Cloudy, 45° F
Theater, Film & Dance
New Muslim cool
Arts & Culture
/
October 15, 2009
Harvard Film Archive acquires Just Film Stills
Lothar and Eva Just have recently made their collection of film stills and other publicity materials available to the Harvard Film Archive (HFA).
‘The Donkey Show’ kicks off a first season for Diane Paulus
Harvard’s new American Repertory Theater director Diane Paulus ’88 takes a classic Shakespeare comedy for a spin on the disco floor with "The Donkey Show.”
Theater, Film & Dance Articles
Sort by: Date / Popularity
Family of ‘Doc Burr’ donates ‘treasure trove of American cinema’ to HFA
It began as a childhood hobby, but for Howard Burr, collecting films became a lifelong passion. A dentist by trade, Burr amassed a collection that would make most cinephiles envious: nearly 3,000 films, including many rare prints, B films, and vintage Technicolor prints.
“May I have your attention!” yells Bill Boone, director of the Frances Addelson Shakespeare Players at the Harvard Institute of Learning in Retirement (HILR). “Frances is in Harvard Square!”
Behind a large white tent in front of the Science Center, Harvard University Dining Services staff members worked over sizzling grills, cooking hot dogs and hamburgers to feed a large crowd of staff, students, and Greater Cambridge residents. It was early, but a few stragglers streamed from the tent carrying plates of grilled chicken, pasta salad, and corn on the cob, and cups of lemonade. The smell of charcoal and smoke wafted through the air. It could only mean one thing: Arts First weekend.
The Adams House Pool Theatre sits in the heart of Westmorly Court, one of the several “Gold Coast” dormitories that now make up Adams House. Originally built as a pool, the space has become home to unconventional, spirited productions and has gained a reputation as an alternative venue on campus.
Performance rings old bones with sounds of ‘selection’
The Harvard Museum of Natural History’s galleries rang with music Tuesday evening (April 28) as the facility’s fossils made room for musicians performing seven original classical pieces written in honor of the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.”
Clad in black and white, her brown hair loose about her shoulders, her green eyes intense, Diane Paulus sits in her office and smiles. Against the window rests a stolen treasure from her days as a Harvard freshman, a poster of the American Repertory Theater’s (A.R.T.) production of Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame.”
Inaugural Playwrights’ Festival
Eleven undergraduate playwrights will present staged readings of their plays as part of the inaugural Harvard Playwrights’ Festival, held April 23-26 in New College Theatre. The plays will be performed with the collaboration of professional directors, graduate actors, and dramaturges from the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training.
Chris Gummerson ’12 was driving past the headquarters of a scrapple factory in a small town when an idea for a musical came to her. What if the town’s livelihood depended on the factory, and what if a USDA official made a surprise visit that culminated in a product-recall panic, and what if the meat-eating son of the factory’s owner fell in love with the vegan-artist daughter of the USDA official, and they had to set aside their dietary differences to save the town?
The writing of culture watcher and critic Louis Menand — Harvard’s Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of English — has cast a wide net over the years.
Playwright plumbs texts, ancient and modern
You know Noh, no? Chiori Miyagawa does. The Bard College playwright-in-residence, a Radcliffe Fellow this year, has steeped herself in Noh theater, a measured style of Japanese drama that dates back to the 14th century. It’s one of the many literary echoes — some old, some ancient — that she brings to her work. “I often time travel,” Miyagawa told a lecture audience March 16 at the Radcliffe Gymnasium. “It’s my favorite thing to do as a playwright.”
Ten minutes after pulling out of Cambridge on a bus bound for New York City, Davone Tines ’09 turned to his classmate Jordan Reddout ’10 and said, “I really like the prospect of this group of people going to Broadway to watch a musical.”
Aykroyd honored, student groups featured
Dan Aykroyd has got Cultural Rhythms and blues. The Blues Brother and Academy Award-nominated actor was in fine form last Saturday (Feb. 28), hoofing his way onstage as the Sam and Dave classic “Soul Man” blared at the sold-out Sanders Theatre crowd. As celebrity emcee of the 24th annual Cultural Rhythms Festival and the Harvard Foundation’s Artist of the Year, a bespectacled Aykroyd dazzled the audience of Harvard students, faculty, and staff with his inimitable voice and comedic overtures that have made him one of the world’s most beloved entertainers.
VES film features city on the move
Maxim Pozdorovkin and Joe Bender, graduate students in Harvard’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, respectively, have captured Kazakhstan’s dramatic emergence in a documentary film titled “Capital.”
Innovative filmmaking marks VES program
An intimate relationship between the residents of Harbin city in northeastern China and their mother river, the Songhua. A revealing insight into the personal struggles and national identity of Sudanese potters on the banks of the White Nile. These are the subjects of two ethnographic films premiering Feb. 11 at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography.
Bridget Jones is on campus, James Dean on his way
“You had me at ‘Renée!’” Renée Zellweger and James Franco have been chosen as the 2009 Hasty Pudding Woman and Man of the Year.
Scholar asks: ‘How can we know the spectator from the dance?’
When Yvonne Rainer and her fellow dancers took to the stage in the early 1960s, their performances were like nothing American audiences had ever seen. First, there were no costumes. Performers wore T-shirts, casual pants, and sneakers. In place of elaborate leaps and twirls, the dancers engaged in everyday movements like running, climbing, and even falling. And there was little to no emotional drama. The focus was on the body: unadorned, physical, and pure. Rainer — choreographer, dancer, and visionary — had sparked a revolution.
Dracula, Romanian revolution onstage at A.R.T.
Thirteen men and women stand in a semicircle. Several of them are wearing hammer and sickle-shaped headdresses. Some are carrying wrenches; others, flowers. They are all singing the refrain “Drac-u-laaa.” And in the center of it all, there is a man, slowly turning, pretending to draw a cape to the tip of his nose.
Du Bois fellow makes ‘Little Fugitive,’ take two
The wonder of Brooklyn’s iconic amusement park Coney Island as seen through the eyes of a young runaway is at the heart of the 1953 classic film “Little Fugitive” by the directing team of Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, and Ruth Orkin. What lies at the heart of Joanna Lipper’s ’94 recent remake is much darker.
Professionals step lively in dance class
Light footfalls and nervous laughter broke the pre-class silence in the Harvard Dance Studio last Tuesday (Sept. 23). Five students faced the mirror, carefully working through the dance steps to “One,” the finale from the Broadway hit “A Chorus Line.”
In her one-woman shows, Tony- and Pulitzer-nominated writer and actress Anna Deavere Smith spins interviews into a theatrical performance. Weaving the words she has collected into an evocative tapestry, she brings to life characters ranging from a photographer in Iraq to a Harvard theologian to a Kentucky Derby jockey to a Rwanda genocide survivor.
Multimedia Features
Up Close, part 3
In the fast pace of our daily lives we may overlook the details which, collectively, create a stunning backdrop for all that happens within the University. See the inner workings of Harvard's pianos up close, while enjoying a melodic feast for the ears.
Video
4:48 run time
September 18, 2008
Slideshow / Apr 30, '09
Slideshow / Feb 2, '08
Slideshow / Apr 15, '06
Current Issue
Subscribe to Email Updates
RSS Feed
© 2009 The President and Fellows of Harvard College.