Spring semester alive with arts events

The spring semester will be bursting with arts events across the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus during the university’s Year of the Wisconsin Idea.

An eclectic and prolific range of modern dance, studio art, theater, performance art, orchestral music, film, and design across the arts disciplines will inspire and delight the university and local communities. The UW–Madison Arts Institute is promoting the most notable of these events as “Arts Night Out: The 2012 Spring Season.” Events include:

• “Latitudes,” dance department faculty concert, Friday, Feb. 3 through Sunday, Feb 5;
• “Compendium: The 2012 Art Department Faculty Exhibition,” Chazen Museum of Art, Saturday, Feb. 4 through Sunday, April 1;
• “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” University Theatre, Friday, March 2 through Saturday, March 17;
• Sixth annual Line Breaks Festival, Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives, Monday, March 12 through Saturday, March 24;
• Bolcom’s Piano Quintet No. 2, Pro Arte Quartet Centennial commission, Saturday, March 24;
• Wisconsin Film Festival, Wednesday, April 18 through Sunday, April 22.
• “Escape: The Annual Juried Runway Fashion Show,” design studies, Friday, May 4.

Early in the semester, the UW dance and art departments launch their faculty showings. Dance will premiere a vast and rich array of modern dance artistry at their annual Faculty Concert “Latitudes.”

Guest Artist Guy Thorne returns to Madison after a powerful performance in Assistant Professor Chris Walker’s “Dubwise” last year, a performance that characterized Thorne as a “superstar” according to local critic Katie Reiser from Isthmus.

Thorne will present his work “SELAH” for the concert alongside six other works by dance faculty whose themes range from the divine to the palpable disregard of humanity.

Audiences will see bodies navigating tightly defined spaces without physical contact and delivering lush, lyric, and athletic movement. The concert runs Friday and Saturday, Feb. 3-4 at 8 p.m. with a special matinee showing Sunday, Feb. 5 at 2:30 p.m. at the Margaret H’Doubler Performance Space, Lathrop Hall. Tickets are available via the Union Theater Box office at http://www.uniontheater.wisc.edu.

It’s been four years since there has been a full faculty exhibition from the art department and this year viewers will see the artwork of 34 current faculty, staff, and affiliates in the temporary exhibition galleries in both buildings of the Chazen Museum as the department presents “Compendium 2012: Art Department Faculty Exhibition.”

Paintings, drawings, sculpture, graphics, ceramics, textiles, woodwork, metalwork, glass, prints, and photographs, as well as performance, video, and digital art will be on display Saturday, Feb. 4 through Sunday, April 1. All events associated with “Compendium” are free and open to the public. For more information see the art department website.

To follow further coverage of these events as well as the rest of the “Arts Night Out 2012 Spring Season” by connecting to the UW-Madison Arts On Campus facebook page and Twitter feed @uwmadisonarts.