Annual M.F.A. Open Studios are back 

Thursday, March 13, 4:30-6:30 p.m., at TB9 and the Art Grad Building

The winter quarter M.F.A. Open Studios will return this Thursday where graduate students open their studios to the public. Stop by to see new art work and meet the local art community.

Tekla Babyak holds music forum on ‘Neuroqueer Listening’

Thursday, March 13, 4:10-6 p.m., Room 266 in Everson Hall

"Neuroqueer Listening: My Erotic Experience of Music as a Disabled Woman"

Tekla Babyak holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from Cornell University. Based in Davis, she is an independent scholar and disability activist with multiple sclerosis (MS). Her research focuses on analysis and aesthetics in European musical Romanticism. Recent publications have appeared in the journal 19th-Century Music and in Joseph Joachim: Identities/Identitäten as part of the Georg Olms Verlag series in musicology.

Ongoing Exhibitions on Campus

Read about ongoing art and design exhibitions in this Arts Blog story.

Above art, Coyote dancer with flute #III, 1983, Acrylic wash/paper. (Courtesy/Gorman Museum of Native American Art).

UC Davis professor’s film premieres at SXSW this March

Julie Wyman, associate professor of cinema and digital media at UC Davis, noticed from a young age that her proportions seemed different from her peers. Growing up, she was often teased and repeatedly told that her body wasn’t suited for some of her dreams for the future.

Wyman, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, had been curious about Little People of America, or LPA, and the dwarf community for a long time and wondered whether there was a place for her there. Her journey is told alongside little people activists and artists in her latest film, The Tallest Dwarf, which premiered at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas on March 10. 

Wyman’s mission as a filmmaker has been to make space for people like her, showing the beauty and power of those whose bodies are different. After 25 years of filmmaking, this is her first film about her body type.  

Read the full story here: Julie Wyman's "The Tallest Dwarf" Premieres at SXSW

UC Davis Symphony Orchestra performs Friday: 'Delicate and Contemplative'

Friday, March 14, 7-8:30 p.m., Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts 

In Claude Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun, a solo flute player in the orchestra evokes the imagery of the mythical Pan and his enchanting flute. Pan is the Greek fertility god, represented with horns, legs, and ears of a goat, and is associated with flocks and herds and music. When he wakes up from a nap he tries to remember his dream, only to fall asleep again, hoping to meet his nymph friends in his next dream.

Shostakovich wrote his Sixth Symphony in curious proportions: The first movement is a lengthy Largo (slow and yet also serious) and features a beautiful English horn solo and haunting solos on flute and piccolo that are reminiscent of the flute solo in Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun. The second movement by contrast is a short scherzo filled with delightful rhythmic tricks, and as if one scherzo wasn’t enough, Shostakovich ends the symphony with another. It’s full of bombastic string work, almost a study for his later Festive Overture.

Program

Claude Debussy: Prélude ​à “L’Après-midi d’un faune,” L. 86

Tōru Takemitsu: Requiem for String Orchestra

Dimitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, op. 54

Get tickets here: UC Davis Symphony Orchestra | Mondavi Center 

Reflect on the British-Indian Partition’s impact through dance

Friday, March 14 and Saturday, March 15, 7:30 p.m., Vanderhoef Studio Theater at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

Nava Dance Theatre and Rupy C. Tut created Broken Seeds Still Grow, a multi-disciplinary dance and visual art production to explore the continuing impact of the 1947 British-India Partition, one of the most formative events in South Asia’s recent history.

Through Bharatanatyam, the Indian classical dance form that expresses South Indian religious and spiritual themes, and mixed visual media, they examine the hyphenated-American immigrant experience, linking it to the displacement of their ancestors during Partition. This intriguing dance project sources poetry, eyewitness accounts and current events to understand the current political climate while reflecting on what it means to belong in the United States.

Read the digital program here: Broken Seeds Still Grow

Get Friday, 7:30 p.m. tickets: Nava Dance Theatre and Rupy C. Tut

Get Saturday, 7:30 p.m. tickets: Nava Dance Theatre and Rupy C. Tut

St. Patrick's Day

Celebrate St. Patrick's Day with Velocity Irish Dance

Saturday, March 15, 7:30 p.m., Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

Honoring past traditions but blasting them feet first into the 21st century, Velocity Irish Dance is an expressive, free, fast-paced, and edgy performance driven by passion and pride.

Led by five-time World Champion Irish dancer, David Geaney & Guinness World Record Holder Tyler Schwartz and joined on stage by a motley crew of mind-blowing musicians and world class dancers, it’s nothing like you’ve ever seen before!

Energetic intimate history lesson more than a sequined spectacular” — The New York Times

This event includes Uncorked for Inner Circle Members. Learn More.

Get tickets here: Velocity Irish Dance | Mondavi Center 

Listen to UC Davis alum’s Irish band at Central Park this weekend

Saturday, March 15 at Central Park, 6-9 p.m., on the South side of the park on the lawn

Paddy on the Binge, a traditional Irish Band whose members consist of UC Davis alum, will be performing at St. Pat's in the Park in Davis on March 15.

Paddy on the Binge was born from weekly Irish music sessions among friends in Davis, California. Taking their name from a tune played in those early gatherings, Paddy on the Binge brings lively tunes and authentic songs to communities across Northern California, infusing shows with infectious, energetic dance music, while keeping the warmth and intimacy of a session at your cozy local pub.

Performers:

• Emma Ware, B.S. in the Physics Department, current grad student in Atmospheric Sciences

• Obin Sturm, B.S. in Chemical Engineering

• Vince Wolfe, B.S. at UC Davis

• Skyler Blakeslee, B.S. in Community and Regional Development

• Margarent Graham, partner of UC Davis alum

Listen to a preview of their music here: Live in Woodland | Paddy on the Binge

RSVP here: St. Pat's in the Park | paddyonthebinge

Egghead campaign award

The UC Davis’ trademarks and licensing team within the Office of Strategic Communications last month was awarded the International Collegiate Licensing Association’s Synergy Award, in the subcategory of Innovation/Vision. The award was given in recognition of the Year of the Eggheads campaign, which was launched last spring. The association called 2024 the “moment in the sun” for arts at UC Davis, adding that the Eggheads campaign was “one of the biggest and most ambitious branding projects ever undertaken at UC Davis.” Read the full story here. 

Enjoy a free artist talk at Pence Gallery

Saturday, March 15, 1-2:30 p.m., 212 D Street

Talking with Ronald Peetz is much like his work — fun and full of humor. Peetz’s conceptual pieces are anything but dry, as he uses materials such as baseballs, violin cases, and funerary headstones, to underline his political and social messages. Join him as he talks about his days as an art student in the 60s, inspired by artists such as Stephen Kaltenbach, William Wiley, and others.

Ronald Peetz’s exhibit, Work in Progress, is on display at the Pence until Wednesday, April 2.

Find out more here. 

Yamato’s drum performance electrifies the Jackson Hall stage

Sunday, March 16, 2 p.m., Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

The word performance can’t fully describe the experience that is Yamato. It’s “physical music” that’s been celebrated the world over.

This Japanese Taiko drumming group looms (and booms) large, with more than 40 Taiko drums on stage representing different characters. Yamato does more than simply make their Taiko drums explode; they produce delicate music that gives the listener a palette of meticulously crafted sound. At once intense, then sad and even comforting and comical, you’re more than a bystander when you experience Yamato. You’re engulfed in the sound of the Taiko, becoming one with the performers.

Get tickets here: Yamato | Mondavi Center 

The Moo-vin Moos-eum is collecting photos of people's Memories of Davis for spring collage

Accepting submissions until Friday, March 21

ASUCD’s team of curators will be arranging submitted photos into a collage displaying Memories of Davis throughout the years, including past photos from the UC Davis Library Archives.

Submit your pictures of Memories in Davis for a chance to be part of the ASUCD Moo-vin Moo-seum's next collage installation. Responders are allowed to submit up to five photos.

Photo upload guidelines

• All photos submitted must be original.
• If other people are present in your photos, please obtain their consent before submitting their photo.
• Avoid uploading photos of inappropriate content.
• Avoid uploading copyrighted content unless you are the owner or have explicit permission to share the content.
• Avoid uploading images of underage subjects.
• AI Generated photos will not be considered.

ASUCD reserves the right to blur faces and or copyrighted content.

Photo Submission Form! [Closes 3/21]

UC Davis professor Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie has work featured on BBC

Tsinhnahjinnie's exhibit, American Photography, is at the prestigious Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam until June 9.

Native American photographer and UC Davis professor Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie uses the power of the photograph to disprove misconceptions about Indigenous populations and show a different perspective on U.S. history. Her exhibit, currently on display at the prestigious Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, was recently featured on BBC in the article An 1840 selfie to 1960s advertising: Eight images that tell the story of America. In the image below Tsinhnahjinnie captions a photograph from Monument Valley in Arizona with the powerful words "This is not a commercial, this is my homeland," demonstrating her effort to reclaim the narrative of America and its important landmarks.

Les Arts Florissants and violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte commemorate Vivaldi’s work from 1725

Friday, March 21, 7:30 p.m., Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

For their Mondavi Center debut, Baroque superstars Les Arts Florissants are joined by fast-rising violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte in “Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at 300” commemorating the work’s original publication in 1725.

The program frames these iconic masterpieces afresh, setting them alongside music Vivaldi would have known in Venice and compositions that were, in turn, inspired by his bold vision. The Ensemble — which takes its name from a short opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier — has played a pioneering role in the revival of a repertoire that had largely been forgotten and continues this tradition under the visionary leadership of their two artistic directors, William Christie and Paul Agnew.

Get tickets here.