Each year's Christmas Revels at the Hopkins Center for the Arts whisks us away to a different time and place. This year, we visit Renaissance Venice as La Vigilia di Natale (Christmas Eve) approaches and the city is preparing its annual Feast of the Seven Fishes. The show is presented Thursday through Sunday, December 13-16, in Spaulding Auditorium of the Hopkins Center for the Arts. Serving as the able gondoliers for this magical cruise is a cast not only of talented Upper Valley singers and dancers of all ages, but also a quartet of great guest artists who serve as "tradition bearers": … [Read more...]
HopNews
The Doge goes rogue: Christmas Revels sails to Renaissance Venice!
It’s the height of the Renaissance, and Venice is bursting with excitement. In this bustling maritime hub, La Vigilia di Natale (Christmas Eve) is fast approaching, and the city is preparing its annual Feast of the Seven Fishes. A thousand details must be settled, and they all seem to land in the lap of the Doge (pronounced “dohjz”), the city’s overworked top administrator. Deciding he’s had enough,, the Doge goes rogue! Crying out “Basta!,” he casts off his corno ducale (that special hat the doges wore), leaves matters in the hands of his power-hungry magistrate and, disguised as a … [Read more...]
Binge-worthy: Fascinating “Coriolanus” chats on video
Before you come see the Stratford Festival's production of Shakespeare's Coriolanus at the Hopkins Center for the Arts (November 30 to December 2 - some tickets are still available!), you can hear all about in these videos of talks by Stratford Festival artists and Dartmouth scholars that explore a plethora of fascinating topics. Here's your holiday viewing! Identity, Representation and Casting in Contemporary Theater: Coriolanus actors Graham Abbey, André Sills and Alexis Gordon discuss race, gender and other issues of identity in theater - including color-blind verses color-conscious … [Read more...]
A composer’s unique take on life and death
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) revealed his deepest feelings about life and death in his “German Requiem” (Ein Deutsches Requiem, Op. 45). Written over about 10 years starting in his 20s—a period that encompassed the deaths of two people especially important to Brahms—the work doesn’t use the traditional Latin mass, but instead sets Brahms’s own selected text from the Lutheran bible, in German. Perhaps this personal connection to the text is one reason the Requiem is so profound and beautiful, painting a broad, detailed emotional canvas with splendid vocal and the symphonic writing. Judge for … [Read more...]
Music that rocks – and talks, November 7
Mamadou Diabate is “a true master… a superb reminder of the thrilling power of west African music”(London Evening Standard). But Diabate isn't just an award-winning virtuoso on the xylophone-like balafon, he is also an ambassador for the incredible West African musical culture of Burkina Faso’s Sambla people. There, each village, family and profession has its own piece of music which functions like a coat of arms, music is composed for every important occasion, and communal work is accompanied by music. Diabate and his band Percussion Mania perform rippling, riveting West African … [Read more...]
Don’t overthink it – go to the Hop Workshops!
By Victoria Quint '22 The hands of a student are constantly typing and taking notes: dutifully carrying out the brain’s work. But what if we let our hands lead for once? What if we took a break from the academics of Dartmouth and channeled our creative side? It’s liberating, and easy to do. Simply walk down the stairs across from Hinman, and you’ll find yourself outside the student workshops. There, you can create the most amazing pieces out of metal, wood, and clay. I’ve only had time so far to use the ceramics workshop, but the others beckon each time I walk by. It … [Read more...]
Part 2: Meet More Fierce Women of ‘Eclipsed’
Earlier, we introduced three of the six cast members and their characters of the Dartmouth Theater Department Production this term, Eclipsed. Here are Helena ( played by Naomi Agnew), Rita (played by Stephanie, and The Girl (played by Stella). The show open at the Hop this Friday at 8 pm! Naomi Agnew ’20 (she/her/hers) Tell us a bit about your background and interest in Theater. I've loved exploring various creative outlets and performing since I was a kid, but I started getting into theater my junior year of high school, fell in love, and never stopped. My favorite theater … [Read more...]
Twitter, mobs and Shakespeare
What does the work of William Shakespeare in general - and his civic drama Coriolanus in particular - have to teach us about the current moment? And what is theater uniquely able to do, as a medium of communication, in the 21st century? These are among the rich topics that will be explored starting Tuesday, October 23, in a series of fascinating events on the Dartmouth campus - all related to the exclusive US run of the Stratford Festival's landmark production of Shakespeare's Coriolanus at the Hop November 29 through December 2. Also, Thursday, October 25, at noon on Vermont Public … [Read more...]
Meet the fierce Women of ‘Eclipsed’ (Part 1)
Eclipsed, an award-winning new play makes its northern New England debut in a Dartmouth Department of Theater production this fall, running from November 2 to 11. The play, by Zimbabwean American writer and actress Dana Gurira, is a harrowing, humanizing and at times even funny tale of five women who form an unlikely sisterhood in the nightmarish waning days of the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. In 2016, it became the first play with an all-black and female creative cast and team to premiere on Broadway. This Dartmouth production carries this legacy, with a black female cast and … [Read more...]
Crisis Living: “Puzzle” and “In the Last Days of the City”
Last weekend, I watched two films at Loew Auditorium at Dartmouth: Puzzle and In the Last Days of the City. Both times I had to rush into the auditorium, barely in time for the screenings. Weekend afternoons at Dartmouth always pass by in a blur for me, and the promise of relaxation is inevitably lost in the midst of homework, errands, and most recently the throbbing anxiety of the post-grad job search. I settled into my seat to escape the cacophony inside and out. My escapist desires were indulged in that the films offered two hours each of immersive alternative worlds. However, these … [Read more...]
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