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Andrew ChatfieldOctober 2, 20246min
The Wesleyan Javanese Gamelan Ensemble and guest artists, including Indonesian vocalist Peni Candra Rini, will perform a free retrospective concert of compositions by University Professor of Music I.M. Harjito on Friday, Oct. 4 at 8 p.m. in Crowell Concert Hall. They will perform under the direction of the composer and Sumarsam MA ’76, Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music.  Since 1983, Wesleyan has owned a set of gamelan instruments from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, a donation to the University from Louise Ansberry. The use of some of the instruments in the gamelan date back to the 12th century. Today, the magnificent orchestra includes colorful…

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Andrew ChatfieldSeptember 18, 20249min
Patricia Beaman didn’t always know that she could be successful as a professional dancer. But after four decades, she’s made her mark reviving a lesser-known form of art: French Baroque dance. A University Professor of Dance at Wesleyan, Beaman has made a name for herself in the Baroque dance world, specializing in French dances from that era, which spans the years 1600 to 1750. In addition to dancing professionally for 40 years, she has also been teaching dance for more than three decades. “It's nice to have that balance,” Beaman says of working in academia and on creative projects. Commuting…

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Andrew ChatfieldSeptember 3, 20249min
The Class of 2028 gathered on Andrus Field for a joyful celebration on Aug. 30. More than 600 first-year students took part in the 17th annual “Common Moment” as part of new student orientation. The celebration also included new transfer students from both the Class of 2027 and the Class of 2026. Joshua Lubin-Levy 06, director of the Center for the Arts, said the “Common Moment” is an opportunity during orientation for new students to get out of their heads and into their bodies, feeling and sensing the world around them through dance as they reflect on the kind of…

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Andrew ChatfieldAugust 27, 20249min
Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts (CFA) opens the 2024-25 season with a wide range of special exhibitions and performances that encourage interactions and exchanges between visiting artists and the campus community. The CFA’s season also features artists in residence who integrate themselves into campus life as they incubate new work. CFA Director Joshua Lubin-Levy ‘06 and his curatorial team create opportunities for audiences to explore the way art can build new points of connection between otherwise discrete aspects of life and learning. “I invite students, faculty, and visitors to consider the CFA as more than a space, but rather…

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Andrew ChatfieldJuly 10, 20243min
Wesleyan University’s Pruzan Art Center, the new venue in the center of campus, will highlight prints from the Davison Art Collection by Jasper Johns and Glenn Ligon ’82, Hon. ’12. The exhibition “Reading Signs: Jasper Johns and Glenn Ligon in Print” will open at the Pruzan Art Center in the Goldrach Gallery on Wednesday, Sept. 18 at 4:30 p.m. and will be on display through Wednesday, Dec. 11. The Pruzan Art Center, located at 238 Church Street in Middletown, between Wesleyan’s Olin Memorial Library and the Frank Center for Public Affairs, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 12:30 to 4:30…

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Andrew ChatfieldJuly 10, 20246min
During its 50th anniversary season, the Center for the Arts (CFA) brought to campus visiting artists who encouraged audience interaction in their live performances. The dance company Scapegoat Garden, directed by Deborah Goffe MA ’19, was among them. The company presented the latest iteration of Goffe’s work “Liturgy|Order|Bridge” last February in three, sold-out CFA Theater performances. “The very first seeds of the project, the first ideas I had, were really about the relationship with an audience — how one cares for an audience,” Goffe said. “Wesleyan is pretty well-practiced at holding things that are not easily categorizable.” In October 2022,…

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Andrew ChatfieldApril 10, 20247min
The exhibition “Dürer and His Time,” on display at the new Pruzan Art Center, is an example of a Wesleyan art education at work. Students in the course “Curatorial Workshop: The Northern Renaissance Print” examined prints in the Davison Art Collection from a pivotal moment in Western tradition in order to pull together the exhibition. It’s a curation of works by renowned German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and select artists from the collection. Assistant Professor of Art History and Medieval Studies Joseph Salvatore Ackley, who teaches the course, guided the student’s research, while Miya Tokumitsu, the Donald T.…

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Andrew ChatfieldApril 2, 20246min
Donald Berman ’84 tried not to be musician, but couldn't help himself. “I think that's the only reason to do it,” Berman said of becoming a musician. “It's because you can’t not do it.” Berman studied Music at Wesleyan, and has gone on to work as a pianist, teacher, and scholar, adding over 200 commissioned musical works to the contemporary canon. Nearly 40 years after he finished his undergraduate studies, Berman will return to campus on April 5 at 8 p.m. to perform a solo piano program. In the concert, Berman will pair two works by composer Charles Ives in…

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Andrew ChatfieldMarch 25, 20247min
Loren Yuehan Wang ’25 is one of four student-curators whose projects about the history of student artistic practice at Wesleyan, “SUM OF ITS PARTS,” are on display in the Class of 1928 Vitrines, located on the first floor of the Library through April 21. And Wang’s mixed media artwork is on display in the exhibition "Exploding and Netting: A Somatic Archive of Transpacific Movement" in the College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center through May 25. “These two feel quite connected,” Wang said of their work in the two archives. “It’s a new possibility for the future.”…

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Andrew ChatfieldFebruary 7, 20244min
Wesleyan University will open a new art venue in the center of campus, built to highlight the Davison Art Collection, on Wednesday, Feb. 14. Two exhibitions will showcase works from the collection for the first time in over four years. The Pruzan Art Center, located at 238 Church Street in Middletown, between Wesleyan’s Olin Memorial Library and the Frank Center for Public Affairs, will be open Monday through Friday from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Admission is free. An opening reception will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 14 at 4:30 p.m “We have been waiting for this moment for a long…

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Andrew ChatfieldJanuary 31, 202410min
The 50th-anniversary exhibition in the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, “Always Being Relation: 50 Years of the Gallery at the CFA”, which will feature the works of more than 30 artists, will be on display at the Center for the Arts (CFA) from January 30 through March 3. With this exhibition, Associate Director of Visual Arts Benjamin Chaffee ’00, and Exhibitions Manager Rosemary Lennox have pushed the boundaries of the usual “alumni” show format, putting in dialogue work by artists who studied at Wesleyan University with artists who have exhibited their work in the gallery since its opening in the…

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Andrew ChatfieldJanuary 17, 20246min
Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts (CFA) continues the celebration of its 50th birthday with a spring semester, featuring an anniversary exhibition and live performances by alumni, plus staged readings and workshops on campus. Director Joshua Lubin-Levy ’06 said that he and his staff are spending time rethinking the legacy of artists who have touched the spaces since the buildings opened in the fall of 1973, the impacts they’ve had, and how it all might guide the choices they will make for the CFA. “From an alumni exhibition in the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery that rethinks the very concept…