Humanities
Taking our cue from the outstanding dance, music and theater artists on our stages — and fulfilling our mission to instill and sustain a lifelong appreciation for the performing arts — Cal Performances presents a rich array of education and humanities programs for audiences of all ages, for a discerning public and for the university community.

Campus and Community Partnerships  |  Sightlines  |  Key Notes

Campus and Community Partnerships

Building on shared interests, Cal Performances works closely with campus departments and Bay Area arts organizations to create distinctive education and humanities programs inspired by the performing arts programs we present. These events are free and open to the public except where noted.

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Courses Druid Theatre Company of Galway Laurie Anderson Homeland Merce Cunningham Dance Company Russian Classical Dance Lecture Series: Don Quixote, Onegin, and La Bayadère Sarah Cahill Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Sweet Honey in the Rock Latin Music Series

2008/09 Season

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Courses
This year, Cal Performances continues its partnership with the Osher Life Long Learning Institute with two courses, Talking about Classical Music and Talking about Dance, centered around performances on Cal Performances' 2008-09 season.

OLLI at UC Berkeley is an inquiring community of older adults interested in exploring new areas of knowledge, traditional disciplines and fascinating subjects. There is still time to participate! You are invited to visit www.olli.berkeley.edu or call 510.642.9934 for more information and registration. In addition to the classes, registered participants may purchase a ticket to the associated performances (eligible dates are listed below) at a 50% discount!

Together with acclaimed scholars and artists, Robert Cole, director of Cal Performances, will host the following classes offered in conjunction with six concerts of music and six dance performances:

TALKING ABOUT CLASSICAL MUSIC
Class meetings: Thursdays, 3:30-5 pm, University Hall

• Oct 2 Richard Goode, piano / Pianist Sarah Cahill and Robert Cole
  Program: Sun, Oct 5: Johann Sebastian Bach, Chopin and Schubert
  
  
• Oct 23 Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra / Prof. Beth Levy, UC Davis
  Program: Sun, Oct 26: Toch, Rózsa and Mahler
  
  
• Jan 8 Tenor Salvatore Licitra with members of the SF Opera Orchestra / Prof. Mary Ann Smart, UC Berkeley
  Program: Sat, Jan 10 TBD
  
  
• Feb 12 Academy of St. Martin in the Fields with Julia Fischer, violin / Prof. Nalini Ghuman, Mills College
  Program: Sat, Feb 14: Britten; J.S. Bach and Walton
  
  
• Mar 12 Brentano Quartet / Prof. Nicholas Matthew, UC Berkeley
  Program: Sun, Mar 13: Haydn, Wuorinen, Schoenberg and Beethoven
  
  
• Apr 2 American String Quartet / Emily Richmond, UC Berkeley
  Program: Sun, Apr 5: Mozart, Berg, Dvorák

TALKING ABOUT DANCE
Class meetings: Thursdays, 3:30-5 pm, Room 150, University Hall

• Oct 16 Kirov Ballet / Prof. Tim Scholl, Oberlin College
  Performances: Tue, Oct 14; Wed, Oct 15; Fri, Oct 17
  
  
• Nov 6 Merce Cunningham Dance Company / David Vaughn, MCDC Archivist
  Performances: Fri, Nov 7; Fri, Nov 14
  
  
• Jan 29 Pascal Rioult Dance Theatre / Prof. Yvonne Hardt. UC Berkeley
  Performance: Fri, Jan 30
  
  
• Mar 5 Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater / Speaker TBD from AAADT
  Performances: Thu, Mar 5 & Fri, Mar 6
  
  
• Apr 30 Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg / Prof. Yvonne Hardt. UC Berkeley
  Performance: Fri, May 1: Onegin
  
  
• May 28 Mark Morris Dance Group / Speaker TBD from MMDG
  Performance Fri, May 29: L'Allegro Il Penseroso ed il Moderato

To register for classes or for more information, visit www.olli.berkeley.edu, or call 510.642.9934. Please note: discounted tickets are available only after OLLI course registration. Discount is not applicable to prior purchases and is available only at the Zellerbach Hall Ticket Office window.

Druid Theatre Company of Galway Maureen Hughes, Company Casting Director Fri, Oct 10, 6:00 p.m. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison Street Performance: Druid Theatre Company of Galway Maureen Hughes talks with Charlotte McIver of UC Berkeley's Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, about the company's DruidSynge—the only complete staging of every work by Ireland's dramatic giant, John Millington Synge.

Laurie Anderson
Performance: Laurie Anderson Homeland

Free Speech: New Media, Performance and Democracy: A Conversation with Laurie Anderson
Sat, Oct 25, 2-3:30 pm, Wheeler Auditorium
Free & open to the public, no tickets required
Presented in association with the Art, Technology and Culture Colloquium at UC Berkeley Ken Goldberg of the Berkeley Center for New Media and multi-media artist Laurie Anderson exchange ideas about politics, technology, and art, in conjunction with Anderson's performance of Homeland. Her remarkable Homeland consists of a series of songs and stories that create a poetic and political portrait of contemporary American culture. Conceived as one long piece of music, Homeland moves through many worlds while addressing the current obsession with fear, violence, and security.

Free Video Performance!
Made in Catalunya with Lou Reed and
Laurie Anderson
On October 24, 2008, performance artist Laurie Anderson (in Berkeley, California) joined musician/poet Lou Reed (in Barcelona, Spain) via the internet to perform the works of Catalan poets Brossa, Espriu, Carner and Vinyoli. The 45 minute live performance, in English, as experienced last year at the Made in Catalunya event in New York City, was presented by KOSMOPOLIS International Literature Fest; video performance, produced by Cal Performances, University of California at Berkeley. View this poetry reading now.

Learn More: Read the SF Gate article on Made in Catalunya

Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Nov 3-14, 2008 Performance: Merce Cunningham Dance Company Events are free and open to the public except where noted. For two weeks in November, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company will engage some of the most creative minds at UC Berkeley. Honoring Cunningham's practice of pushing the boundaries of modern dance, his company's return to Cal Performances has sparked a series of unprecedented collaborations—in studios, classrooms and events for the public—with the UC Berkeley Departments of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS), Art Practice, and Music, Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM), Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT), the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) and the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA). [pdf] Panorama: Multi Media Happening Fri, Nov 14, 5:00-7:00 pm Pauley Ballroom, UC MLK Berkeley Student Center Live dance, robotic cameras, and audio technologies juxtaposed with large and small scale projections draw audience members into a performance in 360° that they can enter at any time. Inspired by Nine Evenings: Theater and Engineering in New York's 69th Regiment Armory by artist Robert Rauschenberg and Bell Laboratories engineer Billy Klüver, Panorama brings together a multi-disciplinary cast of dance makers, artists, scientists, engineers, roboticists, and digital game makers to create an evening of interactive and technologically alive theater, honoring the cutting-edge collaborations and technological explorations that are the hallmark of the Merce Cunningham and John Cage legacy. Co-sponsored by Cal Performances, the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS), the Center for Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), and the Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM). Directed by Lisa Wymore (TDPS) with the dance theater company Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts; Ruzena Bajcsy (EECS, CITRIS); Sheldon B. Smith (TDPS, Mills College); Ken Goldberg (EECS, BCNM, iSchool, IEOR), Greg Niemeyer (Art Practice, BCNM), Abigail De Konsnik (BCNM, TDPS), Jen Wang (Music & CNMAT), and Klara Nahrstedt and Renata Sheppard of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champain. The event also features TDPS students performing experts of Cunningham choreography learned during a two week teaching residency supported by Cal Performances. Presented by Cal Performances in association with the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, the Berkeley Center for New Media, and the Center for New Music and Audio Technology. Made possible, in part, by American Express Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from Nancy Livingston and Fred Levin,The Shenson Foundation. the Mellon Foundation, and the Hellman Family Fund. Artistic Director: Lisa Wymore Artist Talk with Merce Cunningham Thu, Nov 6, 7:00 pm, Wheeler Auditorium The legendary artist discusses his boundary-pushing choreography and career. Presented by Cal Performances in association with TDPS Composer Colloquium Thu, Nov 6, 4:00-5:30 pm 125 Morrison Hall   [venue and time change] An open forum with MCDC musicians and composers Takehisa Kosugi, Christian Wolff, John King, Stephan Moore, David Behrman, presented in association with the UC Berkeley Department of Music. Merce Cunningham Dance on Film UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft Way at Bowditch, Berkeley, 510-642-1124 Advance Tickets: 510.642.5249 / bampfa.berkeley.edu/filmseries Sun, Nov. 9, 5:30 pm Beach Birds for Camera (Elliot Caplan, 1991) a dancefilm Cage/Cunningham: A Film (Elliot Caplan, 1991) a documentary about the artists' 50 year collaboration, with archival footage and interviews with artists, musicians, and dancers, including Viola Farber, Robert Rauschenberg, and David Tudor. Thu, Nov 13, 7:30 p.m. Locale (Charles Atlas, 1979) a dancefilm CRWDSPCR (Elliot Caplan, 1996) The yearlong process of creating a dance, beginning with Cunningham's use of a computer program to choreograph movement. The John Cage Legacy: Chance in Music and Mathematics a happening at MSRI Wed, Nov 12 5:30-7pm, 17 Gauss Way, Berkeley, www.msri.org This 'happening' presents composer/performers from the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in a concert, followed by a discussion between the musicians and mathematician/statistician/magician, randomness expert Persi Diaconis of Stanford University and moderated by Bob Osserman, Special Projects Director at MSRI. More information at www.msri.org. Berkeley Dance Project 2009: Equal Footing Apr 17-26, Zellerbach Playhouse, $15/$10 Tickets: www.tdps.berkeley.edu Choreography by Cunningham, Joe Goode, Lisa Wymore and more.

Celebration of Russian Culture: Marius Petipa and the Grand Ballet
Prof. Tim Scholl, Oberlin College
Fri, Oct 17, 4:00-5:30 p.m Hertz Hall
Free and open to the public
Performances: Kirov Ballet & Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre

Together with the Institute for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, Cal Performances invites you to a lecture presented in conjunction with performances of the Kirov Ballet and Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater.

Tim Scholl, Professor of Russian, Oberlin College and author of Sleeping Beauty, A Legend in Progress (2004) and From Petipa to Balanchine: Classical Revival and the Modernization of Ballet (1994) discusses Russian ballet, both aesthetically and how these works functioned in late nineteenth century Russian society. Focusing on works by choreographer Marius Petipa, he will address the genesis of these works, how Petipa re-worked both a formula and plots taken from Paris, and how he turned the Russian ballet into something that approached the 'grand opera' of that period in size and scale.

Composer Forum: The Music of Peace: Can Music Be Political? Fri, Jan 23, 6-7:30 pm Wheeler Auditorium Free and Open to the Public Performance: Sarah Cahill, piano Sarah Cahill and several of the commissioned composers discuss the intersection of politics and music, especially in works without text, and what it means to write political music. Panelists include Larry Polansky, whose work B'midbar incorporates American Sign Language, a Shaker hymn, and audience participation; New York composer Jerome Kitzke, who uses drumming, whistling, and Walt Whitman's Civil War poems in his contribution; and 17-year-old Berkeleyan Preben Antonsen who composed Dar al-Harb: House of War as a tribute to his cousin who served in Iraq. Award-winning video artist John Sanborn will also speak about his video work for this project. Presented in association with the UC Berkeley Department of Music.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Sweet Honey in the Rock
Artist Talk: Hope Boykin and Carol Maillard
Go In Grace: An Artistic Collaboration by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Sweet Honey in the Rock
Wed, Mar 4, 12-1 pm
Zellerbach Hall
Free and open to the public
Performance: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Sweet Honey in the Rock

Hope Boykin of the Ailey company and Carol Maillard of Sweet Honey in the Rock discuss their collaborative work, Go In Grace. The first joint project of these two groups that have always celebrated African American culture marks the 50th anniversary season of the Ailey company and the 35th year for Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Latin Music Series 5-6:30 pm prior to the performances below Zellerbach Hall Lobby Mezzanine Performances: Afro-Cuban All Stars Wed, Feb 25, 5-6:30 pm, Zellerbach Hall Lobby Mezzanine Free and open to the public (tickets are required for the associated performance at 8 pm) Don't miss this lively conversation about the roots and sounds of Afro-Cuban music with radio host and Latin/World Music specialist, Jesse "Chuy" Varela and special guests. Grammy-nominated producer/guitarist Greg Landau and percussionist/bandleader/educator John Santos. Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, & Christian McBride Sat, Mar 21, 5:00-6:30 pm, Zellerbach Hall Lobby Mezzanine A talk in conjunction with the performance by Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Christian McBride Free and open to the public (tickets required for associated performance at 8:00 pm)

Sightlines

Jordi SavallThe Tallis ScholarsTakács Quartet

Prior to or immediately following many Cal Performances events you are invited to explore the fascinating details of history, practice, and biography that shape the extraordinary programs on our stages. The acclaimed artists and scholars presenting this season's Sightlines events promise enlightening forums to enrich your experience in the theater or concert hall. Sightlines talks take place on stage in the performance venue and are free to event ticket holders.

2008/09 Sightlines

Rudolf Buchbinder, piano
Sun, Sept 21, 2-2:30 pm
Pre-performance talk by musicologist Paul M. Ellison, San Francisco State University

Richard Goode, piano
Sun, Oct 5, 2-2:30 pm
Pre-performance talk by musicologist John Prescott

Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra
Sun, Oct 26, 6-6:30 pm
Pre-performance talk by Professor Beth Levy, UC Davis Department of Music

Pomegranates and Figs: A Feast of Jewish Music
Sat, Dec 20, 7-7:30 p.m
Pre-performance talk with Francesco Spagnolo of the Judah L. Magnes Museum.

Kronos Quartet
Sun, Feb 1
Post-performance discussion with the artists

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields with Julia Fischer, violin & leader
Sat, Feb 14, 7-7:30 pm
Pre-performance talk by musicologist John Prescott

Takács Quartet with Richard Stoltzman, clarinet
Sun, Feb 15, 2-2:30 pm
Pre-performance talk by musicologist Yael Braunschweig, UC Berkeley Department of Music

Le Concert des Nations, Jordi Savall, viola da gamba & director
Sat, Feb 28, 7-7:30 pm Pre-performance discussion with Jordi Savall and Professor Kate van Orden, UC Berkeley Department of Music

Takács Quartet with Peter Wyrick, cello
Sun, Mar 8, 2-2:30 pm
Pre-performance talk by musicologist John Prescott

Brentano String Quartet with Peter Serkin, piano & Richard Lalli, baritone
Fri, Mar 13, 7-7:30 pm
Pre-performance talk by musicologist Camille Peters, UC Berkeley Department of Music

The Tallis Scholars
Sat, Mar 28, 7-7:30 pm
Pre-performance talk by Artistic Director Peter Phillips and musicologist Paul M. Ellison, San Francisco State University

American String Quartet
Sun, Apr 5, 2-2:30 pm
Pre-performance talk by Professor Beth Levy, UC Davis Department of Music

Quatuor Mosaïques
Wed, Apr 22, 7-7:30 pm
Pre-performance talk by Professor Nicholas Mathew, UC Berkeley Department of Music

Cypress String Quartet
Sun, May 3, 2-2:30 pm
Pre-performance talk by the artists

Key Notes

Our annual Key Notes series of lecture/receptions takes in a wide range of music written for staged productions. Join us for inspiring commentary, light refreshments, and insightful conversation at these free talks. Key Notes lectures are presented by Cal Performances in association with the UC Berkeley Departments of Music and Theater, Dance and Performance Studies.

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2008/09 Key Notes Series Mark Morris Dance Group, Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare Fri, Sept 26, 5-6:30 pm, Zellerbach Hall Lobby Mezzanine: Peter Sellars's production of Kafka Fragments with Dawn Upshaw Sun, Nov 23, 4-5:30 pm, Wheeler Auditorium Jake Heggie & Gene Scheer's Three Decembers Fri, Dec 12, 5-6:30 pm, Zellerbach Hall Lobby Mezzanine:

Key Notes: Mark Morris Dance Group, Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare
Fri, Sept 26, 5-6:30 pm, Zellerbach Hall Lobby Mezzanine
Concert: Mark Morris Dance Group, Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare
Robert Cole and Professor Richard Taruskin discuss Morris's new work based on Prokofiev's original music and the original story concept by Soviet dramatist Sergei Radlov.

Key Notes: Peter Sellars's production of Kurtág's Kafka Fragments
Sun, Nov 23, 4-5:30 pm, Wheeler Auditorium
Concert: Peter Sellars's production of Kafka Fragments with Dawn Upshaw
Director Peter Sellars shares his approach to the music of György Kurtág, performed by soprano Dawn Upshaw and violinist Geoff Nuttall.

Key Notes: Jake Heggie & Gene Scheer's Three Decembers
Fri, Dec 12, 5-6:30 pm, Zellerbach Hall Lobby Mezzanine
Concert: Jake Heggie's Three Decembers (Last Acts) starring Frederica von Stade
Composer Jake Heggie talks with Cal Performances' Director Robert Cole about Three Decembers, Heggies' new opera presented in association with San Francisco Opera and Houston Grand Opera.

Education and Community programs are added throughout the year. Check this website regularly for updates.