, actor and activist Peterson Toscano to campus for a performance on gender, sexuality, privilege, religion and environmental justice.
Learn more about fall's visiting artists and view the full listings on the Fall 2017 Calendar of Arts.
Learn more
Published August 14, 2017