Visual and Performing Arts News

“Collecting Small Things,” Superior Wind Symphony in Concert

Published November 16, 2015

The Superior Wind Symphony will perform “Collecting Small Things” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, November 14, 2015, in the Rozsa Center.

The Superior Wind Symphony is the only Michigan Tech music ensemble composed entirely of non-music majors: chemists, engineers, physics and math majors make up the band. From bassoons to oboes, trumpets to saxophones, you’ll get to focus alternately on all of the wind and percussion families of instruments, while enjoying the prowess of the entirely non-music-major ensemble.

From Tech Today, by Bethany Jones.

Among the performers from VPA is Aaron Christianson, Theatre and Entertainment Technology major.

Local Student Dancers to Perform

Published November 11, 2015

By College of Engineering

Student dancers from many area schools, including Houghton, Hancock, Baraga, Lake Linden-Hubbell, C-L-K, Michigan Tech, Gogebic CC and others have begun rehearsals for their upcoming performances of “The Nutcracker.”

Young dancers will take the stage to create this magical Christmas fairytale with the Minnesota Ballet and Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra on Dec. 4 and 5, at the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are on sale now, $25 for adults, $10 for youth.

Special for the Nutcracker performances only, a $55 “family package” includes two adults and two youth tickets and additional youth tickets can be added on for $6 each. No charge for Michigan Tech students with a Student ID/ Experience Tech fee. Advance reserved seating is now available. Tickets may be purchased by phone at 7-2073, online, in person at the Central Ticketing Office in the Student Development Complex or at the Rozsa Box Office the evening of the performance.

From Tech Today, by the Rozsa Center.

Tech Theatre Presents Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Published November 9, 2015

By College of Engineering

The Tech Theatre Company presents “Haroun and the Sea of Stories.” The chldren’s classic by Salman Rushdie is in the tradition of “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Wizard of Oz.”

“What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” This is the question Haroun asks her father, the famous storyteller Rashid Khalifa, when her mother Soraya runs away with another man. Rashid then loses his unique talent, the ability to tell stories, and Haroun decides she must help her father recover his powers. She sets off on a remarkable journey to the fabled Sea of Stories, where many of Rashid’s outlandish yarns turn out to be not only true but alive.

“Haroun and the Sea of Stories” opens at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, November 12, 2015, in the McArdle Theatre in the Walker Building. Additional performances are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday with a 2 p.m. Sunday matinee.

Tickets at $13 for adults, $5 for youth and Michigan Tech students are free with Student ID/Experience Tech Fee.

From Tech Today, by Tech Theatre.

See New York’s “Reigning String Quartet” at the Rozsa Center

Published November 2, 2015

By College of Engineering

Experience the electrifying concert and multimedia meditation that is ETHEL: Documerica at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts. Acclaimed as “unfailingly vital” (The New York Times), “brilliant,” “downtown’s reigning string quartet” (The New Yorker) and “one of the most exciting quartets around” (Strad Magazine), ETHEL invigorates the contemporary music scene with exuberance, intensity, imaginative programming and exceptional artistry.

Documerica features video projections that parallel the music, based on the 1971 Environmental Protection Agency’s Project Documerica photographs, which capture America’s sometimes fabled, sometimes fraught relationship to its land. The imagery of Project Documerica is the inspiration for ETHEL’s Documerica, which taps the archive’s rich evocation of time and place and brings its visual and emotional impact into dialogue with the 21st century.

Tickets are available by phone at 7-2073, online, in person at the Central Ticketing Office in the Student Development Complex or at the Rozsa Box Office the evening of the performance. Visit here for more information.

From Tech Today, by the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts.

Chamber Singers Perform at ACDA-MI Conference

Published October 28, 2015

By College of Engineering

conScience: Michigan Tech Chamber Singers performed at the American Choral Directors Association Conference in Flint last Saturday, October 24, 2015. The ensemble was selected to perform by blind audition. ACDA-MI is the professional organization for choral conductors from Michigan. The choir presented a program entitled “Reflections on the Mass” that consisted of music fitting the spirit of each of the movements of the Mass Ordinary. The choir performed music of Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, Josef Rheinberger, Ronald Staheli, Dale Trumbore and Roland Pitt.

From Tech Today, by VPA.

Little-Big Landscapes Exhibit

Published October 27, 2015

By College of Engineering

The Little-Big Landscapes exhibit is a collaboration between artist Danielle Clouse, Visual Arts 2D Design students, and their instructor, Lisa Johnson.

The exhibit can be found through most of February 2015 on the second floor of Rekhi Hall at Michigan Tech, between the internal rotunda and the Department of Computer Science.

For more information about this and other campus arts projects, contact Lisa Johnson, lijohnso@mtu.edu.

Backstage Jazz this Friday and Saturday

Published October 27, 2015

By College of Engineering

“Backstage at the Rozsa” opens its doors to the groovin’ sounds of big band jazz this weekend. The Rozsa stage becomes a pop-up jazz club, and the intimate club atmosphere is a perfect setting for Michigan Tech’s Research and Development Big Band and the Jazz Lab Band to loosen the reins on creativity and capture the flow of jazz.

Join Jazz Studies Program Director Mike Irish and the Michigan Tech jazz ensembles for Jazz Showcase: “Backstage at the Rozsa” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, October 30, and Saturday, October 31, in the Rozsa Center. Visit online for more information or tickets.

From Tech Today, by Rozsa Center.

Backstage Jazz Returns to Rozsa Oct. 30, 31

According to Irish, “Jazz was born in the tonks and joints of Storyville in New Orleans and has always found a home in the small but lively entertainment venues throughout the world: the ‘speakeasies’ of Chicago, the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan, Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem, Birdland in New York, Ronnie Scott’s in London, the Town Tavern in Toronto, the A – Trane in Berlin, the Shaft in Istanbul, the Blue Note and Vanguard in New York — and the Orpheum in Hancock, Michigan. Jazz is now enjoyed and practiced all over the world and is one of America’s greatest cultural exports. So sit back, and immerse yourself in the music! In the words of jazz legend Art Blakey, ‘Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life.'”

Lisa Johnson at Imagining America

Published October 23, 2015

By College of Engineering

Lisa Johnson (VPA), participated in the public engagement conference, “Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life,” Sept 30 to Oct 3, 2015, in Baltimore. Johnson and other participants worked to re-envision assessment practices, develop new methods for publicly-engaged scholarship, work towards diversity and equity and to connect universities and their communities in mutually beneficial relationships. For more information on Imagining America visit their website.

From Tech Today.

The 2015 National Conference, entitled America Will Be! The Art and Power of “Weaving Our We,” was hosted by University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

The members of Imagining America advance a vision of the world in which publicly engaged artists, designers, scholars, and culture workers play critical roles in enacting the promise and ideals of a democratic society.

t.b.d. Works in Progress, Rozsa Gallery

Published October 21, 2015

By College of Engineering

“t.b.d.,” a mid-semester showcase of student work-in-progress by visual arts students, will host public receptions 5-7 p.m. Thursday, October 22, 2015, and 2-4:30 p.m. Saturday, October 24, 2015. See the arts process, talk with students about their work and ideas, enjoy the new Rozsa “gallery b.”

This event is part of “Project Learning Lab,” an innovative, alternative arts classroom developed by Visual Arts faculty for 2015-16.

From Tech Today, by Visual and Performing Arts.

To Be Determined…

Michigan Tech students in Lisa Johnson’s sculpture class walk visitors through their unfinished works at the student exhibition “t.b.d.” Sunday.

Aquila’s “Romeo and Juliet” Thursday

Published October 20, 2015

By College of Engineering

Aquila Theatre is returning to Michigan Tech with the world’s greatest love story, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

The story is so well known—star-crossed lovers who are doomed from the start—so why is this production special? This minimal adaptation is a joy of the senses: simple, pared-down and shadowy, Aquila’s “Romeo and Juliet,” directed and adapted by Desiree Sanchez, is a completely new way to experience one of the Bard’s most iconic plays. Shakespeare’s eight-plus actors are cut down to five, the original seventeen roles reduced to eight. The story is condensed, focused and chiseled away at until it stands out in uncluttered relief.

Experience the beauty of Aquila Theatre’s new production of “Romeo and Juliet,” at 8 p.m. Thursday, October 22, 2015, at the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts. There will be a pre-performance discussion with Aquila Theatre tour members at 7 p.m. in the Rozsa lobby. Tickets for Romeo and Juliet are on sale now, $24 for adults, $10 for youth and no charge for Michigan Tech students with a student ID via the Experience Tech fee.

Click here for more information or to order tickets.

From Tech Today, by the Rozsa Center.

Aquila Theatre to present “Romeo and Juliet” Oct. 22 at Rozsa

According to a recent review by Sam Hall, of DC Metro Theater Arts, “This is a very real and very serious production, full of shadows and chiaroscuro light. Romeo and Juliet step onstage as more than horny teenagers or conventionally doomed lovers. They are two young persons come together burning ardently within the flame of life, snuffed out in heedless misunderstanding…. We have here a remarkable fusion of design, text, and performance; of consciousness, scenery, sound, light, space, meaning, and movement. This is Romeo and Juliet as high tragedy, a balletic dream sculpted in moonstone ghost; a lighted candle melting in wax from mise-en-scène to mise-en-scène; a grandeur of poetry and high art. It is beautiful and disturbing. Deeply moving, without a trace of sentimentality.”