In its inaugural season, the Mondavi Center will provide more opportunities than ever offered on campus before to integrate the arts with academics, say creators of the program -- which this spring changed its name from UC Davis Presents to Mondavi Center.

The collaborative effort is aided by the increased volume of performances the campus will be able to accommodate with the opening this fall of the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. But that effort also is driven by a concerted effort on the part of program creators to take an active role in promoting the university's mission of teaching.

In addition to the customary series of distinguished speakers - a perennial stomping ground for academic crossover - the lineup features shows that depict the lives of famous social activists, that confront current issues like teen violence, that realistically portray medical conditions of the mind, and that reveal traditions rooted deeply in culture.

It's subject matter academics throughout campus have spent years researching, teaching and writing about. And more than ever, Mondavi Center is seeking input from and collaboration with those experts, say the center's program director, Brian McCurdy, and its director of marketing and communications, Richard Rojo.

"We would like to see more of a connection with campus academic units," Rojo said. "At the very least, we want them to know that these performances are here to take advantage of. I think there's a lot of material for faculty to work with," he said.

That material includes a visit next March by famed scientist Stephen Hawking - a distinguished speaker engagement that was planned in collaboration with the campus physics department, McCurdy said. The visit coincides with a scientific conference slated for campus at that time, he said, noting that for the first time two scientists have made it into the Distinguished Speaker series.

The second is two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward O. Wilson. The renowned Harvard naturalist is considered the founder of sociobiology.

Meanwhile, distinguished speaker Anne Fadiman's visit in early December will be preceded by a fall quarter filled with special discussion groups centered around her non-fiction book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Fadiman's 1997 work traces the cultural and language barriers surrounding the medical treatment of an epileptic Hmong toddler.

Performances throughout the season will similarly take advantage of academic connections, McCurdy said.

Pre-show lectures will allow audiences to delve into the cultural contexts of more than two dozen engagements - including those by the Compania Nacional de Danza, Le Ballet National du Senegal, the Peking Opera, Tango Buenos Aires, the Trinity Irish Dance Company and the Stuttgart Ballet. Matinees geared for students also are planned, as are visits to classes by top performing artists.

"We've always done those master classes, but this is at such an expanded level," McCurdy said.

All 2002-03 season performances will take place at the new center. Last year there were about 57 different productions and 70 performances. During Mondavi Center's inaugural season, there will be almost 73 productions and 105 performances.

That increase alone creates more opportunities for art as an educational tool. And as a laboratory for making new discoveries, the $53.5 million dollar Mondavi Center excels, McCurdy said. "The quality of the arts experience is going to be totally different. The acoustics and sight lines are just going to be superb. We can now truly say that this is one of the best presenting programs in the United States. The center is easily comparable to Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and the major halls of Europe."

There are two theaters inside Mondavi Center, but there will be three distinct theater settings - the studio theater, seating 250; the Barbara K. and W. Turrentine Jackson Hall, seating 1,800; and a special lyric theater configuration of Jackson Hall that will accommodate 750 people in the hall's core seating area. "We wanted a more intimate setting, but the benefit of the whole stage and its capabilities," McCurdy said.

Shows that lean more heavily on high-tech to help tell a story will be among those taking advantage of this configuration, including a work that was co-commissioned by Mondavi Center - Apasionada.

Built around the controversial life of famous Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, the show was created by Canadian stage artist Robert Lapage. "I think people will just be blown away by the creativity of his direction," McCurdy said. "He really creates magic on stage - literally."

This year's program also seeks to turn the public on to humanities by reaching out to new theater-goers who might require "safer" introductions to the arts, McCurdy said. So a limited run of classic and Tony-winning Broadway shows will for the first time be part of the season. The series features four productions for a total of nine shows.

Scheduled are the Gershwin musical Porgy and Bess, the Tony and Pulitzer-winning show Rent, about a colorful group of starving artists in New York's East Village, the Tony-winning hip-hop and percussion show Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk, and the Tony-winning dance revue Fosse.

McCurdy said the series is designed to complement Broadway show offerings at the Sacramento Community Theater and Music Circus, where some 150 performances are staged annually.

Also as part of this year's outreach strategy, more performers will be on campus longer to help educate audiences about shows that signal new directions in the arts and to better introduce up-and-coming musicians. "It's a totally different marketing and programming concept," Rojo said.

Several artists will be brought in for a full week of engagements in the smaller Studio Theater. Up-and-coming jazz musician Christian McBride, for instance, will play four nights in October. Audiences might not be aware of the pop-R&B-and-jazz fusion artist's quick rise to popularity, McCurdy said.

Likewise, The Shape of a Girl, a contemporary theater piece confronting teen violence, will play for eight performances in the Studio Theater, and Rinde Eckert's And God Created Great Whales, a two-person show by the co-creator of the opera-play Ravenshead, will run for five days. Eckert stars as a composer trying to create an opera based on Herman Melville's Moby Dick as he battles a brain-wasting disease.

The strategy will allow some of the season's more cutting-edge performances to grow an audience over several days as favorable reviews pour in, Rojo said. "Some of what we do is pretty risky from a commercial point of view," he said. "Our whole Edgewise Series is very good but weird."

"Good word-of-mouth," McCurdy said, "is part of the strategy."

Word-of-mouth advertising is wholly unnecessary for many of the single-night performances slated for Jackson Hall. Multiple Grammy-winning artist Pat Metheny will add to expanded jazz offerings along with The Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter quartets - "two of the biggest names in jazz right now," McCurdy said.

The Hungarian National Philharmonic, renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance, and the Cirque du Soleil spinoff Cirque Eloize also will visit.

Overall, the season reflects major growth in the areas of world music and dance. The shows - spotlighting African, Asian Pacific, Latino and European traditions - also reflect the cultural diversity of the Central Valley, Rojo said. "We believe being able to offer these performances is part of serving the region," he said.

Tapping into cultural roots, McCurdy agreed, "is a wonderful way to turn on to art."