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Events

Intellectual collaborations thrive in environments where ideas are shared, freely and respectfully, among people representing different backgrounds and perspectives. This is why the Neubauer Collegium regularly opens its inquiries and conversations to the public.

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Movement Theory Lab: Discussion with Angélique Willkie

A woman wrapped in a knitted blanket stands in front of microphone stands.
Discussion

Movement Theory Lab: Discussion with Angélique Willkie

Following her performance of Confession Publique, choreographer Angélique Willkie will discuss her artistic practice with Clara Nizard.

At this conversation, choreographer Angélique Willkie will discuss her artistic practice with members of the Movement Theory Lab, part of the Arts Labs research project the Neubauer Collegium. The event will follow a public performance of Willkie's Confession Publique at Theaster Gates' Studio (Dec. 3, 7:00 pm, 6724 South Chicago Avenue) and precedes an invitation-only workshop with the Movement Theory Lab. This series of events is supported by the Neubauer Collegium and the ReBuild Foundation.

About the Speaker

A multidisciplinary artist, Angélique Willkie began her dance training after completing a Master’s degree in Economics at McGill University. A graduate of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, she subsequently pursued a career in Europe where, over 25 years, she performed with dance companies and independent projects throughout Europe, most notably Alain Platel/Les Ballets C. de la B., Jan Lauwers/Needcompany, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and more. Performer, singer, dramaturge, and pedagogue, Willkie has been among the more sought-after contemporary technique teachers on the European professional circuit, teaching companies, schools and festivals including ImpulsTanz (Vienna), Henny Jurriens Stichting (Amsterdam), SEAD (Salzburg), Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez (Brussels), among others. Her dramaturgical work has included projects in dance-, music- and circus-theater with artists as varied as Belgian theater director/choreographer Isabella Soupart, French trapezist Mélissa VonVépy, and Dutch choreographers Arno Schuitemaker and Pia Meuthen/Panama Pictures. Since resettling in Montreal in 2014, Willkie has continued to be active in Montreal’s professional community as teacher, creator, and dramaturge. Her current research interests have three main axes: approaches to interdisciplinary artistic creation (i.e. that sits “between” disciplinary boundaries); European circus aesthetics and dramaturgy; and the notion of a personal dramaturgy, inspired by the trajectories of performer Josephine Baker and French transgender circus artist Phia Ménard. An underlying interest in her work remains the use of the voice as a creative tool and performance instrument.

About the Moderator

Clara Nizard is a performer, translator, curator, and PhD candidate in English and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago. Their most recent work, summer games, was shown at The Lawn (Chicago) in Summer 2024. Other works include performances at the Logan Center for the Arts (Chicago), the Brink Festival (UK), and the Collisions Festival (UK). Their co-translations of the poet Cécile Mainardi have appeared in Asymptote and FENCE, and you can find their critical writing in Chicago Review, ASAP/J, and Performance Response Journal.

Neubauer Collegium

Following her performance of Confession Publique, choreographer Angélique Willkie will discuss her artistic practice with Clara Nizard.

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A New Philosophy of Opera

A woman walks through a dark tunnel full of green streaks of light.
Discussion

A New Philosophy of Opera

Learn about the future of opera with opera and theater director Yuval Sharon as he discusses his book, A New Philosophy of Opera.

Yuval Sharon is creating an unconventional body of work that seeks to expand the operatic form. He is the founding Artistic Director of The Industry in Los Angeles, a company devoted to new and experimental opera that has brought opera into unconventional spaces. Sharon was honored with a 2017 MacArthur Fellowship and a Foundation for Contemporary Art grant for theater. In August 2024 he was chosen to direct the Metropolitan Opera’s next staging of Wagner’s Ring cycle. He is currently serving as the Gary L. Wasserman Artistic Director at the Detroit Opera and as the inaugural Global Solutions Visiting Fellow at the Neubauer Collegium. At this talk he will discuss the ideas he explores in his new book, A New Philosophy of Opera (Liveright, 2024).

David Rubenstein Forum at the University of Chicago

Learn about the future of opera with opera and theater director Yuval Sharon as he discusses his book, A New Philosophy of Opera.

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Opening Reception for Let's Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar

Exhibition Opening

Opening Reception for Let's Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar

This exhibition will hinge on Saar's experiments with “wearable” art, bringing into focus her gradual shift from costume design to collage.

The Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society will present an exhibition by Betye Saar, a key figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1970s. Inspired by the transformative memory of Saar’s visit to the African collections of Chicago’s Field Museum in the mid-1970s, this exhibition will hinge on the artist’s experiments with “wearable” art, bringing into focus her gradual shift from working in costume design toward the instantly recognizable collage aesthetic she is justly feted for to this day.

Neubauer Collegium

This exhibition will hinge on Saar's experiments with “wearable” art, bringing into focus her gradual shift from costume design to collage.

Register

Director’s Lecture with Drew Gilpin Faust

Director's Lecture

Director’s Lecture with Drew Gilpin Faust

Drew Gilpin Faust, President Emerita of Harvard University, is a renowned scholar of American history.

About the Speaker

Drew Gilpin Faust is the Arthur Kingsley Porter University Research Professor at Harvard, where she served as president from 2007 to 2018.

Faust previously served as founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2001-2007). Before coming to Radcliffe, she was the Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.

She is the author of seven books, including, most recently, Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury, published in August 2023. Her earlier book, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (2008), was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize and was awarded the Bancroft Prize, the New-York Historical Society’s American History Book Prize, and recognized by The New York Times as one of the “Ten Best Books of 2008.” This Republic of Suffering is the basis for a 2012 Emmy-nominated episode of the PBS American Experience documentaries titled Death and the Civil War, directed by Ric Burns.

Faust’s honors include awards in 1982 and 1996 for distinguished teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994, the Society of American Historians in 1993, and the American Philosophical Society in 2004. In September 2018 she was awarded the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity by the Library of Congress. She received her bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr in 1968, magna cum laude with honors in history, and master’s (1971) and doctoral (1975) degrees in American civilization from the University of Pennsylvania. She and her husband live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About the Director's Lecture Series

The Roman Family Director’s Lecture series at the Neubauer Collegium, made possible through the generous support of University of Chicago Trustee Emmanuel Roman, MBA’87, brings distinguished speakers to the University of Chicago to share their insights with faculty, students, and the broader community. The aim of these events is to deepen public knowledge about the world and humanity’s place in it. More >

Drew Gilpin Faust, President Emerita of Harvard University, is a renowned scholar of American history.

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