The Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College presents “The Voice of Latin Spring,” a concert by the World Music Percussion Ensemble (WMPE) and its guest artists La Voz de Tres, featuring the Chilean vocalist Natalia Bernal. The concert takes place Wednesday, May 24, 7 pm, in Spaulding Auditorium, and tickets are $10. Expect an upbeat mix of music from many traditions filtered through a Afro-Latin aesthetic—including Stevie Wonder, Cal Tjader, Charanga Cakewalk, Irakere, Milton Nascimento and La Voz de Tres originals. WMPE and La Voz will each play some selections on their own and … [Read more...]
Thayer-made musical instruments make their debut
May 4 was the culmination of the third STEM Arts project by the Hopkins Center for the Arts, this one in partnership with Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering. Over a period of about 18 months, composer Molly Herron met with Thayer faculty and students, helped teach a Thayer course on designing and building new instruments, and composed a work using the instruments students in the course built. That piece, Assembly, was performed May 4 in a free concert in the Glycofi Atrium of the Thayer School's MacLean Center. Hop Programming Director Margaret Lawrence gives us a view of the project's … [Read more...]
Tropical tones: A music exchange to Costa Rica
Text by Maggie Baird '18 Photos by members of the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble As the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble prepares for its spring concert, Saturday, May 6, 8 pm, DCWE member Maggie Baird '18 looks back on the trip that got the group fired up for this spring's power-packed concert program. In the break between winter and spring terms, the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble and members of the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble travelled to Costa Rica for an incredible week of music-making and movement. The groups performed fives times both alone and with other groups around the country. … [Read more...]
“This jazz thing”—and life: a conversation with Don Glasgo
[Editor's note: The Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble performs its spring concert—director Don Glasgo's last before retirement—on Saturday, May 13.] By Sophia Kinne '20 I’ve been playing the trumpet since I was in fourth grade. I was introduced to jazz, as I knew it at the time, in fifth grade with a generic “Latin tune” called El Gato Gordo. Fifth grade me could not have imagined what this beginner’s jazz would later lead to: for one, playing the works of contemporary jazz musicians Joe Bowie and Peter Apfelbaum in my 2016 fall and 2017 winter terms with the Barbary Coast. I could never have … [Read more...]
Percussion, partnership and pie April 27
Anyone out there who misses their African drumming class? (Or who wanted to take it at Dartmouth, but never made it off the waiting list?) What about anyone interested in applying the arts to activism, sustainability or cross-cultural collaboration? Anyone interested in local cheese and Lou’s pie? (Yeah? I thought so.) If at least one of these three piques your interest, join me this Thursday (4/27) when the perfect trifecta—that’s percussion, partnership and pie—will come together to create Collis Cabaret. Collis Cabaret is a free termly concert, usually featuring visiting artists … [Read more...]
A big, theatrical bite of the Big Apple
For the second consecutive year the Hopkins Center for the Performing Arts has provided its interns the opportunity to explore the arts in New York City. All year the interns have been learning about what arts administration looks like within the walls of the Hop. This trip allows them to see the makeup and scale of other organizations and to discover that the people who work in the arts come from various backgrounds. Thanks to the Hop staff reaching out to their networks, we were able to meet with professionals from a variety of established arts organizations (the Martha Graham Center for … [Read more...]
“I’m Batman”: The Cinematic Legacy of the Dark Knight
Editor's note: What is it about Batman that makes him so enduring, returning again and again in comics, TVs and film and, now, in interlocking bricks? In honor of the Friday, April 15, Hop screening of The Lego Batman Movie, Sebastian Wurzrainer '20, who previously shared the intricacies of the fantasy film genre, offers an in-depth survey of Batman movies...to date By Sebastian Wurzrainer '20 Making his first comic book appearance in 1939, Batman is one of the oldest superheroes (in the modern sense of that term). Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Batman debuted a year after Superman, … [Read more...]
Heels, toes and a whole lot more: my day tapping with Michelle Dorrance
By Ava Giglio '19 Photos by Rob Strong Saturday, April 8, I had the opportunity to take class with tap extraordinaire (and MacArthur Genius) Michelle Dorrance. As I hadn’t tapped in a while, I’ll admit I was a little nervous when lacing up my shoes. But I soon learned I had nothing to be nervous about. Michelle came in, put her tap shoes on and casually asked the question, “Do you guys want to tap dance today?” The collective answer was a resounding yes and class began. We didn’t tap to any music for the entire class, which was something I was not entirely used to. Dancers typically … [Read more...]
Tapping Energy at Mascoma Valley Regional High School
By Rob Strong As part of a four-day residency based at the Hopkins Center, members of Dorrance Dance visited Mascoma Valley Regional High School in Canaan, NH, on Thursday, April 6, for a participatory demonstration of their art form, tap dance. The visit was arranged through Mascoma's Exploring the Arts program, coordinated by art teacher Christopher Morse. The group teams up with a band led by singer-songwriter Toshi Reagon for The Blues Project, April 7 and 8 at the Hop. … [Read more...]
“funky and wonderfully kick ass” show, April 7 & 8
Photos by Christopher Duggan A joyous, onstage love fest between two great American art forms, The Blues Project comes to The Moore Theater of the Hopkins Center Friday and Saturday, April 7 and 8—a collaboration between all-tap Dorrance Dance, led by MacArthur “genius” dancer and choreographer Michelle Dorrance, and singer, songwriter and guitarist Toshi Reagon and her band BIGLovely. Nine dancers and five musicians share the stage in a roof-raising tribute to tap dance and the blues through astonishing tap solos and dazzling complex ensemble pieces, all powered by Reagon’s husky-sweet … [Read more...]
