Collaborations make for unique presentations

The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford’s arts performances during the 2023-2024 academic year will range from classic to innovative genres such as a multimedia performance, hybrid folk music duo and virtual reality art exhibition.

The year begins in familiar territory with Pitt-Bradford: The Early Years, a photographic exhibition of the university’s early years in honor of its 60th anniversary year. The exhibition is a collaborative campus event featuring pictures and artifacts from past faculty, staff, alumni and friends will be on display in the KOA Art Gallery in Blaisdell Hall from Sept. 5 through Oct. 6. The gallery, found in Blaisdell Hall, is open from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday.

An opening reception for Pitt-Bradford: The Early Years will be held at 2 p.m. Sept. 23 as part of Alumni and Family Weekend activities on campus. All gallery events are open to the public and free of charge.

On Sept. 13, Step Afrika! blends percussive dance styles practiced in by historically Black Greek letter organizations, traditional African dances and an array of contemporary dance and art forms into a cohesive, compelling artistic experience.

The performance will integrate songs, storytelling, humor and audience participation. The show will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Bromeley Family Theater in Blaisdell Hall. Tickets are $20 for the public and $5 for non-Pitt-Bradford students.

During Alumni and Family Weekend, Pitt-Bradford Arts has collaborated with the Marilyn Horne Museum and Exhibit Center to present Young Original, a family-friendly concert by a five-piece acoustic band with a passion for breathing new life into classic American music. Young Original’s unique sound features a striking combination of instrumental knowledge and stunning vocal harmonies. The concert is free for Pitt-Bradford students and $10 for all others.

Writer Erin Keane, author of “Runaway: Notes on the Myths That Made Me,” one of NPR’s best books of 2022, will give a reading on Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m. in the Mukaiyama University Room in the Frame-Westerberg Commons. The reading is free.

Keane is the author of three collections of poems and is also an award-winning journalist and chief content officer for Salon.com. She teaches at Spalding University in Kentucky and is a recipient of the Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council and fellowships from the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.

Influential guitarist Kaki King has taken her multimedia performance to the Kennedy Center, Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At 7 p.m. Oct. 12, she will perform her signature multimedia show in the Studio Theater of Blaisdell Hall using projection mapping to present the guitar as a tool that can shape both music and video content. Rolling Stone magazine has hailed King as “a genre unto herself.” Tickets for the event are $20 for the public and $5 for all students.

Later in October, Ravi Padmanabha and David Mussen blend cultures in a free Noon Tunes performance at noon Oct. 24 in the Studio Theater. These multi-instrumentalists combine gongs, crystal bowls, various hand drums and clarinet to present a unique musical journey.

Students and faculty in the art and computer information systems and technology program will bridge the gap between art and technology in Explore 360: Virtual Reality Art Exhibition from Oct. 31

through Dec. 1 in the KOA Art Gallery. An opening reception for the free exhibition will be held at noon Oct. 31.

This collaborative project will combine visual art, narrative, spatial concepts and shared user experiences in immersive environments.

Writer Lynell Edwards will give a free talk at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 2 in the Mukaiyama University Room. Edwards is author of three full-length poetry collections, “Covet,” “The Highwayman’s Wife” and “The Farmer’s Daughter.”

The one-woman show “All Things Equal: The Life & Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” will play at 7 p.m. Nov. 29 in the Bromeley Family Theater. Tickets are $20 for the public and $5 for all students.

In “All Things Equal,” Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- “RBG” -- welcomes a friend of the family to her cozy chambers to convey, over the course of 90 fascinating and often funny minutes, a sense of her life and its many trials: losing her mother the day before she graduated as valedictorian of her Brooklyn high school, being one of only nine young women studying law at Harvard while also raising a daughter and helping her husband battle cancer, fighting for women's rights in the 1970s before condescending all-male courts, and taking courageous stands for human rights as a voice of reason amid a splintering and increasingly politicized Supreme Court.

Pitt-Bradford Arts will celebrate the season with a free Vocal Arts Ensemble Holiday Concert at noon Nov. 30 in the Harriett B. Wick Chapel.

The following week, the chapel will also host the annual free Advent & Christmas Organ Recital at noon Dec. 8 on the Sarah B. Dorn Organ built by Schantz Organ Co. in Orrville, Ohio.

In January, the spring semester begins with the free Baily’s Beads Annual Literary Magazine Celebration at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 24 in the University Room.

The spring art exhibition will feature artist Fileve Tlaloc, whose work speaks to the emotional and physical condition of human struggles between power and peace, injustice and freedom and the intersections of race, geography and gender.

The free exhibition will take place in the KOA Art Gallery from Feb. 22 through March 22 with an opening reception at noon Feb. 22.

At 7 p.m. Feb. 27, Jeff Boyer’s Big Bubble Bonanza will chase away the winter blues for kids of all ages in the Bromeley Family Theater. Jeff Boyer will take bubbles to the max with big bubble flair. Mixing comedy, music and interactive bubble magic, Boyer creates a sensory-friendly bubble extravaganza for the whole family. Tickets are $10.

At noon Feb. 29 in the Studio Theater, Zhongbei “Daisy” Wu will bring a unique performance of modern Western music on the Chinese zither, an ancient instrument. Wu will also lecture throughout about the history of the instrument and more in this educational presentation. She has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and United Nations Headquarters, among other venues. The recital is free.

The vocal ensemble Musica Spei (Music of Hope) will bring choral masterworks of the Medieval and Renaissance periods to Harriett B. Wick Chapel in a concert at 3 p.m. March 16. Tickets are $15 for the public and $5 for all students. Whether it’s a sacred Mass, Gregorian chant, a motet featuring a single verse of ancient scripture, a lovelorn French chanson or a medieval mystery play, Musica Spei restores life to timeless music.

The final visiting writer of the academic year will be Damian Dressick, author of the novel “40 Patchtown” and the award-winning flash collection “Fables of the Deconstruction.” He will speak at 7:30

p.m. March 19 in the Mukaiyama University Room of the Frame-Westerberg Commons. The event is free.

Dessick’s writing has appeared in more than 70 literary journals and anthologies, including W.W. Norton’s “New Micro.” He co-hosts WANA: LIVE!, a mostly virtual reading series that brings some of the best Appalachian writers to the world. He also serves as editor-in-chief of the journal Appalachian Lit.

The student Vocal Arts Ensemble returns to Harriett B. Wick Chapel at noon April 2 for a free concert.

Theater students will perform an original piece created during the Spring 2024 semester from April 4 through 7, place to be announced.

Finally, senior interdisciplinary arts majors will display, perform and read their works at the Celebration of the Arts from April 12 through April 28 in Blaisdell Hall. An opening reception will be held at 2 p.m. April 24 and is free and open to the public.

For more information on Pitt-Bradford Arts, visit upb.pitt.edu/Arts, where tickets for events can also be bought.

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