Author Archives: twebb1

Oliver Lipton ‘18: WHAT WE FEAR (OR, THE POLITICS OF MONSTROSITY)

The Department of Theater presents an Independent Study in Sound Design (THEA 014E) by Oliver Lipton ‘18: WHAT WE FEAR (OR, THE POLITICS OF MONSTROSITY), a radio drama.

WHAT WE FEAR (OR, THE POLITICS OF MONSTROSITY) is a modernization, satire, and spin-off of the gothic horror genre. It tells the story of a world where humans live in fear of vampires, werewolves, and a new and even greater threat that has begun to emerge. Juxtaposing dialogue, soundscapes, and original music, the radio drama follows the story of the last living vampire and the hunter tracking him down, who begins to learn there’s more to the monsters outside the walls than she ever realized.

WHAT WE FEAR is an art performance/radio/drama created by Oliver Lipton ‘18 and features Amber Sheth ‘18, David Zuckerman ‘18, Rachel Davis ‘19, and Emma Mogavero ‘20.

Release date: May 5th, 2017 

Available here for listening –

Radioplay:
https://soundcloud.com/user-637357189/what-we-fear-or-the-politics-of-monstrosity

Original Soundtrack:
https://soundcloud.com/user-637357189/sets/what-we-fear-official-soundtrack

Directing II Night of Scenes (5/1 and 5/2 at 8PM)

NOS2The Department of Theater’s Directing II Workshop is proud to present SPRING 2017 NIGHT OF SCENES with brand new devised work directed by

Simon Bloch ’17,
Wesley Han ’18,
Oliver Lipton ’18 and
John Wojciehowski ’19
May 1st at 8PM 
and
May 2nd at 8 PM

LPAC Frear Ensemble Theater

https://www.facebook.com/events/1932526966990123/

2017 Spring Dance Concert

Friday, April 28 at 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM 

Saturday, April 29 at 8PM

The Swarthmore College Dance Program presents the 2017 Spring Dance Concert. Wonderful work from our African, Ballet, Modern, Kathak and Tap repertory classes will all be included this year. Several pieces feature live music, video, and singing! Come celebrate our graduating seniors and the hard work of all our dance students and faculty. The concert, which is appropriate for all ages, is free and open to the public. This show is uplifting and joyful!

2017 Spring Dance Concert

Friday, April 28 at 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM 

Saturday, April 29 at 8PM

The Swarthmore College Dance Program presents the 2017 Spring Dance Concert. Wonderful work from our African, Ballet, Modern, Kathak and Tap repertory classes will all be included this year. Several pieces feature live music, video, and singing! Come celebrate our graduating seniors and the hard work of all our dance students and faculty. The concert, which is appropriate for all ages, is free and open to the public. This show is uplifting and joyful!

Touching: An Honors Choreography Project by Erica Janko ’17

Sunday, April 30 at 2 PM – 5 PM in LPAC Troy Dance Lab

jankotouchingpostertouching

you are encased by arms. it is soft, warm, dark.
soft hums reverberate through you. you echo,
finding skin, rotating forward.
touching, we are safe, we know. we follow by sight, touch
memory,
force.
we make sound.
we don’t know who is leading anymore.

The Department of Music and Dance presents an Honors Choreography Project choreographed and directed by Erica Janko ’17. This multimedia, experimental dance production explores embodiments of group form.

*Please note that there may be loud vocalizations from the performers during the show.

A talkback will follow each performance.

Directed and choreographed by Erica Janko ‘17
Set and media design by Yoshifumi Nomura ‘17
Lighting design by Clarissa Phillips ‘19
Costume design by Rebecca Rosenthal ‘20
Video design by Chiara Kruger ‘17

Touching: An Honors Choreography Project by Erica Janko ’17

Sunday, April 30 at 2 PM – 5 PM in LPAC Troy Dance Lab

jankotouchingpostertouching

you are encased by arms. it is soft, warm, dark.
soft hums reverberate through you. you echo,
finding skin, rotating forward.
touching, we are safe, we know. we follow by sight, touch
memory,
force.
we make sound.
we don’t know who is leading anymore.

The Department of Music and Dance presents an Honors Choreography Project choreographed and directed by Erica Janko ’17. This multimedia, experimental dance production explores embodiments of group form.

*Please note that there may be loud vocalizations from the performers during the show.

A talkback will follow each performance.

Directed and choreographed by Erica Janko ‘17
Set and media design by Yoshifumi Nomura ‘17
Lighting design by Clarissa Phillips ‘19
Costume design by Rebecca Rosenthal ‘20
Video design by Chiara Kruger ‘17

Guest Lecture: Amanda Weidman, Cultural Anthropologist.

Monday, April 17 at 2:30 PM – 4 PM

Location: SCI 104

Amanda Weidman is a cultural anthropologist whose work in Tamil-speaking South India has centered on gender, technological mediation, music, sound, and performance. She is the author of a book on the social history of Karnatic (South Indian) classical music, Singing the Classical, Voicing the Modern: The Postcolonial Politics of Music in South India (Duke Univ. Press, 2006). Her current research project is on playback singing in the South Indian Tamil-language film industry. She is also a Karnatic violinist.

Playback singing in Indian popular cinema is more than simply a technical process of substituting one voice for another; rather, it is a culturally and historically specific phenomenon that has generated novel forms of vocal sound and performance practice, celebrity and publicity, and affective attachment to voices. I situate these forms within the cultural and political context of South India from the post-Independence period to the post-Liberalization present. I examine the discourses and practices that were generated when playback singing first emerged and became standard practice in the 1940s-50s, the aesthetics that became normalized in the 1960s as certain voices began to dominate, and the ways the status and vocal sound of playback singers have changed since the liberalizing reforms of the 1990s.

Free and open to the Swarthmore community.

Amanda Weidman 2 rescheduled

Guest Lecture: Amanda Weidman, Cultural Anthropologist.

Monday, April 17 at 2:30 PM – 4 PM

Location: SCI 104

Amanda Weidman is a cultural anthropologist whose work in Tamil-speaking South India has centered on gender, technological mediation, music, sound, and performance. She is the author of a book on the social history of Karnatic (South Indian) classical music, Singing the Classical, Voicing the Modern: The Postcolonial Politics of Music in South India (Duke Univ. Press, 2006). Her current research project is on playback singing in the South Indian Tamil-language film industry. She is also a Karnatic violinist.

Playback singing in Indian popular cinema is more than simply a technical process of substituting one voice for another; rather, it is a culturally and historically specific phenomenon that has generated novel forms of vocal sound and performance practice, celebrity and publicity, and affective attachment to voices. I situate these forms within the cultural and political context of South India from the post-Independence period to the post-Liberalization present. I examine the discourses and practices that were generated when playback singing first emerged and became standard practice in the 1940s-50s, the aesthetics that became normalized in the 1960s as certain voices began to dominate, and the ways the status and vocal sound of playback singers have changed since the liberalizing reforms of the 1990s.

Free and open to the Swarthmore community.

Amanda Weidman 2 rescheduled

Ali Momeni ’97: Animating Resistance

April 19, 2017 @ 5PM: Artist’s Lecture (SCI 101)
Building on Momeni’s Manual for Urban Projection, the lecture will elaborate Momeni’s methodologies including a projection system that enables rapid animation based on still images and drawings as well as a gestural interface for virtual puppeteering of projected animations in real-time.

April 21, 2017 @ 8PM: Outdoor Performance (Lawn at Pearson Hall. Rain location will be LPAC Lobby.)
Momeni and the workshop participants will collaboratively create and perform a live cinema/projection performance that consists of animations depicting and annotating the contents of this database in playful and performative ways. These animations will depict the characters, setting and methods of specific actions from the Global Nonviolent Action Database like an animated graphic novel.

The live cinema performance will consist of several “drawing stations” where performers can draw on transparency with markers on a back-lit surface. A digital camera pointed at the surface then captures the images and brings it into custom video-projection software developed by the artists to create and layer video loops. As new drawings are captured and animated, a visual narrative around each action accumulates.

AliPoster

The Cambrians presents Clover

The Cambrians presents CLOVER sponsored by The Department of Music and Dance and the William J. Cooper Foundation at Swarthmore College.Cambrians

The Cambrians is an intimate contemporary dance and storytelling venture created in collaboration by Benjamin Wardell, Michel Rodriquez Cintra and Melinda Jean Myers. The Cambrians [KAYM-bree-uns] is a global dance production network, based out of Chicago, that treats its dance performers as the primary drivers of choreographic quality and innovation.

PERFORMANCE
Friday, March 17, 2017
8:00PM
LPAC Pearson-Hall Theater (Main Stage).

COMPANY MASTER CLASSES
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
11:30AM and 4:30PM
LPAC Boyer Dance Studio
And,
Thursday, March 16, 2017
11:20AM
LPAC Boyer Dance Studio