artspeaks 2010–2011 Season

2010–2011 Season Announced

Now in its seventh season, The University of Chicago's Artspeaks series welcomes author Dame A.S. Byatt on October 15, 2010; composer/trombonist George Lewis on November 12, 2010; director/choreographer Mark Morris on February 22, 2011; and a double-bill featuring writer/producer David Henry Hwang and producer/artistic director Oskar Eustis on May 16, 2011.

The Artspeaks series engages internationally renowned artists from varying disciplines in creative conversations with the campus and community—giving voice to vision. Combining public presentations and workshops for students and faculty, Artspeaks residencies offer a rare encounter with eminent talent in an intimate setting. Previous seasons have included visits by photographers, painters, musicians, authors and filmmakers, including Uri Caine, Atom Egoyan, Leon Fleisher, Bill T. Jones, Peter Sellars, Anna Deavere Smith, Kara Walker, and John Zorn.

Dame A.S. Byatt
October 15, 2010, 7:30 pm

Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th Street

"A.S. Byatt is a storyteller who could keep a sultan on the edge of his throne for a thousand and one nights." —The New York Times Book Review

Booker Prize winner Dame A.S. Byatt presents "Soul, Body, and Psyche" a lecture about the changing forms of construction of 'characters' in fiction — how characters are made up and how they relate to the beliefs of the world they find themselves in. The lecture is followed by a moderated conversation with Maud Ellmann, the Randy L. and Melvin R. Berlin Professor in the Development of the Novel in English.

Already a formidable literary figure in England, Byatt achieved best-seller status in the United States in 1990 with her Booker Prize-winning novel, Possession: A Romance, a story about a clandestine love affair between two Victorian writers and the two modern-day academics who unearth their secret. In 2008, The Times (UK) named her among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945." In 1999 she was made a Dame of the British Empire, an honor that recognized her work as a writer and her contributions to the United Kingdom. In addition to having her work translated into 28 languages, Byatt is a distinguished critic and regular contributor to many British and American newspapers, including The New Yorker.

George E. Lewis
November 12, 2010, 7:30 pm

Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th Street

Photo by Ian Cummings

"In addition to being a composer-trombonist of exceptional ability, technique, style, and inspiration, Lewis has become an artist whose paintbrush is software, but whose medium is a relatively unfamiliar one, that of computer-human interaction in improvisation." — David L. Wessel, Director, Center for New Music and Audio Technology (CNMAT), University of California at Berkeley

Composer, trombonist, and Columbia University scholar George Lewis returns home to Chicago for an evening of music and conversation that explores the relationship between humans and machines, musicians and their instruments, improvisation, social responsibility, and agency with the AACM's Great Black Music Ensemble, premier European free jazz pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach and Arnold I. Davidson, the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago.

Lewis's work merges experimental electronic music and interactive computer programs — most notably his software called 'Voyager', which "listens to" and reacts to live performers. The Chicago native and Yale philosophy graduate is the recipient of a 2002 MacArthur Fellowship, an Alpert Award in the Arts (1999), and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. His oral history is archived in Yale University's collection of "Major Figures in American Music," and his published articles on music, experimental video, visual art, and cultural studies have appeared in numerous scholarly journals and edited volumes. Lewis has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971 and is a professor at Columbia University.

More information.

Mark Morris
February 22, 2011, 7:30 pm

Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th Street

"Mark Morris is a dancemaker and a spellbinder. That is enough to make him transparently a symbol of his times." —Arlene Croce, The New Yorker

Director/choreographer Mark Morris engages in conversation with Princeton musicologist Simon Morrison about "Modernism in Music and Dance," their collaboration on Prokofiev's original 1935 version of Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare, Morris' residency with students at the University of Chicago, and the Mark Morris Dance Group's upcoming performances at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, February 25-27, 2011.

Mark Morris formed the Mark Morris Dance Group in 1980, and has since created more than 120 works for the company. Morris is noted for his musicality and has been described as "undeviating in his devotion to music." He has worked extensively in opera, directing and choreographing productions for the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, English National Opera, and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Morris was named a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation in 1991 and has received 10 honorary doctorates to date. In 2007, he received the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival lifetime achievement award.

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David Henry Hwang & Oskar Eustis
May 16, 2011, 7:30 pm

International House, 1414 E. 59th Street (Assembly Hall)

"Mr. Hwang's imagination [is] one of the most striking to emerge in the American theater in this decade" —Frank Rich, The New York Times

Writer/producer David Henry Hwang and Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater in New York, engage in a conversation about their craft, including the creative development of Hwang's upcoming production of Chinglish at the Goodman Theatre.

Throughout his career, playwright David Henry Hwang has explored the complexities of forging Eastern and Western cultures in a contemporary America. He is best known as the author of M. Butterfly, which ran for two years on Broadway, won the 1988 Tony, Drama Desk, John Gassner, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, and was also a finalist for the 1989 Pulitzer Prize. Golden Child premiered Off-Broadway at the Joseph Papp Public Theatre, received a 1997 OBIE Award for playwriting and subsequently moved to Broadway, where it received three 1998 Tony Nominations, including Best New Play. Yellow Face, which premiered at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum and New York's Public Theater, won a 2008 OBIE Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Oskar Eustis has worked as a director, dramaturg, and artistic director for theaters around the country. In 2005 he took the helm at New York's Public Theater. Throughout his career, Eustis has been dedicated to the development of new plays as both a director and a producer. He commissioned Tony Kushner's Angels in America at the Eureka Theatre Company in San Francisco and directed its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum. He was a professor of Theatre, Speech and Dance at Brown University, where he founded and chaired the Trinity Rep/Brown University Consortium for professional theater training. He currently serves as Professor of Dramatic Writing and Arts and Public Policy at New York University.

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Artspeaks Archives

Read a brief history of Artspeaks and its past seasons.

About Artspeaks

Read the Artspeaks mission statement and learn about the Artspeaks staff and committee.

Thank you to our sponsors and partners

The University of Chicago's Artspeaks series is produced by University of Chicago Presents in partnership with Smart Museum; Court Theater; the departments of Philosophy, Music, and Creative Writing at the University of Chicago; Center for Race, Politics and Culture; Center for East Asian Studies; International House; Film Studies Center; University Theater/TAPS; University Ballet of Chicago; Goodman Theatre; and Harris Theater for Music and Dance

Artspeaks is made possible through the generosity of the University of Chicago Arts Council and the Office of the President.