Poetry reading by Frank Bidart

The English department is hosting a reading by Frank Bidart, one of the most admired contemporary American poets. The reading, free and open to the public, is scheduled for 8 p.m. Oct. 22 in 126 Voorhies Hall.

A native of Bishop and Bakersfield, Bidart’s early poems question the role that the myth of the Wild West played in family histories of alcoholism and self-destructive behavior. His later work is best known for long narrative poems and dramatic monologues about people in extreme predicaments, where creativity hovers on the edge of crime or insanity.

Bidart won the Bollingen Prize in 2007 and twice has been a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. His most recent books are Star Dust and Watching the Spring Festival. He teaches at Wellesley College.

A Field Guide to Presence

A combination performance and workshop with Nina Little and her Divisadero Dance Research Company is scheduled from 4 to 7 p.m. Oct. 18 in Main Theatre, under sponsorship of the Department of Theatre and Dance and others.

The program, VisibleUnseen: A Field Guide to Presence, is free and open to the public.

Professor Lynette Hunter, chair of the Graduate Group in Performance Studies, describes Little as “an outstanding choreographer who is conducting leading-edge research into mind-body phenomenology of dance and movement.”

The event brings together Little’s San Francisco-based company with students (undergraduate and graduate) in theatre and dance, music and technoculture “to create a practice as research performance that will be of interest to the campus community as a whole, particularly to those working in performance, the arts and humanities in general, and in psychology, exercise science, physiology and related fields.”

Theatre-dance department to provide class list discounts

The Department of Theatre and Dance announced the availability of class list discounts for the department’s fall quarter productions.

The program provides vouchers to faculty members who are requiring their students to see certain productions. Faculty give the vouchers to their students, who in turn exchange their vouchers at the ticket office. Discounts are available for:

• Elephant’s Graveyard — Jade Rosina McCutcheon’s new play about about how society deals with our elderly. 8 p.m. Oct. 23-24 and 30-31, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25 and Nov. 1, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center. Question-and-answer sessions after both Sunday performances. $5 tickets for students. To obtain vouchers, faculty should send class lists to Erin Palmer at epalmer@ucdavis.edu. The Mondavi Center advises faculty to submit their requests as soon as possible, because tickets are limited and based upon availability.

• Corpo/Ilicito: The Post-Human Society 6.9, written and directed by Granada Artist-in-Residence Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Tribes: the unified field, written and choreographed by Granada Artist-in-Residence Sara Shelton Mann.

Corpo/Ilicito and Tribes are being presented in a double bill, at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, Nov., 18-21, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 22, in Main Theatre. To obtain vouchers, faculty should send course numbers (and the number of students who are enrolled) to Darrell Winn, dfwinn@ucdavis.edu). The discount vouchers will then be delivered to faculty mailboxes. Only one ticket may be purchased per voucher.

Tickets for all three productions are available through the Mondavi Center box office. More information on the productions: theatredance.ucdavis.edu (click on “Current Season” on the Season tab).

Halloween costume rentals

The Enchanted Cellar costume shop is open once again at the Department of Theatre and Dance — with something new this Halloween season: children’s costumes.

Roxanne Femling, production supervisor, said children’s and teen costumes include Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Harry Potter, Supergirl, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, as well as fairies, witches, vampires and ninjas. All children’s costume rentals are $25.

New this year for adults are Marilyn Monroe (diamonds are a girl’s best friend — jewels and all), old-school Star Wars, Star Trek (male and female), the Harry Potter professors and Steampunk (for those in the know!). Adult costume rental fees (for kits that go head to toe) range from $80 to $200.

UC Davis staff, faculty, students and affiliates are entitled to a 50 percent discount on adult costumes; there is no discount on children’s costumes. Rentals are by appointment only. Hours are as follows in 17 Wright Hall:

• Today (Oct. 16) and Oct. 19-23 — 3-7 p.m.
• Oct. 24 — 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
• Oct. 26-30 — 3-7 p.m.

For appointments, contact Femling, (530) 752-0740 or rcfemling@ucdavis.edu.

Art studio lecture series

The Art Studio Program’s 2009-10 Visiting Artist Lectures series is scheduled to begin next week, with San Francisco photographer-sculptor-new media artist Will Rogan as the guest.

The series, organized by graduate student artists and members of the art faculty, brings in noted practitioners from across the country for brief residencies, each of which includes a public lecture and instructional activities.

The lectures are set for 4:30 p.m. in the Technocultural Studies Hall, 17 Art Annex. Admission is free.

Here are this year’s speakers and their lecture dates:

• Will Rogan, San Francisco photographer-sculptor-new media artist, Oct. 22.

• John Welchman, professor of contemporary art history and theory at UC San Diego, Nov. 9.

• Jim Dow, Boston photographer noted for his triptych images of baseball stadiums, Jan. 7.

• David Humphrey, New York-based painter and winner of the 2009 Prix de Rome, Jan. 14.

• Ron Baron, New York sculptor of installations in airports and transit centers, March 11.

• Marie Thibeault, California painter. April 8.

• Shana Moulton, Brooklyn video and performance artist, April 22.

• Owen Smith, Bay Area painter-illustrator and New Yorker cover artist, May 6 (tentative).

More information: (530) 752-0105 or artstudio.ucdavis.edu.