The Arts
Past Events
A free community film screening festival at the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory located at 8 North Cherry Street.
In this Concert entitled Wajd—the ecstatic, blissful state induced by poetry and music—the Tarab Ensemble will perform selections of the Arabic Sufi repertoire.
Lunchtime recital series by members of the Vassar College Chamber Music Program.
Award-winning author Jennine Capó Crucet will read from her novel Make Your Home Among Strangers. Q&A and book signing to follow.
Eduardo Navega, director.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
The Vassar Haiti Project’s 11th annual benefit to raise funds for a medical clinic in Fiervil, Haiti. A ticketed event that includes musical performances, an art exhibit, and food.
This timely drama resulted from a trip to Romania. Developed with students from London’s Central School of Drama, this is an incisive portrait of society in turmoil that focuses on two families to reveal what life is like under a totalitarian regime and what results when the regime collapses. Directed by Christopher Grabowski. Free and open to the public, reservations required.
A lecture by the Isabelle Hyman Emeritus Professor of Art, sponsored by the Associated Emeritae/i of Vassar College.
A workshop with Junya Koikawa, a Taishu Engeki performer, and Professor Takahiro Takeuchi from Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan. Includes a video lecture followed by a live performance.
James Osborn, conductor.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
Internationally renowned drag queen, visual artist, author, and Vassar alum will present an immersive evening of drag, storytelling, and live art. Reservations required.
Campus community only, please.
Pre-concert talk and Mozart concert
James Osborn, director.
Featuring choreography by Yoshito Sakuraba and Julian Llanos, Polka by acclaimed modern dance choreographer Mark Morris, excerpts from the classical ballet Don Quixote, student works, and more. Reserve free tickets.
Chelle Barbour’s multidisciplinary art practice reimagines the body of the Black female through the lens of Afro-Surrealism. Barbour’s morning talk will be followed by an evening reception.
Lunchtime recital series by members of the Vassar College Chamber Music Program.
Mr. Junya Koikawa, a performer of Taishu Engeki (a Japanese performing art with Kabuki origins), will play Tsugaru-shamisen, a traditional Japanese musical instrument.
Learn about historic embroidery methods, techniques, and materials by making your own stitched embroidery pattern at a fun night of creation at the Loeb.
Campus community only, please.
Monica Macer ’93 and Anthony Sparks P’26 will discuss their paths as showrunners, screenwriters, and executive producers, insights into the TV writing process, and more!
Campus community only, please.
As New York emerged from the Great Depression, a cohort of Jewish photographers looked to document the streets of their hometown. Come and see what they saw.
A Holocaust Remembrance Day presentation featuring a short film clip, a musical performance, and a discussion with the subjects and makers of a documentary about local musicians and Holocaust survivors in the Hudson Valley.
Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro, editors of the new essay collection Letters to a Writer of Color, will talk about race and craft with a multidisciplinary panel of Vassar faculty.
Royal Funeral Anthems
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
Eden Bartholomew, Raffaella Zanetti, Madeleine Donat
Art historian Wu Hung, who has published widely on both traditional and contemporary Chinese art, will speak about Chinese portrait photography.
Robinson’s film, The Young Vote, follows a diverse group of students and activists during the 2020 election to show young people’s perceptions of voting and civic engagement.
Lunchtime recital series by members of the Vassar College Chamber Music Program.
Emmet Chilton-Sugerman and Clara Ross
An evening of arias and art songs featuring Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Massenet, and more. Assisted by Susan Brown, piano; with Clarissa Longoria, soprano, and piano quintet.
Join us for our 20-30 minute lunchtime recital series by members of the Vassar College Chamber Music Program. Four Thursdays in April in a relaxed atmosphere outside the Bridge Cafe.
Love songs and duets based on music and text from Iberian, Latin American, and Ladino traditions. Featuring Courtenay Budd, soprano, Mary Nessinger, mezzo-soprano, and Miriam Charney, piano.
Premiere of Shavon Lloyd’s Earth Songs, with light installation by Rick Jones. Cappella Festiva Ensembles, and the Boys and Girls Club Choir of Poughkeepsie. Christine Howlett, director.
We present Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria RV 589 for treble voices with orchestra in Skinner Hall. After intermission, we move to the Chapel for contemporary choral works and a light installation by Rick Jones. Christine Howlett, conductor.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
What is a “chapter” and what work does it perform in prose narrative? In this lecture, Dames (Theodore Kahan Professor of Humanities at Columbia University) will present work from his book-in-progress, The Chapter: A History of Segmented Life.
Two original plays presented by students from the playwriting course in Drama.
Campus community only, please.
A multimedia lecture by musicologist Sophie Fetthauer, PhD of the HfMT University of Hamburg, Germany on the little-known story of how over 400 Jewish refugee musicians were integrated into the cafés, nightclubs, and ballrooms of the “Paris of the East.”
Anna Elashvili, violin, along with faculty Yves Dharamraj, cello, and Thomas Sauer, piano. A composer not often chosen for such an exposé, Maurice Ravel often found himself going against the grain.
This afternoon program features works by Brown, Chaminade, Martin, Griffes, and Quantz. Assisted by James Fitzwilliam, piano.
Featuring the music of Bach, Schubert, Fauré, Copland and Duke. Assisted by Jon Fuller.
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright will give a talk and Q&A to the campus and public. The event is free, but reservations are required.
Beller, an Associate Professor of English at Tulane University and a regular contributor to the New Yorker, will read from his book Lost in the Game: A Book About Basketball.
Noah Kalina has taken a picture of himself daily since 2000 for his series Everyday, which has amassed over 40 million views. He will discuss his photography career and matters of composition, concept, and duration.
A Matthew Vassar Lecture, panel discussion, and workshops by syndicated Black cartoonist and children’s book illustrator Jerry Craft, who will discuss his graphic novel New Kid—and how the text has been weaponized and banned from some libraries and classrooms across the country.
Opening Reception: Sunday, March 5, 2:00 p.m. Sponsored by the College’s Department of Education, this show highlights young children’s interest in the visual arts and encourages their use of the arts to express themselves.
From Mozart and Mendelssohn to Bartok and Prokofiev, this afternoon program will explore a range of classical pieces that have been inspired by folk music and dance traditions. Assisted by James Fitzwilliam, piano; with Magda Sharff, accordion, Emma Zuang, piano, Susanna Osborne, cello, and Finn Smith, bouzouki.
Eduardo Navega, conductor.
This is an in-person event that will also be streamed live
Join PHOCUS, Vassar’s only student photography organization, for a guest lecture by a multidisciplinary artist who will speak about their work involving photography, community, and issues of labor, class, queerness, and representation. Q&A to follow.
A talk by Ricardo Montez, Associate Professor of Performance Studies at the New School.
An inventive retelling of a Jacobean drama, Jen Silverman’s sharp, subversive fable debates how much our souls are worth when hope is hard to come by. Directed by Claire McHarg. Senior project members: Kelly Hatfield, Louise Ambler, Jack Francis, Emma Skinner, Rose Trammell, Presley Wheeler. Free and open to the public, reservations required.
A Dialogue on Art and Disability with Tatlock Fellow Finnegan Shannon and Gordon Hall, Assistant Professor of Art.