Constantly astounded by the talent of my fellow classmates. Subscribe to their YouTube Channel?
What did you just watch? It’s a video projection — one of several — from Cameron Burger ’20 and Alvaro Chavez 21‘s one-act play, The Artists, which premiered at Wesco cafe on December 5. This comic meisterwerk, the tale of two eccentric, New York-based artists/lovers, ran for only two nights, and criminally, no one has reviewed it. So I thought I’d give it a try (see after the break).
This past weekend, from November 21-23, 2019, the musical In The Heights returned to campus after a 20 year hiatus. The show, originally written by Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, featured an entirely POC cast, and was directed by Milton Espinoza Jr. ’22. Demand for the show was incredibly high, and each of the Eventbrite ticket sales (twice a day, once at 12:15p and one at 5:00p) sold out in under 15 seconds. The following is a guest post written by Ricardo Vega ’21 on the events that went down this past weekend.
This post is an updated version of Sam’s update of his 2016 article, because “heterenormativity is [still] killing this country.”
Taken from the 2017 Showtunes Sideways performance. Showtunes Sideways is a musical cabaret that opens up a space for those to perform roles in songs from musicals which they wouldn’t traditionally be cast in. PC Maia Nelles Sager ’17
This is part of our 2018 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.
Hello, sweet sweet children! This post is here for all of my children of the rainbow to get a sense of what it is like to be a Queer identifying person on campus. This is a revamped version of the post I wrote last year (which you can find ~here~). Now that I’ve gotten a bit more experience under my belt at Wes (I’m going to be a Junior. Ik. I’m so old), I thought it was fair to update my general feeling on The Community™ at Wes. On top of my general experiences, this post will also contain some resources that are here for all LGBTQIA+ bbys.
Gabriela De Golia ’13 writes in:
First Church of Christ in Middletown will present a riveting performance of Julius Lester’s Day of Tears, a novel centered on the largest slave auction in American history told from the perspective of the husbands, wives, and lovers on the auction block. Witness their stories as they desperately cling to one last hope of staying together.
Written and directed by Laurie Maria Cabral and produced by Tom Raines, this performance is offered with the permission of Julius Lester and his family. It will take place at First Church of Christ, located at 190 Court Street in Middletown, CT, on Saturday, May 18th at 7:00 PM. Doors open at 6:30 PM.
First Church of Christ, a pro-racial justice and Open & Affirming congregational church in the United Church of Christ, is proud to bring Day of Tears into its space for the first time and raise awareness about an important event in American history. Through a conversation with the actors, director, and producer after the performance, audience members will learn more about how racism continues to manifest in the present-day and how individuals and communities can address systemic oppression.
“We at First Church are committed to healing the wounds of racial injustice and furthering social equity. Offering this play to the community free of charge is one of the many ways we are living into those commitments,” shared Gabriela De Golia ’13, a Deacon at First Church of Christ.
This performance is a free community event, open to all. Please be advised that strong language and allusions to violence are present in the production and may not be suitable for certain audiences, including young children.
Date: Saturday, May 18
Time: 7:00 PM
Place: First Church of Christ, 190 Court Street, Middletown, CT
A lot of this is recycled text (thx wilk) from recycled text from two years ago (thx Maya) from recycled text from three years ago (thx Samira), but here are some tips and guidelines for submitting your events!
HEY WESLEYAN COMMUNITY!
Did you know that we post events? Wondering if you should submit your event? Well, you should! Wesleying gets anywhere from 500 to 1,200 views per day as of late. Submitting your event to be posted here is good for ~exposure~ and also a way to reach different audiences than those reached by Facebook’s weird algorithm.
We love posting your events, but we get a lot of them. If you want your meeting/audition/application deadline/concert/thing posted to Wesleying on time, please use this form here. This time of the year is especially busy which makes our inbox quickly burst at the seams, so it helps if you submit your event at least 4 or 5 days in advance.
Much of this is elaborated from our event submissions policy, but here are some things you can do to make life easier:
From the the Center for the Humanities, the Center for the Arts, and the Indigenous Studies Research Network (ISRN):
Join us by the fire for a gathering hosted by Emily Johnson/Catalyst that centers around Indigenous protocols and knowledges, as we welcome the evening with our campus community and neighbors. Come sit and gaze at the stars, and share stories, conversation and food (bring food to share if you wish—hot apple cider will be provided). Kinstillatory Mappings in Light and Dark Matter is a community gathering. It is a way of being and a way of making. It is research and process as ceremony. It is dance. Come join us.
Rain Location: Beckham Hall (no fire)
Kinstillatory Mappings is co-hosted by the Center for the Humanities, the Center for the Arts, and the Indigenous Studies Research Network (ISRN). It was created with funding from The MAP Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Emily Johnson is an artist who makes body-based work. A Bessie Award winning choreographer, Guggenheim Fellow, and recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award she is based in New York City. Originally from Alaska, she is of Yup’ik descent and since 1998 has created work that considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance. Her dances function as installations, engaging audiences within and through a space and environment—interacting with a place’s architecture, history, and role in community. Emily is trying to make a world where performance is part of life; where performance is an integral connection to each other, our environment, our stories, our past, present, and future. Emily’s written work has been published and commissioned by Dance Research Journal(University of Cambridge Press); SFMOMA; Transmotion Journal,University of Kent; Movement Research Journal; Pew Center for Arts and Heritage; and the recent compilation Imagine d Theaters (Routledge), edited by Daniel Sack.
Her choreography is presented across the United States and Australia and most recently at Santa Fe Opera with Doctor Atomic, directed by Peter Sellars. Emily is a lead collaborator in the Indigenous-artist led Healing Place Collaborative (Minneapolis, MN), focused on the vital role of the Mississippi River in the life of residents along its path; she was an inaugural participant in the Headlands Center for the Arts’ Climate Change Residency, a member of Creative Change at Sundance, and served as a water protector at Oceti Sakowin Camp at Standing Rock. As a facilitator she has worked with artists and communities most notably during TIME PLACE SPACE, NOMAD in Wotjobaluk Country, Australia and during UMYUANGVIGKAQ with PS122 on Manhahtaan in Lenapehoking, a durational Long Table/Sewing Bee focused on indigenizing the performing arts and the world at large.
Her most recent work, Then a Cunning Voice and A Night We Spend Gazing at Stars—an all night outdoor performance gathering taking place on and near eighty-four community-hand-made quilts—premiered in Lenapehoking (NYC) with PS122 on Randall’s Island in summer 2017 and will tour to Chicago, San Francisco, and Narrm (Melbourne), Australia. Currently, she hosts monthly bonfires on the Lower East Side in Mannahatta in partnership with Abrons Art Center and is, with colleagues in Australia and Canada, developing a Global First Nations Performance Network.
Date: Tuesday, October 9
Time: 6:30-8:30 PM
Place: CFA Courtyard (Rain Location: Beckham Hall)
Facebook Event
The CFA Costume Shop writes in about one of the most highly-anticipated events of the year:
Come one come all to the COSTUME SHOP SALE. Do you want some cool new items to add to your everyday look? Are you looking for some awesome pieces for your Halloween costume? Are you not ready for the CT winter and need to stock up on warm clothes? Are you not sure what you want but love a good deal? WELL DO WE HAVE A SALE FOR YOU!!! The costume shop is hosting its annual sale. We will have everything from sweaters to pants to medieval garb. All purchases can be made using venmo or cash.
Date: Wednesday, October 17-Friday, October 19
Time: 12:00 PM-4:00 PM
Place: The CFA Courtyard (rain location will be in the CFA Theater lobby)
This is the annual student activities fair, where you can schmooze or, more likely, be schmoozed to your heart’s content.
This is part of our 2018 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.
By the time classes start (aka today, happy first day of classes!), you’ll likely be successfully moved into your dorm, blissfully free from your parents, and finally finding the time to figure your shit out. Soon, you’ll realize that you have a little too much time on your hands — and you might want to fill that time with Organized Social Activities.
Thankfully for you, there are about 300 student groups at Wesleyan, so you have many, many options. Joining student groups is one of the best way to meet people outside of your dorm and in different class years. You could find best friends! Mentors! Something new about yourself! It’s all up to you.
As your Orientation Leaders, advisers, and basically everyone else including me will tell you — stick to the Rule of Seven. Each class you take, group you join, job you have, and any other thing you might do counts as one commitment, and you should try to have only seven full-time commitments per semester. With a standard four-course load, that leaves three spots for you to fill with whatever the hell else you want. That’s what this post is for.
This is an update of wilk‘s update of Maya‘s update of their post from 2015. Q wrote about this in 2013 and 2014. Some things have changed, but the scene here is still ‘unique, zealous, and sweaty.’
Delilah Seligman ’16, Chris Sailor ’16, Daniel Pope ’16, and Harim Jung ’16 performing at Middle House as Evil Deceiver, 5/4/2016
This is part of our 2018 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.
The more I talk to college kids at other schools, the more I realize how much the music scene at Wesleyan sets itself apart. Though we have them, we are not confined to house parties and bars — there’s music nearly every day, all week. Often, there’s so much music that you can’t possibly go to it all, but you try anyway.
Once things get going, there are 3-5 concerts every weekend, sometimes even multiple shows a night. I’ve seen more bands than I have the energy to count with more variety than I can quantify simply by wandering around at Wesleyan on a given weekend. The folks who book shows at Wesleyan work very hard to bring in all kinds of groups, well-known or just emerging, from punk to dance, and usually put one or two solid student bands on the list.
Many student bands have gone on to greater things, like Overcoats, Heems (Himanshu Suri ’07) of Das Racist (Suri and Victor Vasquez ’06), Novelty Daughter, Amanda Palmer ’98, the Rooks, Henry Hall ’14 of Grand Cousin (RIP), AND MORE.
Seriously. It’s very special. What’s even better is that 95% of this stuff is totally free.
2017 update: “In the past year, there have been a few new regulations placed on the student-run concert scene by ResLife and others. The process by which these regulations were implemented has led a number of student musicians into action and frustration. There are still a large number of students who are committed to the music scene on campus and its survival, but I think it’s important that we tell some of the stories that have really made an impact on the music scene.”
If you have questions like “How do I find out what’s going on?” or “How do I find people to play music with?” or “Where can I go to concerts?”, this is the post for you.
Image from AuralWes venue page on the WestCo cafe. Showtunes Sideways went up in the cafe during the weekend of April 28
The following is a write-in from Kai Magee ’18. Kai reached out to us after his concept for a Showtunes Sideways performance was rejected. We decided to publish his statement (modified from an open letter to the Showtunes Sideways coordinators) in order to give a voice to someone on campus who felt like they weren’t being heard, and to hopefully address issues of trans representation and inclusion in our community.
The following views are the writer’s own.
