Lost Boys: Amos Badertscher’s Baltimore is the first career retrospective of artist Amos Badertscher in the United States. Between the 1960s and 2005, Badertscher documented hustlers, club kids, go-go dancers, drag queens, drug addicts, friends, and lovers who were part of LGBTQ+ life in Baltimore.
The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture presents States of Becoming, an exhibition curated by Fitsum Shebeshe and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI). States of Becoming examines the dynamic forces of relocation, resettling, and assimilation that shape the artistic practices of a group of 17 contemporary African artists who have lived and worked in the United States within the last three decades, and informs the discourse on identity construction within the African Diaspora.
Spark 6: Refractions features the work of UMBC and Towson faculty, recent graduates, and current students in the historic galleries of The Peale in Baltimore City, sponsored by PNC. Refraction is the change in direction of a wave as it passes from one transparent substance into another — a phenomenon most commonly observed when light waves pass through lenses, magnifying glasses, and prisms. Each of the artists in this exhibition serves as an apparatus of refraction: focusing, magnifying, or redirecting our attention and experience of our world.
UMBC Theatre presents Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really by Kate Hamill, directed by Kathryn Chase Bryer. In this new adaptation of Dracula, the playwright-actor confronts the sexism in Bram Stoker’s original work, turning it into a feminist revenge fantasy.
A special addition to the SPARK 6: Refractions exhibition — Wavefront — features the work of Towson University and UMBC students and alumni Allanis Silva, Audrey Le Ballentine, Audrey Mba, Ayanna Phillips, Gabrielle Moore, Kellan Marriot, Kristen Landsman, Michael Elias Rubinstein, Susie Park, and more artists to be announced.
Using Congolese philosopher V.Y Mudimbe’s concept of the invention of Africa as a point of departure, Moses E. Ochonu explores the ways in which African Americans, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, invented, and reinvented ideas, semiotics, and tropes of Africa to respond to evolving circumstances, challenges, and aspirations in America and beyond.
The long months between the Munich Crisis of fall 1938 and the spring 1940 end of the eight-month period at the start of World War Two, in which there were few armed engagements, has been called the Phoney War. The battlefields were psychological and imagined as much as they were physical and material. This talk will consider a variety of sources that reveal visceral experience and allow us to explore the internal and internalized history of the War.
Part storytelling, part lecture, and part live documentary film, Sarah Kanouse’s solo performance My Electric Genealogy explores the shifting cultures and politics of energy in Los Angeles through the lens of her own family.
As part of the exhibition SPARK 6: Refractions, artist Phil Davis curates Projections at The Peale, an illumination of The Peale’s second-floor galleries with video projections viewed from outside.
Experience a thrilling musical journey with Jean Rondeau, the French harpsichord virtuoso and early-music superstar who has redefined the art of his instrument and captivated audiences worldwide, in this concert presented by the Candlelight Concert Society. The artist's program will feature works by Fux, Haydn, Clementi, Beethoven, and Mozart.
The Bergamot Quartet is fueled by a passion for exploring and advocating for the music of living composers, continually expanding the limits of the string quartet’s rich tradition in western classical music. Their concert will feature compositions by Nicky Sohn, Caroline Shaw, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Ledah Finck, in addition to six premieres of works by UMBC student composers Pam Voulalas-Depireux, Aaron Statham, Sarah Yuran, Nicholas Merdon, Jack McGrath, and Valarous Lingham.
In this illustrated presentation, Shannon Taggart will share stories and pictures from twenty years of photographing mediumship, explaining how two decades of investigation developed into the award-winning book Séance. This is the fifth in a series of six lectures, Beyond the Veil: Making Sense of the Spirit World.
Percussionist Dustin Donahue, a new member of the UMBC music faculty, presents a concert featuring the premiere of a new work by Yiheng Yvonne Wu, and music by Kaija Saariaho, Thomas Meadowcroft, and Netty Simons.
As part of the exhibition SPARK 6: Refractions, artist Phil Davis curates Projections at The Peale, an illumination of The Peale’s second-floor galleries with video projections viewed from outside.
From sea water rise to marine life to the Flint Water Crisis, the Wind Ensemble presents a program titled “Water & Life.” The Wind Ensemble will share learning from their experiences during the semester with the National Aquarium and its staff about their arts-based work that aims to address their goals of combating climate change, stopping plastic pollution and saving wildlife and habitats.
