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Campus Events: November - December, 1996 |
Tuesday, November 5
Acoustic performer John Akers will play his unique blend of music
on Tuesday, November 5 at 8:00 p.m. in the Sommer Student Center
in Smith Hall on the Wells campus. The event is free and open
to the public.
Akers loves to make noise be it with his voice, his body, or anything nearby capable of making a sound. He writes and performs music with such diverse influences as gospel, pop, folk, punk, country, and zydeco.
For six years Akers has worked with a successful Rochester band that has secured development projects with three major record labels and has opened for many national acts. He has also been voted best vocalist by Freetime Magazine readers' poll and the Rochester Area Music Awards.
Akers acoustic playing captures the freedom and intimacy of performing
alone, while maintaining the intensity and power he had developed
fronting an explosive live band.
Thursday, November 7
On Thursday November 7 at 8:00 p.m., poet and essayist Judith Kitchen and essayist Mary Paumier Jones will celebrate the publication of their book In Short in the Art Exhibit Room of Macmillan Hall on the Wells campus. The Phoenix Literary Society will sponsor a free dinner in the Art Exhibit Room at 6:00 p.m. prior to the event. The event and dinner are free and open to the public.
The two co-editors as well as several area authors represented in the book will discuss the Short, a new form of nonfiction writing, and will read from the book. The purpose of the book is to show the many different ways in which nonfiction can be written. It highlights the imaginations of the writers at play. Bernard Cooper praises the book and the new writing style. "To read In Short is to experience, in essay after essay, the disproportionate power of the small to move, persuade, and change us," he says.
In Short is the first anthology to highlight the new form. The form is attractive to poets who wish to express themselves in a format other than poetry. Its main characteristic is that it takes the shape of a very short essay that is both literary and personal to the writer.
Kitchen is currently a creative writing instructor at SUNY-Brockport. She is the founder and editor of State Street Press, which publishes a series of chapbooks and books designed to give voice to newer American poets. She is also a reviewer for The Georgia Review, one of the most prestigious literary journals in the U.S. Her own publications include Only the Dance: Essays on Time and Memory and Understanding William Stafford, as well as the award-winning poetry book Perennials. She has received numerous grants from the New York State Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Mary Paumier Jones is an essayist whose works have appeared in The Georgia Review and in Creative Nonfiction.
This event is sponsored by the Visiting Writer Series of Wells College. The series is supported by grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and the Virginia Kent Cummins Writer-in-Residence Fund.
Sunday, November 10
The Kairos Trio will perform three piano trios on Sunday, November 10 at 8:00 p.m. in Barler Auditorium on the Wells College campus. The event is free and open to the public.
The group will perform Beethoven's Piano Trio, Opus 1 #2 in G Major, the second of his eight piano trios; Brahms' Piano Trio, Opus 8 in B Major, the first of his three monumental works for this combination; and a trio entitled Kleines Konzert by Alfred Uhl, a 20th century Austrian composer.
The Kairos Trio - Frederica Wyman, Cynthia Lehrer, and Elisa Evett - formed five years ago when the members met at a chamber music conference in Vermont. They report an instant rapport was established, and they have been playing together ever since. Kairos is a Greek word meaning fitness and opportuneness.
Pianist Frederica Wyman has performed as a chamber musician, soloist, and accompanist in numerous concerts in New York and New England. She is a graduate of the Boston University School for the Arts. Wyman has concertized with the Orchestra of St. John, the Rockland Camerata, the Green Meadow Eurythmy Group, and many other choral and instrumental groups.
Violinist Cynthia Lehrer studied with Samuel Kissel who was a student of D.C. Dounis and Leopold Auer. She is currently a member of the Newburgh Greater Chamber Symphony and has served as assistant concertmaster of the Ridgefield Symphony. Lehrer has taught at the Connecticut Conservatory of Music.
Cellist Elisa Evett earned a doctorate in art history from Cornell University and a master's degree in music from New Mexico's Highland University. She has studied with Clelia Chelotti and John Hsu, among others. She plays with a number of orchestras and chamber ensembles and teaches cello privately.
Tuesday, November 12
Lewitzky Dance Company, under the direction of master teacher
Bella Lewitzky, will perform at Wells College on Tuesday, November
12 at 8:00 p.m. in Phipps Auditorium inside Macmillan Hall. Tickets
are $4 for students, $8 for adults, and can be reserved by calling
315/364-3330.
Lewitzky's choreography extends beyond dance to encompass drama,
discipline, attitude, relationships and rituals. The language
of movement is translated to the viewer expertly and precisely
by her technically formidable, exuberant, and sensitive dancers,
acclaimed as virtuosos of solo-artist caliber. The company's versatility
appears in all its facets: in its concerts, in its repertoire,
conventional to experimental; and in its sound, classical to electronic
- all reflecting the basic Lewitzky philosophy that art is an
on-going process, and that the only constant is change.
The NEA and Bella Lewitzky made history in 1990. Pressured by Senator Jesse Helms, the NEA required that all grant recipients sign a clause promising not to offend public sensibilities. When Lewitzky was awarded a $72,000 grant from the NEA she crossed out the obscenity clause before signing the grant acceptance form. She did this not because she felt her work contained any offensive or obscene material, but because she felt strongly that the provision infringed on First Amendment rights. As a result her grant was withdrawn, and she sued the NEA and won; her grant was reinstated in 1991. "I've been struggling in dance for 28 years," she said. "To exist merely to exist is stupidity. To exist to make art is a pretty grand act."
Since Lewitzky, who is now age 80, started her company 30 years ago, the group has performed in 43 states, and in 20 countries on five continents. In April 1995, she announced that she would disband her company by June, 1997, following a two-year commemoration of her work. She began her career in the 1930s as a young dancer with Lester Horton - whose students also included Alvin Ailey, and Carmen de Lavallade. "He was a wonderful charismatic performer. Movement ideas poured out of him," she says of Horton. Lewitzky left Horton in 1950 to go her own way, choreographically.
Lewitzky has been actively concerned with the development of dance in the United States, and this interest has led to her involvement in a number of organizations related to the growth of dance. Lewitzky received three major grants for an artistic director's discretionary fund from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Lewitzky's company has earned major grants from the James Irvine Foundation and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and Challenge Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.
November 14 - 16
Luigi Pirandello's one-act drama La Morsa (The Vice) will be performed at Wells College Thursday, November 14 through Saturday, November 16 each evening at 8:00 p.m. in Macmillan Hall's Phipps Auditorium. The play will be presented in Italian with English supertitles projected on a screen. Admission is free and open to the public.
Set in the late 1920s, La Morsa is the story of Giulia Fabbri who has been having an affair with her husband's lawyer, Antonio Serra. Giulia's husband, Andrea, discovers the affair and the play climaxes with a confrontation between husband and wife. Giulia struggles with the guilt and responsibility she feels as she watches her marriage, and consequently her life, fall apart.
La Morsa is the senior project of Gabrielle C. Seailles, culminating her four years of study at Wells College as an arts and performance major and Italian minor. Seailles produces and directs, as well as stars as Giulia. Michael Rosa of Auburn portrays Antonio Serra; and Wells student Christina Post plays Anna, a servant.
"I chose to do a play in Italian, as not only an opportunity to act in a foreign language and present a foreign work in its original form, but to expose the community to a language and culture which, although familiar to us through cuisine, art, and fashion, is relatively unknown to us," says Seailles about her unusual choice of material and presentation. "Pirandello's exploration of one's reality is a potent one, which finds little difficulty in being understood today."
Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) is the author of the legendary Six Characters in Search of an Author and was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in literature. La Morsa, written between 1895 and 1897, is thought to be his first dramatic work and was originally titled L'epilogo.
The event is sponsored by the Wells College Arts and Performance Department. For more information, contact 315/364-3232.
Tuesday, November 19
Comedian Kerri Louise will perform on Tuesday, November 19, at
8:00 p.m. in the Sommer Student Center on the Wells campus. The
show is free and open to the public.
She says she is just an ordinary woman of the 90s trying to survive in a post-feminist society. She is no shrinking violet, but she is not obnoxious either. It has been said that Louise, "balanced her spur-of-the-moment sparring with a routine that was as sharp as her press-on-nails." Louise mixes generation X experience with girl-next-door familiarity and makes it work.
Louise appeared in the feature film "The Next Karate Kid,"
co-hosted the Three Stooges Marathon on WSBK in Boston, and appeared
on the Today Show. She is also a veteran of such comedy clubs
as Stand Up New York, The Improvisation, and Catch A Rising Star.
Wednesday, November 20
Aurora, New York—Welsh poet and short story writer Leslie Norris will read from his work on Wednesday, November 20 at 8:00 p.m. in Macmillan Hall's Art Exhibit Room on the Wells College campus. The event is free and open to the public.
Much of Norris’s work describes the industrial and impoverished landscape of South Wales where he spent his childhood. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Welsh Academy and has been teaching writing in the United States at Brigham Young University since 1983.
Norris is the author of two collections of short stories and 14 books of poetry, including Norris’s Ark, which he read on the BBC network. Holy Places, his latest collection of verse, will be the first full-length book published by the Book Arts Center of Wells College. He has also written children’s literature and translated Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus and Duino Elegies.
This event is sponsored by the Visiting Writers Series of Wells College which is supported by grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and the Virginia Kent Cummins Writer-in-Residence Fund.
Friday, November 22
"Welcome Sweet Muse," a concert by Elizabethan Entertainment
and Guests, will re-create an evening at home in 17th century
England, long before the era of television and video games. The
performance will begin at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, November 22 in
Alice Barler Recital Hall on the Wells College campus. Admission
is free, and the public is invited to attend.
"Welcome Sweet Muse" will feature varieties of instrumental and vocal music commonly performed in homes as well as at court on lute, viol, and recorder. Included in the program are compositions by John Dowland, Thomas Campian, Francis Pilkington, and Michael East. Also included will be a setting by Mary Harvey, Lady Dering (1629-1709) to a poem by her husband.
Among the guest artists who will perform in the concert are Alexander I. Raykov, director of the Early Music Program at Syracuse University and Michael Lockley, a tenor who has performed at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.
Also appearing will be Elizabethan Conversation, a music duo specializing
in Renaissance music on period instruments. Dr. Susan Sandman
and Derwood Crocker began Elizabethan Conversation in 1984. Sandman
is a professor of music at Wells College and is the director of
the Wells Consort, a student group that performs on period instruments.
Derwood Crocker is a craftsman who has built hundreds of one-of-a-kind
period musical instruments. His instruments are held in the collections
of numerous colleges and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
The audience is welcome on stage after the performance to view the instruments and talk with the artists.
"Welcome Sweet Muse" is sponsored by the division of
the arts and the arts and performance major of Wells College.
Tuesday, December 3
Aurora, New York - The Flirtations, an unabashedly lesbian and gay a cappella group, will be performing on Tuesday, December 3 at 8:00 p.m. in Phipps Auditorium inside Macmillan Hall on the Wells campus. Tickets are $3 for students with ID and senior citizens, $5 for the Wells community, and $7 for the general public.
The Flirtations have appeared on Donahue and Good Morning
America. They have performed on National Public Radio and
were featured in Entertainment Weekly. They were also the
subject of the HBO documentary "Why am I gay?"
The group is probably most famous for performing their a cappella version of "Mr. Sandman" as the highlight of the costume party scene in Jonathan Demme's feature film Philadelphia.
"The Flirts," as they're known to their avid fans around the world, have been bringing audiences and critics to their feet since they started singing together seven years ago. In addition to their singing, the group members also like to talk about growing up, coming out, homophobia, racism, love and politics, not to mention their recent "sex change" - the addition of the first-ever woman to the group.
They have received rave reviews from the Washington Post, the Los Angles Times, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Spin.
The group has regrouped as a trio, and they recently released the album THREE. "Three voices blend beautifully together and produce shimmering harmonies and joyous melodies - a rhapsodic delight. It's total fun and sheer pleasure," says the Weekly News in Miami, Florida.
The Flirtation's performance is jointly sponsored by the Wells College Arts and Lectures Committee and the arts and performance program.
Saturday, December 7
Wells College will host "Rain Forest Ruckus II: The Return of the Wild Thang," on Saturday, December 7 from 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. in the Sommer Student Center. Admission is $5.00, and all proceeds will benefit the World Wildlife Fund.
The event will feature alternative band The Need from 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., and DJ Willi from 12:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.
The Need is a Buffalo based band influenced by everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Joni Mitchell, as well as renowned drummer Vinnie Colaiuta. With a love of raw energy of the 60s and 70s, the Need brings this experience and the pop sensibility of the 90s to their audience. Musicianship has always been a large part of the band's career. Focusing on the best they can give, each member brings life to their unique style of rock and roll. The band recently released its second CD "From the Heart."
The event is sponsored by Wells College Programming Board, the Class of 1997, the Class of 1998, the Class of 2000, the Women's Resource Center, Green Geese, the Outing Club, Intramurals, and the Wells College Chronicle.
November 14 - December 13
An opening reception for an exhibit of photographs by Rochester
artist Richard Margolis will take place on Thursday, November
14 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. in the String Room Gallery of Wells
College. His work will be on display through Friday, December
13. Both the reception and exhibit are free and open to the public.
Since his first show in 1975 at the New England School of Photography, Margolis has had over 70 one-person exhibits. His prints are in dozens of collections including the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art, and the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House.
His photographs have been published in Creative Camera, FOTOFOLIO, American Photographer, Village Voice, and Saturday Review. He received the 1994 Individual Artist Award from the Rochester Arts & Cultural Alliance and was selected in 1991 to create a series of ten large photographs as a permanent installation at the Rochester International Airport.
Reviewers have noted that Margolis transforms the real world-bridges, trees, sculpture, landscape, gardens-into wonderfully evocative images. He uses light and composition to create a classical, sometimes mystical, view of the world.
Margolis discovered his passion for the camera by chance 30 years
ago when a journalism course he wanted was already full and he
had to settle for photography. He attended graduate school in
Rochester and was hired by the curator at that city's Memorial
Art Gallery to photograph the work of eccentric architect Harvey
Ellis.
"Rochester's history, architecture, and landmarks have been significant features in my photography ever since," Margolis says. The String Room exhibition will be a sampling of all Margolis' projects, including Night Photographs, English Landscapes, Rochester's Big Trees, and Bridges-Symbols of Progress.
Currently Margolis is self-employed with Art + Architectural Photography. He is also a lecturer in photography at Wells College.
The String Room Gallery is located in Main Building on the Wells College campus. Gallery hours are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday; 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Wednesday evenings; and 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
For more information on campus events call Wells College Public Relations at (315) 364-3209
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