Center for the Arts

The Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery has a climate problem. “The airflow is not democratic,” said Ben Chaffee, associate director of visual arts and the curator for this fall’s exhibit by artists Renee Gladman and Nick Raffel, running through October 16. In the wing that is favored by airflow, Raffel installed a fan. In the other wing is Gladman’s collection. Her lines of prose and lines of drawing are neglected by the ventilation system. Raffel’s installation, called airfoil, explores how the aesthetics of utilities express historic understandings of energy usage. Gladman’s exhibit, called THE DREAM OF SENTENCES, is the…

The Hindu religious festival Navaratri holds a special place in Indian arts and culture. According to the popular mythology surrounding the festival, over the course of nine nights, the goddess Durga engaged in epic combat with a demon bent on destruction. As the celestial conflict raged around them, ordinary people comforted themselves with music and dance, sharing their talents with their neighbors. With the defeat of the demon, the time became known as a chance to ask for new blessings. "The festival has always had a special connection to the arts," said Hari Krishnan, Professor and Chair of Wesleyan's Department…

Three students who have demonstrated exemplary work and interest in civic engagement, community organizing, and artistic practice on campus will join the inaugural Embodying Antiracism Think Tank. Olivia Adams ’23, Courtney Joseph '25, and Ava Olson ’25 have been named Student Fellows, and will work on projects ranging from the development of a new television show, to the creation of a documentary film and a visual artwork, all of which will help the University grow in support of antiracist values. The students will engage with ten local community organizers, Wesleyan faculty, and visiting artists announced earlier this year. Each student…

When Joshua Lubin-Levy ’06 was studying at Wesleyan, his friend made him go to a screening of the Talking Heads concert film “Stop Making Sense” in what is now the Ring Family Performing Arts Hall. Everyone ended up dancing in the cinema. “That was an amazing experience,” he said. Lubin-Levy remembered that moment as he looked out on that venue from his new office as the Director of the Center for the Arts (CFA). “The way I approach this work, the heart of all of this, is building relationships with artists and with the community at Wesleyan that supports artists…

The Class of 2026 began its first week at Wesleyan moving into the dorms and finished it congregating at the base of Foss Hill, moving to a calypso groove to break the ice. On the Friday evening before courses began, over 700 students from Wesleyan’s Class of 2026 took part in the 15th annual “Common Moment,” held on Andrus Field as part of new student orientation. The celebration also included new transfer students from both the Class of 2025 and the Class of 2024. Six faculty and staff members gave new students an opportunity to learn the eclectic and diverse…

World-renowned artist Toshi Reagon might learn just as much from Wesleyan students as they learn from her. As part of her artist residency at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts, Reagon is currently on campus developing her latest project, following virtual visits to two Dance Department classes in April which helped to inform her work. The Center for the Arts will present a work-in-progress showing of "You’re Having Too Much Fun So We’re Gonna Have to Kill You" as part of the 2022-2023 Performing Arts Series in the CFA Theater in October, offering a special first glimpse into her process.…

Assistant Professor of Theater Maria-Christina Oliveras was supposed to be a lawyer. While growing up in the Bronx, Oliveras became fascinated with musicals thanks to her father, an immigrant from Puerto Rico with a passion for “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Man of La Mancha.” She performed at her high school in New Rochelle, then majored in Theater at Yale University. As an undergraduate, she interned at the Manhattan Theatre Club and started acting professionally in "South Pacific.” After two years auditioning in New York, she pursued her M.F.A. at the National Theatre Conservatory in Denver before joining with a…

Gabby Farina ’23, an Art History and English major, was interested in how artists’ work dealt with family, identity, body, grossness, and fleshiness. What she found from her classmates inspired her. “Everything was very much tied back to this idea of the human form,” Farina said. Farina is the first Wesleyan student to curate a Senior Thesis Showcase exhibition on her own. The exhibition, “It's Mutual,” was the first such exhibition in the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery since COVID-19 led to the cancellation of a planned showcase in May 2020. As part of her tutorial, Farina visited the working…

Actor Greig Sargeant was watching a debate on YouTube in the fall of 2019 and he started getting very angry. It wasn’t new footage, though – the clip was over 54 years old. In February 1965, writers James Baldwin, one of the most powerful figures of the Civil Rights Movement, and William F. Buckley, Jr., the father of 20th century patrician conservatism, had been invited to the Cambridge University Union in England to debate the proposition “The American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro.” “It was definitely relevant for me, being a Black man and seeing this…

By Maia Dawson '24 Benjamin Chaffee, associate director of visual arts, adjunct instructor in art, and curator for Wesleyan’s Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, has to crouch slightly when he tries to envision an exhibition from the perspective of someone of average stature. He said that when Brandon Ndife, one of the artists featured in the gallery’s latest pair of exhibitions, came to set up his postapocalyptic yet homely sculptures, Ndife had to crouch too. The result of his careful curation is an uninterrupted view from the entrance of three consecutive sculptures, and the hint of one more hiding around…

A man fixes a street light. Another washes windows. Two women take customer service calls. These are not events that are ordinarily the subject of artistic expression. Take these everyday tasks, add a personal narrative, evocative lighting, and music that ranges in tone from the whimsical to the driving, and the work takes on an incandescent quality. Work becomes a kind of magic. Forklift Danceworks, in conjunction with the Center for the Arts, created "WesWorks,” a dance/theatrical presentation that highlights the important work of custodial staff, groundskeepers, power plant workers, and the other Physical Plant workers who make Wesleyan University…

Unspun wool. Silver-spray painted stones. A worn leather suit. Sketches from an iPad. A video of children studying. Each object offers its own narrative. Set again the viewers’ assumptions and impressions, a whole new set of meanings are created. A new art exhibition titled "The Language in Common," curated by Benjamin Chaffee, associate director of visual arts, attempts to offer more questions than answers. The exhibition, featuring installation, sculpture, video, sound, drawing, poetry and performance, brings together five international and intergenerational artists, including Cecilia Vicuña, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Julien Creuzet, Jasper Marsalis, and Alice Notley. It opened to the public…

Lines of Prose, Drawing, and HVAC Systems at the Zilkha Gallery Fall Exhibition

Wesleyan’s 46th Annual Navaratri Festival Celebrates the Diversity of Indian Music and Dance

“Learning from one another:” Wesleyan selects three Student Fellows for inaugural Embodying Antiracism Think Tank

“Sparks start flying:” Joshua Lubin-Levy ’06 on building relationships as the new Director of the Center for the Arts

“Ecstasy and a sense of unity:” The Class of 2026 Experiences the Common Moment

“Surfacing Glorious and Soulful Truths:” Artist in Residence Toshi Reagon Develops Ideas for New Work

“Building Muscles of Empathy:” Oliveras on Teaching Acting, a Pre-Broadway Run at Hartford Stage, and Embodying Antiracism

“A Very Intimate Process:” Farina ’23 and Chaffee ’00 on curating the Senior Thesis Showcase

New Play Reflects on the Ongoing Effect of Racism on the American Dream

Artists Brandon Ndife and Dana DeGiulio Headline New Zilkha Gallery Exhibition

Wesleyan Facilities Staff Showcased through “WesWorks” Performance (with Photo Gallery, Video)

“The Language in Common” on Exhibit in Zilkha Gallery