Author: Kate Prouty When reviewing a modern dance piece, you're not supposed to award all of your praise to the dancers (I don't know who said this. It's just one of those insupportable rules). After all, it's the choreographer who decides what his dancers do. He is the puppet master, the mind and organization, ...
Author: Erika Mercer It's like passing by a closed bedroom door, overhearing a conversation from within the room. You don't know who the people talking are, and you know you shouldn't be listening in, but the phrases you gather are too intense and intriguing to turn your ear away. The conversation is ...
Author: Richard Lawless Middlebury College welcomed acclaimed hip-hop group The Roots to its cavernous Nelson Arena last Saturday. Performing for a packed crowd, the group unleashed such favorites as "The Next Movement" and "You Got Me" from their breakthrough 1999 album, "Things Fall Apart." Highly ...
Author: Suzanne Mozes Senior Alex Poe's adaptation of "The Stranger" by Albert Camus premiered this past weekend in the Hepburn Zoo, stinging audiences with directorial and authorial innovation on the Algerian Nobel Prize-winning book.Poe, in his last year as a double major in theater and literary studies ...
Author: Richard Lawless Widely-celebrated British organ virtuoso Thomas Trotter took the stage in Middlebury's Mead Chapel last Sunday afternoon, delivering a terrific 90-minute set with pieces ranging from baroque to contemporary on the chapel's powerful organ.Trotter is internationally renowned for ...
Author: Abbie Beane Though he may not be Wes Craven, independent Vermont filmmaker Jay Craven still has a daunting audacity for approaching haunting issues. And why should you care? Because his most recent work, "The Year That Trembled" will be screened at Dana Auditorium on Nov. 20 at 7:30 p.m. Based ...
Author: Suzanne Moses Senior Zoe Anastassiou dared her audience to "veer from what's neutral" in "Tell me Something Pretty," a production of six provocative one-act plays, directed by Claire Wyckoff '03 and Kayte Spector '04. Anasttassiou chose scenes, along with the directors and faculty advisers, ...
Author: Erika Mercer You stand on the edge of a vast cornfield, staring across its immensity to where, far in the distance, a solitary farmhouse shudders in the fall wind. With each gust, the stalks of corn bend and bow in unison, their heads too heavy to hold up, their arms hanging limp by their sides. ...
Author: Abbie Beane It's back, and this time it's here to stay. It's the "Love" addition (a piece of artwork fabricated by another artist meant to be identical and equally authentic as the original), designed by Robert Indiana in 1973. It now rests behind the Center for the Arts (CFA) next to its cohort, ...
Author: Richard Lawless The lavish and technically astounding sounds of the Brentano String Quartet filled the Middlebury College Concert Hall Saturday night. The evening's program revolved around a musical piece called a fugue, which is a composition consisting of a theme and subsequent repetitions ...
Author: Abbie Beane Longtime liberal arts rival Williams College stole the show once again on Oct. 31, when they introduced singer spectaculaire and master musician Ben Folds. Former lead singer of Ben Folds Five, Folds has been touring solo since Oct. 22 and will not stop until Dec. 6, when he hits ...
Author: Kate Prouty Harnessing the controlled chaos that is common in most Hepburn Zoo productions, "Zooprints" went up last weekend juxtaposing three disparate plays, an evolving set and a barrage of actors with relatively few flubs. Of course, some things went amiss in Friday night's performance — ...
Author: Abbie Beane The circumstantial evidence is ubiquitous: Informal concerts have become a tradition at scientific conferences; physicians orchestras are popping up in large cities; professors and students alike are writing theses juxtaposing major fields of science (such as physics, chemistry and ...
Author: Daniel Wolf Roda "I finally understand why my parents dance the way they do," commented Justina Ngo '04, after attending "Beatles Night" in Pearsons Lounge Saturday. Picture this: Three hours of non-stop, booty-twisting, timeless Beatles favorites, performed by musicians whose age differences ...
Author: Chase Kvasnak "Anna Karenina," performed this last weekend in the Center for the Art's Seeler Studio Theatre and directed by Cheryl Faraone,professor of theater and women's and gender studies, was undoubtedly impressive.Written by Helen Edmundson and published in 1992, the play is a three-hour ...
Author: Erika Mercer Imagine that you are trespassing in an old deserted house. You push open the heavy front door, stepping cautiously inside to find yourself enveloped by pervading darkness and the unsettling whistle of air through empty halls. You are uneasy, but your curiosity overwhelms your fear, ...
Author: Jonathan White Most people have a love-hate relationship with Broadway. You either look forward to a visit to the theater district next time you venture to New York, or you wouldn't be caught dead at "The Phantom of the Opera." Yet I'd wager that Mel Brooks' current Great White Way sensation ...
Author: Liz Braunstein Assisstant Professor of Chinese Carrie Reed addressed a packed McCullough Social Space on Oct. 18, cautioning, "Be prepared for a loud, raucous, lively and passionate performance." Her words of warning could not have braced the audience for the imminent spectacle — a melange ...
Author: Erika Mercer The first time listening to Sonic Youth is a lot like taking your first bite of sushi — raw, cold, foreign and delicious. It's a taste you've never experienced before, one that startles you with its strangeness and amazes you with its distinctive flavor. Your palate, initially ...
Author: Chase Kvasnak Dan O'Brien, Tennessee Williams Fellow in Playwriting and Middlebury alumnus, spoke at the Center for the Arts. "How to Almost Starve on Purpose," the title of O'Brien's speech, explored the relationship of the writer and the real world in an autobiographical essay. O'Brien majored ...