In this week's Arts Blog, we explore visiting artists presentations Thursday night and over the weekend, but be on the lookout for all the upcoming concerts, holiday and not, as you keep reading. In this gift-giving season, there are many things to do that are free or very low-cost.

Karen Nikos-Rose, Arts Blog Editor

International Artist Hito Steyerl explores humanity in digital world in talk

Thursday, Nov. 30, 4:30-6 p.m., Manetti Shrem Museum, UC Davis campus, free

Hito Steyerl, a prolific filmmaker, writer and visual artist, will give a public talk as part of The Manetti Shrem California Studio at UC Davis on Thursday, Nov. 30. The artist’s lecture will be held at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at 4:30 p.m.

Called “art’s most powerful person, a tireless questioner of humanity in the digital age” by Philip Oltermann in The Guardian, Steyerl’s work encompasses art, philosophy and politics. Her work investigates visibility and the nature of reality in our networked, digital world through documentary and speculative film, cinematic installations, video games and performative lectures.

In 2022 and 2023, she had solo exhibitions at the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, the Kunsthaus Graz in Austria, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Steyerl studied documentary film directing in Japan and Germany and holds a doctorate in philosophy from the Academy of the Arts in Vienna. She is a professor of experimental film and video at the University of the Arts in Berlin.

This event is free and open to the public. The talk is organized by The Manetti Shrem California Studio in the Department of Art and Art History and co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum.  

Throughout the year, art studio at UC Davis presents numerous public lectures by leading contemporary artists and art professionals through the Art Studio Visiting Artist Lecture Series, the Betty Jean and Wayne Thiebaud Lecture Series, and The California Studio: Manetti Shrem Artist Residencies. For more details on these programs and upcoming events, please visit artstudio.ucdavis.edu.

The Department of Art and Art History is part of the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis.

Read about ongoing UC Davis Museum exhibitions in this story.

 

Katya Grokhovsky: Between Earth and Sky — The California Studio

Procession/Game is Saturday, Dec. 2 - 2:30 to 4 p.m., Art Building and Manetti Shrem Museum, free

Exploring the relationship of memory to body, materials, and place, as well as desire for harmony, peace, joy and humanity, “Between Earth and Sky” presents a site-specific mixed media live performance. A celebratory walking procession begins at the UC Davis Art Building and arrives at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art Plaza, where the artist and some of her students perform a ceremonial game with objects created during Grokhovsky’s time at UC Davis as Visiting Professor in The California Studio: Manetti Shrem Artist Residencies. Between Earth and Sky concludes in a staged tableau and a formation of a return procession. 

2:30 p.m. – Procession: Start Outside The UC Davis Art Building, west side of building (Mrak Hall quad side of building) 

Throughout the year, art studio at UC Davis presents numerous public lectures by leading contemporary artists and art professionals through the Art Studio Visiting Artist Lecture Series, the Betty Jean and Wayne Thiebaud Lecture Series, and The California Studio: Manetti Shrem Artist Residencies. For more details on these programs and upcoming events, please visit artstudio.ucdavis.edu.

The Department of Art and Art History is part of the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis.

3 p.m. – Performance: Manetti Shrem Museum of Art Plaza and Lobby

3:30 p.m. – Procession: Return to The Art Building at UC Davis

Performers: Katya Grokhovsky and undergraduate students Alice Herbert, Madeline Dei Rossi and Drew Babagay

The event is free and open to all.

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Holiday events

Mark O'Connor's An Appalachian Christmas

Featuring Maggie O’Connor, Saturday, Dec. 2, 7:30 p.m., Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center

Three-time Grammy-winning composer and fiddler Mark O’Connor brings an elegance and earnestness to down-home bluegrass and folk music.

His annual holiday tour draws on his celebrated 2011 album An Appalachian Christmas and features fresh arrangements of Christmas classics, both vocal and instrumental. The spirited performance captures the varied emotions of the season: playfulness, joy, contemplation, gratitude and more. O’Connor’s touring ensemble includes his wife Maggie O’Connor on fiddle and vocals as well as a variety of guest musicians on each tour. Read more and get tickets.

Alexander String Quartet returns for three concerts — beginning in December

Music as a Mirror of Our World: Chamber Music at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Dec. 3; February and May, Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center

The Alexander String Quartet and Robert Greenberg look back 100 years to the tumultuous social and political era of the early 20th century — times not unlike our own — and explore enduring works of the great music it produced. Programs will include works by Debussy, Ravel, Webern, Schoenberg, Sibelius, and Nielsen. Read more and get tickets. The quartet appears three times this season at Mondavi, but Dec. 3 is the first appearance.

France – Dec. 3, 2023
Claude Debussy: String Quartet in G Minor (1893)
Maurice Ravel: String Quartet in F (1903)

Choruses of UC Davis present  ‘An American Holiday’

Dec.  8, 7-8:30 p.m., Mondavi Center’s Jackson Hall

featuring Alturas Duo
Scott Hill, guitar
Carlos Boltes, charango and viola
Gonzalo Cortés, Andean woodwinds

With the guest ensemble Alturas, the Choruses of UC Davis and Nicolás Dosman bring the rhythms and holiday vocal traditions of the Americas to Davis. Works include “Navidad Nuestra” by Ariel Ramírez, which is an Andean-influenced folk telling of the nativity story; “Al Shlosha D’varim,” a traditional Hebrew text set by Allan Naplan for the Ithaca Children’s Choir; and “Abreme la Puerta,” a traditional holiday song from Puerto Rico, which is sung using syllables only (no words).

More information.  

A Fairytale Meets a Classic at Woodland Opera House

Peter and the Wolf / The Nutcracker “Sweet”, Woodland Opera House, 340 Second Street

Dec. 14-17, Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. & 7 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Two beautiful ballet one-acts presented in one production! Sergei Prokoviev’s Symphonic Fairy Tale for children comes to life in this winter premiere of Peter and the Wolf at the Woodland Opera House. See young Peter and his animal friends capture the hungry wolf in this charming ballet performed by dancers from the Opera House’s Education Department dance program.

After a brief intermission, families will be treated to a short and “sweet” re-telling of the traditional Christmas Ballet, The Nutcracker. Young Clara is taken on a magical journey into a land of Sweets by her favorite Christmas present, a Magic Nutcracker. Enoy The Nutcracker “Sweet” and celebrate the holiday spirit with family and friends.

Performances times: Thursday and Friday at 7:00 p.m., Saturday at 2:00 p.m. & 7:00 p.m., and Sunday at 2:00 p.m.  All seating is reserved, with ticket prices: $16 Adults, $28 and $8 Children under 17. Balcony pricing: $10 Adults and $5 Children.

Purchase tickets online at www.WoodlandOperaHouse.Org, also available at the Box Office (530) 666-9617. Located at 340 Second Street.

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Plan ahead for poetry, square dancing next week

Square dance on campus

Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023 - 2 - 4 p.m. , Della Davidson Dance Studio

Della Davidson Dance Studio presents square dancing, with special guest caller Evie Ladin. The UC Davis Bluegrass and Old Time String Band will provide an authentic opportunity for square dancing on campus.

Come one, come all — no experience is necessary. More information available.

Elana K. Arnold and Mischa Kucyzynski read at Poetry Night

UC Davis alums

Thursday, Dec. 7, Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street, Davis

Elana K. Arnold is the author of critically acclaimed and award-winning young adult novels and children’s books.

She teaches in Hamline University’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program and lives in Southern California with her family and menagerie of pets. She is an alumna of the graduate creative writing program at UC Davis. Her newest book, The Blood Years, is based on the true experiences of her grandmother's childhood in Holocaust-era Romania.

Mischa Kuczynski holds an MA in Creative Writing from UC Davis and a BFA in Photography from the University of Utah. A finalist for the 2009 Ruth Lily Poetry Fellowship, Kuczynski has published work in the American Poetry Review, Gigantic, Fence, Sinister Wisdom, and elsewhere. According to Dr. Andy Jones, “Mischa Kuczynski writes poignant, important, and unforgettable poems that stir the heart.” She lives in Davis.

This event will take place on the first floor of the John Natsoulas Gallery.

More about the writers in this UC Davis story.