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Join the Arts at Brandeis E-List for the inside scoop on plays, concerts, and fine arts at Brandeis, as well as free and discount tickets to arts events in Greater Boston.
The Brandeis arts magazine, State of the Arts, provides a complete schedule of events. To be added to the magazine’s mailing list, email arts@brandeis.edu.
Arts@Brandeis Calendar
All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. Image above: Bruce Conner, EVE-RAY-FOREVER (1965/2006). Rose Purchase Fund and Mortimer and Sara Hays Acquisition Fund, 2011. Film stills courtesy of Conner Family Trust. © Conner Family Trust.
Saturday, Feb. 4
Lydian String Quartet: Peter Lieberson Tribute
Slosberg Music Center
7:00 p.m.
Daniel Stepner, Mary Ruth Ray, Joshua Gordon and Judith Eissenberg pay tribute to the late composer and Brandeis alumnus Peter Lieberson with the atmospheric String Quartet, inspired by the skies of New Mexico. Also on the program: Shostakovich’s noble and ironic Quartet no. 10 and Lieberson’s Brahms’ glorious Sextet in G major. In addition, the Lydians present the premiere of a short work by faculty member Yu-Hui Chang Ph.D. ’01, one of three by members of the Brandeis composition faculty in honor of Brandeis University’s eighth president, Frederick M. Lawrence. With guests Laura Klugherz, viola and Rhonda Rider, cello.
Tickets are $20; $10 for Brandeis community and seniors; $5 for students. Purchase tickets online or call Brandeis Tickets: 781-736-3400.
Thursday, Feb. 9
Women Art Revolution
Women's Studies Research Center, lecture hall
4 p.m.
Explore the feminist art movement in this entertaining documentary by Lynn Hershman Leeson. Starting from its roots in 1960s antiwar and civil rights protests, the film details major developments in women's art through the 1970s and includes conversations and archival footage of visionary artists, historians, curators and critics. Stick around for a brief discussion of what feminist art means. Popcorn will be served! Part of the 'Deis Impact social justice series.
Meet the Director: David Gelb
Wasserman Cinematheque, Sachar International Center
7 p.m.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi is the story of 85-year-old Jiro Ono, considered by many to be the world’s greatest sushi chef and the proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a 10-seat, sushi-only restaurant inauspiciously located in a Tokyo subway station. Anthony Bourdain calls the film "a breathtaking portrait of a great artist, a chef unique in the world." Director David Gelb will speak after the screening. Sponsored by the Edie and Lew Wasserman Fund and the program in Film, Television and Interactive Media. For more information, contaxt Dona Delornezo at 781-736-8270 or delorenz@brandeis.edu.
Saturday, Feb. 11
Illuminating Schütz
Slosberg Music Center
7 p.m. symposium, 8:30 p.m. concert
Heinrich Schütz brought German church music to a pinnacle of interpretive depth that would be equaled only by J. S. Bach a hundred years later. Musicology professor Eric Chafe and guests discuss Schütz’s musical interpretation of texts from both Jewish and Christian perspectives. Professional early music singers and instrumentalists join the Brandeis University Chorus and Chamber Choir (James Olesen, director) and the Early Music Ensemble (Sarah Mead, director) for a performance of Schütz cantatas.
Opening the evening at 7 p.m. is a lecture-demonstration with performances of Monteverdi and Schütz duets and commentary by Eric Chafe (Brandeis), a discussion of Schütz and his pupil Kittel by Markus Rathey (Yale) and words about historical performance practice from Scott Metcalfe (Blue Heron Renaissance Choir) as introduction to a performance of Schütz concerted works for chorus, soloists, brass and strings. For complete schedule, visit the music department online.
Made possible by grants from the Brandeis Arts Council, the Poses Fund and the Center for German and European Studies. Special thanks to Barbara Apstein for additional funding support.
Monday, Feb. 13
Nimbaya! Moving Peace with Drums and Dance
Shapiro Campus Center Atrium
4 p.m.
Members of the revolutionary Women Drum and Dance Company of Guinea return to Brandeis for a one-day residency. Join them for an informal performance, a drumming and dance workshop, and more. Sponsored by MusicUnitesUS.
Film Screening: War/Dance
Shapiro Campus Center Theater
7 p.m.
In this unforgettable 2007 documentary by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine, three children from a displacement camp in northern Uganda prepare to compete in the country's prestigious annual music and dance competition. Winner of Sundance Documentary Directing award and nominated for an Academy Award in the best documentary category. Sponsored by MusicUnitesUS.
The Long Goodbye: Cardinal Stefaneschi, Giotto and St. Peter’s
Mandel Center for the Humanities, main auditorium (G03)
7 p.m.
Julian Gardner, renowned expert on early Renaissance Italian art, explores the high altarpiece created by Giotto for St. Peter’s and commissioned by Cardinal Stefaneschi around the year 1300. The depiction of the patron in this revolutionary work, now in the Vatican Art Gallery (Pinacoteca), marks the beginning of modern portrait painting. Sponsored by the Department of Fine Arts and the Brandeis Arts Council, with additional support from the interdisciplinary programs of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Religious Studies, and Italian Studies.
Tuesday, Feb. 14
Artist talk: Naoe Suzuki
Women's Studies Research Center
12:30 p.m.
Naoe Suzuki, senior program coordinator for the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts at Brandeis's International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life, discusses her current exhibition BLUE, on view in the Kniznick Gallery at the Women's Studies Research Center.
February 15 - March 9
Dimensions 3: New Work from classes in Sculpture, 3D Design and Photography
Dreitzer Gallery, Spingold Theater Center
Opening reception Thursday, Feb. 15, 5 - 7 p.m.
February 16-19
Ordinary Mind, Ordinary Day
Spingold Theater Center
The Brandeis Theater Company presents an original workshop adaptation of four compelling short stories by Virginia Woolf. Follow Woolf's fascinating characters in a quest beyond fact and reason to the rich inner life beneath the ordinary routines of our days. Adapted for the stage by Adrianne Krstansky and Abigail Killeen. Directed by Adrianne Krstansky and Eve Kagan. Tickets are $10/$5. Purchase tickets online or call Brandeis Tickets: 781-736-3400.
Wednesday, Feb. 29
Close Looking: William Copley, S.M.S, Letter Edged in Black Press, Inc.
Rapaporte Treasure Hall, Goldfarb Library
3:30-5 p.m.
Caren Irr (English) and Jane Hale (Romance Studies, African and Afro-American Studies, Comparative Literature) discuss this rare series of folders that contain objects and artworks contributed by artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Ray Johnson and Man Ray. The mission of S.M.S. was to question whether art objects belong in museums and galleries by bringing the work to the fingertips of the subscribers. Part of a yearlong series of interdisciplinary conversations about art, rare books and manuscripts, sponsored by the Rose, the Mandel Center for the Humanities, and Library and Technology Services.
Ongoing
Celebrate the newly renovated Rose Art Museum and three new exhibitions:
Art at the Origin: The Early 1960s (Gerald S. and Sandra Fineberg Gallery) celebrates the museum's formative period by displaying paintings, sculptures and prints created during the museum's first years, 1961-65. Key works by Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, Claes Oldenburg, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Marisol are displayed in newly renovated spaces.
Collecting Stories (Lois Foster Gallery) documents the collection's growth over five decades, from gifts of modernist paintings that inspired the Rose's formation to contemporary art acquisitions connected to its legacy of bold exhibitions. Left: Marsden Hartley, Musical Theme (Oriental Symphony), 1912-13.
Bruce Conner: EVE-RAY-FOREVER (1965/2006) (Mildred S. Lee Gallery) presents the Rose's newest acquisition, a groundbreaking triptych film installation originally shown at the Rose as part of the late artist Bruce Conner's first major museum exhibition in 1965. In honor of the museum's 50th anniversary, the museum has acquired Conner's 2006 recreation of this groundbreaking film experience.
Through March 2
BLUE: Naoe Suzuki
Kniznick Gallery, Women's Studies Research Center
Naoe Suzuki's psychologically complex works on paper reference imagery from circus animals and water to medical abnormalities and scientific technology. These highly detailed and meticulously executed works are created in mineral pigment and graphite, and the effects are a feast for the senses.
Through February 10
Dimensions 2: New Work from Classes in Drawing, Painting, Printmaking
Dreitzer Gallery, Spingold Theater Center